ATI killing themselves

[comrade53]

I just was looking at the CompUSA site, and they've got the shipping date of the X800XT cards back to October 1'st. Just a couple of days ago, it was Sept. 20'th.

I had one on order for so long I gave up. I was able to get a Verto 6800 Ultra in two days, from CompUSA.

I've had several ATI cards in the past, and been happy with them, but I just don't understand what they're trying to do. At most computer builders sites, you can order computers with that card. Are they actually shipping any of them? Has anyone actually taken deliver of one?

I'd hate to see ATI go under. Competition is good for the market. It brings improvements and keeps prices down. I'd hate to see nVidia get the same attitude as Microsoft!

 

[Mr5oh]

ATI is defaintly not going under, at least no time in the near furture. Many people have canceled their orders and done the same thing as you. I swear someone here on the board actually was able to get their hands on one, but can't remember who.



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[penus]

ATI killing themselves, eh? I don't think so. Having order reserves all the way to October shows that someone is buying those cards as soon as they hit the <i>warehouse</i>. Don't forget that there are a lot of specialty PC companies (like Alienware, for example) that are basically getting the first picks, which is only right considering that those companies have more money than we do and ATI knows for a solid fact that it's an easy sale. There are a lot more people/companies out there who are even more eager to get their hands on high-end cards than we are and ATI knows they're the ones who will be making them the money first. As long as we're not as wealthy, we're going to continue to get the crap end of the stick. Also consider that the average gamer isn't as gung ho about spending $400 on a video card when, to them, a $200 PS2 or Gamecube gives them just as much enjoyment, so ATI loading up CompUSA or Best Buy's shelves with X800's isn't as practical at <i>this</i> point in time as it will be months to come. It may also show that the demand for the X800 XT is higher than the nVidia counterpart (which I sincerely believe since the only good thing the 6800 has is good play in Doom 3... and who really cares about a card that kicks ass in ONE game?).

But here is some advice:

I went through Hell to get my X800. I actually got it at CompUSA. They only had two left, but they were sitting behind the customer service desk RESERVED and <i>one wasn't even pre-paid for</i>. The guy would not budge to let me have one of them. I got a manager and told him, "Look, one of these guys reserved an X800 two weeks ago and didn't even pre-pay for it. I have my credit card right here and i am willing to give you the money NOW." Seeing as how no one can argue with the voice of logic, he took his hands off it and sold it to me.

If you ever have that situation, pull out <i>that</i> trump card and you should be able to walk away with it (and that was 3 weeks ago).

Good luck and happy shopping.

 

[HardWareBoss]

Lots of stores selling X800Pro. That you can OC to X800XT speed. No ATI is not going out of business.

 

[penus]

it could be me. i was talking about how i bought the nv 6800 gt and the x800 to compare them. the 6800 is retarded. it kicks ass in ONE game (can you guess which one it is?). i was going to take my x800 back to cuz i didn't think it was much better than my 9800xt, but when i put my 9800 back in and actually saw the difference, i put the x800 back in and was happier with my purchase.

the human race is so discriminitive. we give little praise to improvements, but lash out heavily when something declines even so much as slightly. hmmm.

 

[addiarmadar]

I see where you are comming from. ATI has been experiencing stock issues for retailers since major OEMs like Dell, Alienware, etc have been getting first dibs on them. These kind of delay were to be expected and highly doubt the oct 1 deadline will by met either.

<i><font color=red>Only an overclocker can make a computer into a convectional oven.</i></font color=red>

 

[dhlucke]

You shop at CompUSA!

*points finger*

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

</font color=red><i><font color=red>GOD</font color=red> <font color=blue>BLESS </font color=blue><font color=red>AMERICA

 

[eden]

Well then my Penus (wow, how nice to say that, hehe) looks like I had some point back a few weeks about your new card vs the old one, didn't I?

I may not have hands-on experience on every item, but I try not to always pull stuff outta my ....

--
<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/album.php" target="_new"><font color=red><b>The THGC Photo Album revision Eden, faster updated than ever before!</A></b></font color=red><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Eden on 09/03/04 00:24 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[priyajeet]

i totally agree with you...who shops at compUSA. Those guys are bloodsuckers err money hungry.

and yes ATI is not going nowhere. If something has to go it will be nvidia first, they are behind in stocks ! i posted something abt this when somebody started a rumor of nvidia going down under.

<i> <font color=blue>Futile is resistance,</font color=blue><font color=red> assimilate you we will.</font color=red> </i>
<b>Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.</b>

 

[penus]

heh heh.. yeah, nice indeed. there are differences, but i still had to go back to my old card to notice them (that's how small the difs were). i am a tech junkie, i guess.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Uh-Oh, Ati In Trouble?!?

Damn! Maybe those rumours about them buying XGI were really the other way around, and ATI needs to be bailed out.

It's all that competition from the Delta Chrome-plated-Plutonium cards S3's making and the Awe-inspiring power of the Intel Extreme 3 aka GBA 969.69!

Seriously their R9800 series was a great seller, they need to make more of those because they were obviously well received. Maybe if we add sweet looking rims and maybe some hydraulics or a dvd playing lcd on board we can sell more of them. Pimp my Card G4TechTV !!!

I sure hope they don't get sold to nV or else I'll have to change the tatoo on my ass, err... abs, yeah that's it ABS!

Hold me, I'm scared!


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[comrade53]

That is somewhat similar to how I bought the vVidia card. When I complained at the store, about the delay for the ATI card, the manager volunteered that he could have the nVidia one delivered in a day or two...., and he did. This despite the fact that CompUSA's web site has continually listed the nVidia card as 'sold out'!

Shipping their entire output to computer builders may not be such a profitable thing to do. Those companies typically demand large discounts, plying different suppliers against each other.

