AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series Price Cuts, New Game Bundle Inbound
by Ryan Smith on August 20, 2012 9:00 PM ESTIn another quick shift in the hyper-competitive performance video card market, AMD sends word this afternoon that they are enacting some price cuts that will be taking effect later this week. This latest round of price cuts comes hot on the heels of last week’s launch of the GeForce GTX 660 Ti, which saw NVIDIA introduce their first 28nm performance video card at $299.
The bulk of the cuts here will be for the 7800 series, where the 7870 in particular is finding itself somewhat displaced after the launch of the GTX 660 Ti. The $299 660 Ti isn’t necessarily in direct competition with the already-cheaper 7870 – which had a street price of around $279 last week – and since AMD had already quietly shuffled prices around ahead of the GTX 660 Ti launch, we weren’t expecting any further changes here. But it would appear that the gap between the 7870 and GTX 660 Ti is closer than AMD would like.
As a result the 7870 will be getting a slight price cut to push prices towards $249. This would make the card a full $50 cheaper than the GTX 660 Ti, which is apparently the kind of leverage AMD wants right now.
Meanwhile because the 7870 is getting a price cut, so is the 7850. AMD is expecting the street prices on the 2GB 7850 to fall to around $209 after the price cuts take effect, putting it $40 below the newly repriced 7870. The 2GB 7850 has been averaging $239 in the past week, so this would represent a price cut of around $30. Meanwhile the extremely rare 1GB version of the card would end up below $200, though given how few of those cards exist it’s hard to say if it will hit AMD’s $189 price target.
Alongside those price cuts the 7800 series will be receiving a new game bundle promotion in a few weeks. The AMD Gaming Evolved title Sleeping Dogs will be AMD’s latest bundle, replacing the outgoing DiRT Showdown bundle. This will sit opposite NVIDIA's existing Borderlands 2 promotion, which went live last week. As with past bundles this is being done at a retailer level, so it’s primarily geared towards online retailers (e.g. Newegg) that can quickly bundle vouchers with new cards.
| Second Summer 2012 Radeon HD 7000 Series Price Cuts | |||||||
| Card | Launch Price | Spring MSRP | Summer MSRP | Second Summer MSRP | |||
| Radeon HD 7970GE | $499 | N/A | N/A | $499 | |||
| Radeon HD 7970 | $549 | $479 | $429 | $429 | |||
| Radeon HD 7950 | $449 | $399 | $349 | $319 | |||
| Radeon HD 7870 | $349 | $349 | $299 | $249 | |||
| Radeon HD 7850 | $249 | $249 | $239 | $209 | |||
| Radeon HD 7770 | $159 | $139 | ~$119 | ~$119 | |||
| Radeon HD 7750 | $109 | $109 | ~$99 | ~$99 | |||
Meanwhile, along with the 7800 series the 7950 is also technically getting a price cut. We say “technically” because AMD seems to be rubber stamping price cuts that have already happened. The 7950 has been readily available below its $349 MSRP for quite some time now, and AMD’s new MSRP of $319 reflects the price of cards that are already available.
Finally, it should be noted that despite AMD’s official announcement we wouldn’t be all that surprised if only a few cards ended up reaching these new MSRPs. AMD lists their MSRPs as “starting at”, which means that AMD is listing the price of the cheapest card. This is largely how the previous round of price cuts played out, so pickings right at these new MSRPs may be slim.
| Post-Cut Summer 2012 GPU Pricing Comparison | |||||
| AMD | Price | NVIDIA | |||
| Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition | $469/$499 | GeForce GTX 680 | |||
| Radeon HD 7970 | $429/$399 | GeForce GTX 670 | |||
| Radeon HD 7950 | $319/$299 | GeForce GTX 660 Ti | |||
| $279 | GeForce GTX 570 | ||||
| Radeon HD 7870 | $249 | ||||
| Radeon HD 7850 | $209 | ||||
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frostyfiredude - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Good move on their part, this makes AMD's cards the best value to get at all basically every price point. The only exception being the very top where the 7970GE vs GTX680 goes to the 680 because of noise/power reasons.TheJian - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
And basically keep losing another 630 million per year. These price cuts are not good. Why do people not get this? DEBT is not good. With 1.5billion left in cash (they already mortgaged the house to get that at crappy interest rates), they will burn through that in 9 quarters. Xmas 2014 is looking like they'll go broke. Like our country being another 6.5 trillion in debt since obama took office (about to hit 16Trillion !), AMD can't take another 2 years of losses since buying ATI for a ridiculous price. They had to write down 2/3's of what they paid for it which killed them. They've lost 6 billion in 10 years.Like USA will go bankrupt if Obama gets another 4 years, AMD will go in 2.25 years. That's not good in either case. Debt=bad. Losing money=bad. At some point you have to bring in more than you piss away or you're dead.
