Video Card Tuesday: $370 R9 290X & Borderlands: TPS Now Shipping
by Ryan Smith on October 14, 2014 7:45 PM EST
Following up on last week’s Radeon pricing observations, it looks like there has been one final shift in Radeon R9 290 series pricing. While R9 290 has held steady around $299 with the occasional small rebate, we’ve seen R9 290X continue to fall and drop below the roughly $400 price they were going for last week. Finally stabilizing, the R9 290X has leveled out at around $370, with a handful of cards going for even a bit less than that. At $370, the R9 290X is now $30 less than the week before and this puts it just $40 over the MSRP of the GeForce GTX 970.
Though I had been expecting prices to fall further, I am a bit surprised to see R9 290X prices drop below $400 so soon. With GTX 900 series availability still being outstripped by demand, Radeon prices needed to come down from their initial MSRPs in reaction to the NVIDIA launch, though not necessarily this quickly. Regardless, this does mean that the R9 290X is in a better position than it was last week; AMD can’t completely close NVIDIA’s technology advantage gap, but from a price/performance ratio anything that brings R9 290X closer to the similarly performing GTX 970 will help AMD’s partners move cards. In the meantime it’s worth noting that AMD appears to be sticking to their guns on influencing product value through game bundles rather than engaging in a pure price war, as the $370 R9 290X goes hand-in-hand with the continued inclusion of AMD’s Never Settle Forever bundle.
Speaking of game bundles, NVIDIA sends word this afternoon that Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is now shipping for customers who received vouchers as part of NVIDIA’s recent game bundle. This bundle was never extended to the GTX 900 series – NVIDIA is clearly having no trouble selling those cards right now – but this offer is still active on the higher-end GTX 700 series cards as part of the company’s efforts to sell off the remaining GTX 770/780 inventory.
| Fall 2014 GPU Pricing Comparison | |||||
| AMD | Price | NVIDIA | |||
| Radeon R9 295X2 | $1000 | ||||
| $550 | GeForce GTX 980 | ||||
| Radeon R9 290X | $370 | ||||
| $330 | GeForce GTX 970 | ||||
| Radeon R9 290 | $300 | ||||
| Radeon R9 280X Radeon R9 285 |
$250 | ||||
| Radeon R9 280 | $200 | GeForce GTX 760 | |||
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chizow - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
No, I am not using the highest overclocked 290X, if you look at the AnandTech GTX 980 Review you would understand:http://www.anandtech.com/show/8526/nvidia-geforce-...
"At this point you can still buy reference 290X cards, but the vast majority of retail cards will be of the non-reference variety, where the 290X Uber mode’s results will be more applicable."
You can't take the 290X's best-case performance and disregard the additional heat that comes with it. So yes, under Uber mode, the difference in power is MUCH lower.
No one contested any of the rest of what you are saying, just clarifying your attempt to correct another poster is clearly inaccurate. The difference is MUCH lower for the 970 over the 290X.
Creig - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
Well, if you really wanted to save electricity, you should just stick to integrated video then.Wreckage - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
The 290x is louder and puts out more heat. It performs about the same, but costs more and has fewer features.silverblue - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
Whilst I'll admit that there's little support for it, there's one thing that AMD sports within the 290X that NVIDIA cannot claim to have - audio processing.Quieter 290Xs can be found than the reference model.
Drizzt321 - Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - link
Interesting, and definitely good for consumers. Speaking of video cards, how about another good video card roundup with recommended cards at the different levels? I'm thinking of getting a new video card soon, and I'd like to see the recommendations. Unless you're hearing about some big new tech coming from either or both, in which case wait until they release it so I have a better comparison :)meacupla - Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - link
I've seen XFX R9 290 for as low as C$280, which is like US$250just4U - Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - link
Yeah the his can be had for $290Cad in some places to... but that 760? pfft.. good luck getting it at 200 in Canada. It's consistently been a $300 card and looking over recent pricing (..for us) you can buy a 285 cheaper than a 760 which is just plain stupid.just4U - Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - link
add to that the 770 and 780Ti certainly isn't offering anything close to what I'd consider a bargain here either.. it's not till you get to a 780 that you start to go hmmm.. I wonder but that's comparable to the 970s in performance but with less ram.anubis44 - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link
Not to mention that any decent GTX970 is very close to or over C$400 in Canada. Not exactly the 'bargain' it's supposed to be in all the reviews.anubis44 - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link
You can get an XFX R9 290 for C$269 at NCIX right now, with $30 MIR:http://www.ncix.com/detail/xfx-radeon-r9-290-doubl...