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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Patflute - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
I'm not a fanboy ;0TheJian - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
Stop you're killing me. You're making too much sense. :)I don't care about 2560x1600 either when no 27in has that res (only 11 on newegg are 2560x1440 and all over $688), all 41 others are 1920x1080.
All 68 newegg 24in monitors are 1920x1200 or less. ZERO above it.
My dell 24 1920x1200, and my 22 lg 1680x1050. If I actually buy a 30in or go to dual/triple monitors I'll be running in a res FAR above either or even 2560x1600. More like 3840x1200, or 5760x1200. I'll be running TWO cards or a GTX 7970/680/690 most likely too. Because a $280-350 card just isn't enough without dipping below playable 30fps in a LOT of games at 2560x1600. I won't try it with a rejected heater 7950 OC'ed to hell. 7970's are binned.
Not saying these results aren't important to some, just that dogging a card in this range for bandwidth issues is pointless. Claiming victory in a game where fps drops below 30fps is pointless.
Fanboys sure do come out when you point out the facts and it's not going their way. The first thing they do is call you one...LOL.
RussianSensation - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
After-market 7950s are binned too. Already showed you their power consumption earlier in the thread. After-market HD7950 @ 1100-1150mhz can be achieved at Tahiti XT stock voltage of 1.175V under 190W. That's around what a GTX680 draws, and yet 7950 costs $330, $170 savings.Go to our Forum and ask the owners directly since you don't believe actual real world data I keep providing you. Every single person is getting 1100+ OC on the MSI TF3 7950 using less than 1.175V:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=22593...
TheJian - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
http://www.behardware.com/articles/853-18/roundup-...These guys are fools too then with 11 cards 7950 & 7970 (4 cards!). Nah, ignore the review sites. Russian said review sites are wrong...Forum people never lie etc. Russian is always right. You drag out forum people, I drag out review. But they're crazy.
http://www.behardware.com/medias/photos_news/00/36...
MINIMUM VOLTAGES AND CLOCKS @ SAID MINS
http://www.behardware.com/medias/photos_news/00/36...
"The first value given for each card represents the starting voltage while the orange boxes represent cases where cards were stable on the bench table but not in the casing, where temperatures get higher."
Only 7/11 can do what you say here. 5 didn't make it at 1.2v. NONE made it over 1200 and only TWO of 11 hit that. Those chips will be running out soon and only BOOST will be left for 7950's. Note you're talking JUST 7950's my link points to 7970's also not going over 1200, and ONLY ONE hit 1200! out of 4. These guys are pretty thorough...But you're right ;) They just had bad chips. Because all of them can do no bad in your fanboy eyes eh?
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7950-overc...
1.25v just to hit 1150 at 217watt JUST FOR THE CARD. Whole system, obviously more. 80 watts for that overclock as reg scored 138w alone. Guru3d are idiots too...You're right, I should just depend on forum users, review sites are all getting bad chips and don't know what they are doing.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6152/amd-announces-n...
7970ghz edition (meaning clocked up) 376w vs. GTX680 333 watts. So 43 watts different. Heck I won't argue with you if you tell me ryan can't do math, but I think I can. And you will run worse, this card is only 1ghz. Anandtech are fools too...Russian is right...He's always right. ;) I believe you fanboy. These numbers lie. The 7970's are the best out there, they have to be as they're binned for higher speed. But what do 3 review sites know. Russian's right dang it.
"After going through the full validation process we were able to hit an overclock of +150MHz, which pushed our base clock from 1000MHz to 1150MHz, and our boost clock from 1050MHz to 1200MHz. Depending on how you want to count this overclock amidst the presence of the boost clock this is either 25MHz better than our best 7970 card, or 75MHz better. In either case our 7970GE definitely overclocks better than our earlier 7970 cards but not significantly so, which is in-line with our expectations."
So never quite hit 1200 before at anandtech...And the ghz edition is BETTER binned.
"As with any overclocking effort based on a single sample our overclocking results are not going to be representative of what every card can do, but they are reasonable. With AMD now binning chips for the 7970GE we’d expect to see some stratification among the 7970 family such that high overclocking chips that would previously show up in 7970 cards will now show up in 7970GE cards instead. For penny-pinching overclockers this is not good news"
So, like I said, good chips will be going out of the 7950 line (if not already) and moving into the even more expensive 7970ghz edition. Blame ryan not me. ;) WOW, double binning...LOL. They expect a the 7970's to NOT hit 1175 anymore? They never had one hit 1200 before the 7970ghz edition. OUCH.
CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - link
Yes, big ouch, so the russian has fled in continuing self induced perma-blindness.LOL
Fan boy disease.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
nVidia has a huge base for compute software and still kicks the crap out of amd in compute because amd doesn't have the software to support it.amd has now winzip - winzip dude...
the nVidia fanboy WAS CORRECT, and IS STILL CORRECT
amd has no drivers, no apps, so compute can do some crappy amd benches and do winzip for amd.. that's nearly it
Not like it's PhysX or something where one of the card companies can't do it at all... and that doesn't matter right, even though PhysX is more used than compute... especially with gamers running gaming cards at a gamers review...
BUT - the nVidia fanboys are flip flopped ? LOL
RussianSensation - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
1) Bitcoin mining2) Accelerate Photoshop filters and WinZip 16.5 (see Tom's Hardware Review).
It may not matter but those are "free" features of GCN architecture.
Also, it's now impacting game performance severely:
- Dirt Showdown & Sniper Elite V2 runs very slow on GTX600 cards:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/...
- Sleeping Dogs, you'll see benchmarks shortly in reviews.
That's already 3 games where NV seems to be unable to fix the performance.
TheJian - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
Bitcoin mining was over ages ago. OR do you like to run your computer 100% to try for something that can't be found much anymore? The quick bitcoins were gone AGES ago. You won't pay for your card mining bit coins. ROFL. I don't care how many cards you buy you won't magically find them daily...LOL. By now the bots will beat you to anything :) Also it costs money to run your gpu all day folding, bitcoin mining etc. Electricity isn't free. But have fun.You keep trying to find bitcoins though...Nvidia junked it for a reason. Gamers don't care (not the smart ones). Dedicating gaming gpu space to this tech is a waste. Nvidia rightly axed it and gave us a cooler, less wattage GAMING card. Which is exactly what I plan to do with it. You go right on hashing though. other stuff? I don't buy a $300 gamer card and expect it to be used for Quadro/FireGL stuff, or things a quad could do just fine. Those cards exist for a reason :) Is rightware a game?...LOL.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/adobe-cs5-cuda...
Never heard of CUDA huh? That's TWO years old. But only count on filters, as adobe seems to have gone opengl opencl in the framework. However filters themselves can do whatever they want. As dumb as it is to use a gaming card for this crap:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-66...
And the wind blows the other way...Those are GTX680's blowing away AMD's best right? But again...Pointless for a gaming discussion.
Toms also screwed up by taking every card they had in the 660 TI review (AMD too!) and clocking them at reference for the benchmarks. Why review the cards at all then? I'm talking both sides, no fanboy talk here. Read the fine print on the test setup page. YOu see? That's what those pages are for, so you can see how things are set up and discount them when necessary.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/sniper-elite-v2 SCORE 65...LOL
I wouldn't PIRATE that gem let alone pay for it or play it. 1 positive review.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dirt-showdown Score 72 (user score 4.8)...Victories in games people play count. GAMESPY quote (score 40):
"DiRT: Showdown delivers bargain-basement entertainment value for the high, high price of $50. With its neutered physics, limited driving venues, clunky multiplayer, and diminished off-road racing options, discerning arcade racing fans should just write this one off as an unanticipated pothole in Codemaster's trailblazing DiRT series."
You can quote games we'd never play all you want. You play these?
You realize metacritic can point you to FPS games 85+ right? Racing games that score 85+ too. Like dirt3 (86 if memory serves). Showdown sucks.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Have plenty of friends who FRIED their amd cards trying to find bitcoins... LOLThey just died - dead as a doornail... one bakejob revived one amd crapper for a little bit then it croaked forever
Be careful of used amd bitcoin cards, they're on the shaky edge of electromigration and blown with blank screen outputs
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
It may not matter but those are free features.... LOLnVidia has photoshop for a long, long, long time.
winzip is a joke
Since older amd cards excelled at bitcoin while they sucked miserably at compute, THAT DOESN'T COUNT FOR COMPUTE DUMMY.
So amd has winzip, and finally halfway caught up in photoshop with lousy drivers
Dirt showdown looks like BF3 for amd, where amd loses badly -
Sniper elite 2 looks like a normal win
Sleeping dogs ... uhh okay whenever we get a bench you don't have
So amd has hacked dirt 3 again, like they hack other gaming evolved games, no problem nVidia will probably pass them up in it soon when they unscrew amd's hacks
So like, you've got winzip left really. That's a umm great compute dude, you can winzip