These price cuts are BAD for amd, but admittedly good for us ;) Long term, VERY bad for us all as NV/Intel will be able to price hike like mad without AMD.
I've posted enough data to refute AMD being better at $300 range. 660 is a strong product and the boost chips are rejects that required amd to put 1.25v to them to reliably hit 850/925boost.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6152/amd-announces-n...
Scroll down to ryan's comments on the voltages. Then go read my wall response to his response to me on page 4 of the all comments in the 660 article at anandtech. It's not pretty :( But very enlightening. No BS, just data (most of it his).
RussianSensation - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
1) "These price cuts are not good. Why do people not get this? DEBT is not good."^ People get this but since you can't go back and re-do the AMD-ATI merger, you can't make the $5.4 Billion in debt via a leveraged buy-out just disappear. Also, AMD didn't just cut prices magically because it wanted to, the competition from NV forced it to do so.
2) You really need to take a couple classes of accounting and finance since you have no idea about cash flow vs. net income. The only thing that matters is cash flows, not net losses. $6B in losses is not what the company actually lose in $.
3) You seem to be overly happy to keep pointing out how AMD is going to be bankrupt in 2-3 years, blah blah blah. Let us know how you enjoy your $1000 GTX990 and Intel Core i5 for $500.
And then despite discussing how it's bad that AMD lowered prices, you still going out of your way to make up data that 660Ti is a better card. You are something else guy.
No one cares about a reference 7950 review since only 1 out of 19 cards on Newegg is a reference 7950 B card. Stop trolling or go to GeForce.com.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
you can also buy things marked "value" in the dollar aisle at WalmartRussianSensation - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
You can go ahead and call AMD cards value/budget, but most of us would rather take the faster card and $120 extra than pay throw $ away for the brand:http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/...
TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
This isn't leverage..They were forced as the 660TI wins almost everything at 1920x1200, unlike your review which seems to think 2560x1600 is important. Yet Newegg has 68 monitors at 24in that use 1920x1200/1080 and NONE that use 2560x1600. Same story for the 52 models at 27in, where again NONE use 2560x1600. ZERO. You have to buy a 30in monitor for 2560x1600 to be important. Translation? AS I proved in the comments section over and over in your 660TI review, you based your conclusions and digs over bandwidth at 2560x1600 which is only for 2% of the user base. Say what?Steampowered.com hardware survey shows 98% of the users in the world are using ...Wait for it...1920x1200 or below. Even that res & 1920x1080 is only used by 29.5%. The rest far lower. But you couldn't decide on a recommendation based on 2560x1600 results...ROFL. But you kept digging at that 2560x1600 memory bandwidth issue (that only exists here and there anyway). Instead of concentrating on the fact that 98% of us use the res the 660 TI DOMINATES in. Do you own a 30in monitor Ryan? We don't. "That Darned Memory Bus"...LOL. Umm...Didn't affect a thing at 1920x1200 did it? So 98% of us couldn't care less about that darned memory bus?
USELESS drivel...I'll help you fix your recommendation...
"At 27in or lower the 660 TI is the obvious choice for gamers. Because even those monitors use less than 2560x1600, including every 24 or 27in on newegg, yes I mean EVERY ONE :) " LOL. Fixed for ya :) Feel free to paste it into your Conclusion page and remove your drivel.
AMD had to lower prices...They got stomped at 27in and lower resolutions. Meaning, almost for everybody they got stomped. Before any fanboys come out...I own a radeon 5850 and can prove it (already did in the comments - See my amazon backorder)...LOL.
Somebody has to call Ryan out. The review and it's digs about bandwidth at 2560x1600 (at some points twice on a page) SUCKED. Every time he made that comment, he should have said something like "but it only affects 2% of you anyway". I might have said good review then... It would have been accurate instead of ridiculously misleading :)
Zoomer - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Good 27 inchers are usually 2560 x 1440.TheJian - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
I don't dispute that...In fact I totally agree with you and pointed that out in my response to ryan 5 minutes ago in the comments section of his 660 TI review. Its easy to find, look for the wall of text, but read his post to me first :)It's a long read, but PURELY backed up with data and easy to follow along.
I challenge anyone to argue with the data...Most of which are his own words and scores :)
RussianSensation - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
1. NV charges $300 or 25-30% more for 9% more performance over the $230-240 HD7870 at 1080P and just 4% faster at 2560x1600:http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/20...
2. NV's 660Ti OC is hopelessly out-gunned by the HD7950 OC:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/08/23/galaxy_g...
GTX660Ti vs
- HD7870 has better best price/performance
- HD7950 has better performance for enthusiasts.
Any more rants on your end?
Bull Dog - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
I game on a Dell U2711 (2560x1400) as well so the 2560x1600 benchmarks are relevant for me.