As GPU Prices Slide, Galax Offers Price Guarantee
Galax starts price guarantee promotion with JD.com in China.
We have hit an odd point in which some GPU vendors may have too many cards on hand. Galax today kicked off a price guarantee promotion in partnership with JD.com, one of China's largest online retailers for electronics. The promotion, spotted by ITHome, spans from today to June 18, so one could secure a guarantee of a refund if a GPU drops over the next two months.
With many graphics card model prices falling precipitously this year, it seems that potential buyers are waiting to see where prices will land. It seems gamers and enthusiasts are holding strong, resisting temptation in the hope that the cards eventually come close to the manufacturers' suggested retail price. This cool standoffishness appears to be working.
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You can see we have chopped up and translated the Galax promotional infographic above. In case you don't want to flick through the slides, here they are:
- Galax RTX graphics cards can be bought in a price guarantee promotion event via JD.com from April 15 until June 18, 2022.
- Purchase the designated models during the sale event to enjoy up to two months price guarantee.
- In the JD app, find the Galax GPU products with one click price protection. Purchase them to enjoy the price guarantee. If there is any difficulty you can contact customer service.
The promotional infographic shares the list of graphics cards that qualify for the promotion, which appears to include most of Galax's current GeForce Ampere graphics cards starting from RTX 3060 models all the way up to the newest and most powerful RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards. Interestingly, there are no RTX 3070 GPUs in the promotion, and this SKU seems to have been harder to come by in many regions.
Should Graphics Card Buyers Give in Yet?
This promotion is only occurring in China, and we don't know if anything similar will come to retailers in the west.
Graphics card makers must see pricing charts as clearly as we do, and will be highly motivated to sell now, before further drops occur. In much the same way as mail-in rebates can attract buyers who then forget or don't bother with the rebate for some reason – vendors could benefit from the same behavior.
We don't know much about JD.com's customer service quality, so be careful if you attempt to buy, especially from outside of China. Comments on ITHome regarding JD.com and qualifying for the price guarantee aren't very positive. Moreover many cynically predict sizable price cuts arriving on June 19.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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InvalidError The supply chain is getting worried of choking on unsold inventory? Sounds like great news for people who have been holding off.Reply -
A Stoner At this point my RTX 2080 is gonna have to last until the new generation of cards come out. Not going to pay even retail at this point for a card that will be obsolete in just a few months.Reply -
InvalidError Reply
Since most GPU models are in stock at most first-party retailers, scalpers are pretty much out of the picture at this point apart from those who still need to get rid of their unsold stock, likely at a loss vs what they originally paid for.ezst036 said:This significantly undercuts scalpers. I'm stoked! :) -
spentshells ReplyInvalidError said:Since most GPU models are in stock at most first-party retailers, scalpers are pretty much out of the picture at this point apart from those who still need to get rid of their unsold stock, likely at a loss vs what they originally paid for.
Yeah now we are only being gouged by the original seller ;)
Upside is, I still wont pay 300 for a 3050.... im sure you'll testify.
Lucky I only play low end games -
InvalidError Reply
I'd love to have one... for no more than $250 CAN / ~$200 US.spentshells said:Upside is, I still wont pay 300 for a 3050.... im sure you'll testify. -
bigdragon Ever try to get a retailer like BestBuy, Amazon, Walmart, or even Sears to honor their own policies on price adjustments? What they advertise isn't always how things work out in practice. They usually have some complicated mechanism for recalculating what that lower price is or throw it out completely if it's part of special sale. Just changing the number of cents on the price can be enough to invalidate some pricing guarantees. Worse, will you get that adjustment as a refund or store credit? I'd rather just wait for the lower price than trusting a company to honor their own promises.Reply
Wait it out, gamers and content creators. We've been waiting this long. We can keep waiting until the AIBs list prices at or below the FE products. -
InvalidError Reply
I wouldn't rely on a mail-in-rebate or equivalent as the deciding factor to buy something either. The up-front price has to meet my decision threshold by itself, the MIR is just gravy that I won't get too upset about if it falls through cracks for whatever reason.bigdragon said:I'd rather just wait for the lower price than trusting a company to honor their own promises.
The last thing I bought with MIR was an Audigy 2 audio card that was $100 CAN (boxing day sale) with a $50 mail-in rebate on top... except the refund came in as $35 USD and it cost me $10 to cash it in on top of $10 to send my MIR application as registered mail, so the $50 MIR turned into less than $30 net and a moderate amount of hassle. Not that I particularly cared about the MIR since $100 for an Audigy 2 was quite the steal at the time. -
DougMcC ReplyA Stoner said:At this point my RTX 2080 is gonna have to last until the new generation of cards come out. Not going to pay even retail at this point for a card that will be obsolete in just a few months.
Very much agree. What gamer is going to spend even close to MSRP when they could spend that close to MSRP money on a 4 series card in a pretty short time from now. This generation of cards should be on closeout pricing. -
InvalidError Reply
My prediction is that next-gen MSRPs will go up so much they will make current-gen MSRPs look good and there won't be much pressure to drop prices in the immediate future.DougMcC said:Very much agree. What gamer is going to spend even close to MSRP when they could spend that close to MSRP money on a 4 series card in a pretty short time from now. This generation of cards should be on closeout pricing.