You might have noticed that in a handful of places it is now possible to buy AMD Radeon graphics cards for a lot less money than last week, and that’s for good reason. Although some reports appear to claim that these are AMD’s price cuts, we didn’t hear anything from AMD directly, so we dug in.
When we asked a spokesman at AMD, we were told that the AIB (Add-in-Board) partners are running a channel promotion that enables lower starting prices for the Radeon R9 290 and R9 290X graphics cards. This brought the prices of R9 290 cards down to as little as $299, while the R9 290X would cost as little as $369, although they are typically listed for about $399.
It is important to note that these prices are “Promotional” and that they only apply “While stocks last”, but truth be told, we wouldn’t be too surprised if AMD announces an official price cut somewhere in the future.
One thing that is clear is that this is a response to the launch of Nvidia’s Maxwell-based GTX 970 and GTX 980 graphics cards. Nvidia priced the GTX 980 at $549, while the GTX 970 is priced at a very competitive $329. Considering that the GTX 970 was trading blows with the R9 290X, a price cut for the AMD cards was destined to come.
At prices ranging from $369 to about $399, the R9 290X might still not even entirely make sense against the GTX 970, but at $299 the Radeon R9 290 certainly packs a lot of value. Additionally, AMD’s cards still come with the Never Settle bundles, giving you up to three free games along with your GPU purchase.
‘Tis an exciting time in the consumer GPU space.
Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