Selling cards to the retail market, I would think would be, generally, more profitable.

 

[comrade53]

I've gotten some good buys at CompUSA over the years you just have to be selective.

I checked other sellers, but with shipping costs for the others, the CompUSA price was quite competitive, and was delivered direct to my house.

I've been burned a few times trying to buy from the lowest cost place.

 

[phial]

last time i checked (which was a week ago or so), ATI stocks were worth more than nV stocks and were holding steady, while nV stocks were falling in price

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[HardWareBoss]

LOL

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Selling 10,000 guaranted cards to DELL is far more profitable than selling 500 at a time to COMP USA who makes most of the profit you see between the price you pay and the cost of the card. Plus no little issues with individuals. OEM cards are that OEM, and mainly the responsability of DELL, HP, etc.

ATI is more interested in their premier customers because they pay the bills.

In the end if they can't get enough cards to market, that means demand is exceeding supply/production and that's a good thing for he most part. The only issue is loyalty issues. This is a far better situation than nV experienced last cycle with their being more FXs than they could sell.

As long as people are willing to wait and still buy later, then both ATI and nV benifit, the only time they lose is if they have unsold production and people move to nV.

Considering the equally spotty availability of the GF6800U, well I'm sure there's alot of back and forhth in that respect.

At this point most people are getting itchy for the fall previews of the refreshes of these products anyways.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[HardWareBoss]

Say it ain't so??????? XGI buying out ATI? You sure XGI is not buying Nv? That was the last rumor I heard.

 

[priyajeet]

i bought XGI

<i> <font color=blue>Futile is resistance,</font color=blue><font color=red> assimilate you we will.</font color=red> </i>
<b>Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.</b>

 

[sweatlaserxp]

It is kind of obnoxious that it's been several months since the launch and ATi still can't get the flagship card, the <i>real</i> performer out onto the market. However, they still sell plenty of mid-range and budget cards and, besides, desktop graphics cards are only one segment of their market. They're making the GC chip, they have XBox 2, the future looks fine. This spring there will be a whole new generation which will spawn a new media circus. And Grape is right- short supply is a bummer, but high demand is always a good thing, so when it finally hits the market ATi will have no worries about selling the things.

Athlon 2500+, Asus A7N8X Deluxe Rev2, 768Mb Corsair XMS 5-2-2-2.5, Sapphire 9800 Pro 128Mb, Seagate SATA 80Gb, Fortron-Source FSP400-60PFN

 

[Worf101]

and wound up with two!!!!! It's a long story but I was diligent and preordered at Visiontek for their X800 XT PE AND SuperPCMart for a Excalibur X800 XT PE IceQII. I figured they both wouldn't show up at the same time....

I was WRONG!!!!

Sold the Visiontek on ebay for a healthy profit in less than 30 minutes. It took me almos 2 FULL months to get the graphics card I wanted. It's working like stink though and I'm a happy man.

Da Worfster

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

 

[penus]

i guess you could look at dif possibilities, but companies make more money selling their products before they even hit the warehouse even if it means a slight discounted price. this holds true for any product... especially 2 for 1 specials. pizza companies even give you deals on 2 or more pizzas. even if it means a slight discount, the faster your rid your inventory the better. if you ship products directly to specific vendors, you save money on having to hire truck drivers to go to every best buy and crapusa and paying people to unload the stuff... and you don't have to worry about some ass dropping a box on himself or falling off the truck and claiming workmen's comp and having to pay higher business insurance premiums. all that little stuff adds up a lot more than you think. all that, i think, is why ATI is more eager to give bj's to alienware and other direct vendors. this always happens, though, with any product that comes out that is very cool.

congrats, by the way, on starting up quite an interesting topic of discussion.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Just on a side note.

I bet Both DELL and HP individually buy more $ worth of X300 cards (forget the rest of their purchase for their boutique products) from ATI than Alienware and Voodoo and Falcon Northwest combined.

Don't have any proof of this, but I wouldn't doubt it.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Of note, a few things reported by the InQ;

<A HREF="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18234" target="_new">http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18234</A>

<A HREF="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18230" target="_new">http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18230</A>

Of course year end figures will decide the true winner.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[priyajeet]

"Watch out for an NV44 low end sub $99 product that is expected later this year. What do you think about Geforce 6400 for a name?"

BRING IT ON....says ATI. Or could it be intel prefers ATI bcos they are both in the same boat. AMD is giving severe competition, and so does NV. Also if you notice quakecon was sponsered by AMD and Nvidia (no intel or ati) and ABIT ACON was sponsered by intel and ati (no AMD or nvidia i think) and the IDF (intel dev forum) again no nvidia or amd.

Well they even mentioned Intel not too happy or interested in SLI. And true it will be expensive to have a couple of Xeens ..err Xeons in a system.

"Overall, better days are coming for Nvidia, there is no doubt about it."

So for ATI...with xbox2 and others stuff.
and not so for XGI.

<i> <font color=blue>Futile is resistance,</font color=blue><font color=red> assimilate you we will.</font color=red> </i>
<b>Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by priyajeet on 09/03/04 03:23 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[penus]

I would agree to that. The average Dell/HP customer generally isn't as computer savvy as someone who builds their own PC (ahem, needs all that cheesy software crammed into their PC with an easy-to-use recovery disc). Hence, they usually buy such PC's for multiple uses like spreadsheets and word processors and photo editors and to also <i>go online</i>. (LOL.. I love it when people who are ignorant to computers as stupid questions like "Are you online?" or "What is your website address" when they actually mean <i>e-mail</i>.. lmao). People who buy from Alienware are usually hardcore gamers who <i>know</i> what the best card is. Yeah, I would say Dell/HP buys more of the lower-end cards... their targeted audience would find all the necessary appreciation in it, I'm sure... but not me =).