Radeon Forces Nvidia GTX2XX Price Cuts
Mountain House (CA) - It appears that AMD’s ATI Radeon 4800 GPU has turned out to be a much better chip than initially expected and AMD’s aggressive pricing puts enough pressure on Nvidia to prompt the company to react. If you are planning on purchasing a GTX 260 or 280 card, you may want to delay until next Monday. Price cuts are on the way.
Over the past several days we have spent some time with several Nvidia’s partners in the Silicon Valley and in Taiwan, which made it obvious that there are tensions between GPU manufacturers and add-in board companies. A raging price has put five companies on the verge of bankruptcy. We cannot disclose who almost kicked the bucket, but we were told that three vendors are still walking on very thin ice.
With the debut of GeForce GTX 200 series, Nvidia made some adjustments protecting its partners with greater margins, but the ATI Radeon 4800 series is changing that scenario again. AMD has received praise from the press for its ATI Radeon 4800 series, causing Nvidia partners to demand price adjustments. We were told that Nvidia finally stepped down from its pedestal and agreed to offer limited price protection for some products as well as price cuts.
We contacted Nvidia to get more details on this information and were provided with the following statement by Bryan Del Rizzo and Ken Brown, spokespeople for Nvidia:
"We’re working with our partners on adjusting the prices for the GTX 280 and 260. The changes are being implemented over the next few days and will take effect sometime next week. Please obtain final retail pricing from the partners, because they set them for their products."
The third sentence has to be taken with a grain of salt, as most partners complained to us about Nvidia’s Unilateral Minimum Advertised Price Policy, short UMAP, and the way it affects them. For the consumer, however, we have yet another example how well competition works. The race between the Radeon 4800 series and GTX 200 will ultimately drag prices down.
According to our sources, Nvidia cut the price of the GTX 280 by $90 and $30 for the GTX 260. Of course, that is a price cut Nvidia is handing down to its partners and does not reflect retail prices.
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GeForce GTX 260 cards currently sell for $379.99 on Newegg ($399.99 minus $20 instant rebate on XFX, BFG and PNY cards), while GTX 280 cards sell for $619.99 ($649.99 minus $30 for the XFX board).
After Nvidia’s adjustment, we should see Monday prices going down to $359.99 for GTX 260 cards and to $559.99 for GTX 280 cards. Please note that we are not including the possibility for additional rebates that may be offered.
It appears that we might end up with permanent price brackets at $199, $299, $399 and $499. This would greatly simplify the search for the best possible graphics card at a certain point. Also, this opens the battlefield between single and multi-GPU setups: Could two boards for $199 provide more value than a single $399 or $499 card?
We are sure to find out soon.
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neodude007 Funny how they are still at least $50 too high for 260 cards that get beat up by the cheaper 4870...lawlReply -
hannibal These are guite huge drops, considering the size of g200 chip. I don't expect much more drops until 55nm versions comes out.Reply
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mihirkula yaaawwwnn another ham-fisted desperate attempt from Nvidia.... it would be hilarious if the $499 4870X2 beats the cut priced $550 GTX280 :PReply -
doomsdaydave11 yawn indeed. Nvidia is not going to get my money on this one, $300 HD 4870 ftw! :)Reply
Thank you green team for keeping pricing relatively competative, hopefully this results in a slight ATI price drop. -
joetheone My question is how much can Nvidia really afford to cut the price on their GTX 200 series. The things must be expensive as heck to make with their huge die size and 512-bit bus...Reply -
master9716 Well the question is when will we see the next branch of games.Games these days take years and years to develope wich means that things might slow down soon. If I had known that 5 months later the 8800gt would cost $170. I would have bought an Sli motherboard dam!! to bad P35 mobos ruled back then .Ill wait till the 790i drops or ECS makes oneReply