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 - Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - link
No surprise AMD has had to drop prices further, sooner, because they are still competing against Nvidia's last-gen which are getting steep price cuts to move while Maxwell parts are out-of-stock. 780Ti can be had for $400-$420, 780 can be had for $300-$330, so until these parts also sell out AMD will have to compete by dropping the 290X and 290 below those price points.just4U - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
Well.. if we could actually get a 780ti for $400.. that would be quite nice. Much depends on where you are I think. Here in Canada the cheapest 780ti is $520 (out of stock of course..) with most just dropping their price too 980 levels to make it seem like a deal. New egg in the states has the cheapest 780 at 430. A good option if your looking at the 970 to since it beats it by 8-13% in performance.chizow - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
Newegg has 780Ti for $400 after rebate, 2 options from PNY for $399.99 and another for $409.99http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...
There have even been a few drops to $380 in Shell Shocker or Deals of the Day.
780s are going for $300, some as low as $280 with promo codes.
just4U - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
forget the rebates.. their a non starter but I'd take a 780ti over a 970 if the price was the same. Wouldn't you? it's 7-13% faster.The 780 (non ti) is comparable to the 290 (non x) They'd have to undercut by a decent amount to make them tempting buys.. $260ish I'd say would be a sweet spot.
chizow - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
Oh, and rebates are no problem if you can print a few forms, sign your name, and mail an envelope within the requisite time period. Takes like 5 minutes, I get every one of them I send out for.Flunk - Thursday, October 16, 2014 - link
I get every rebate I send out too, months later and sometimes in the form of an annoying prepaid credit card. Pay now and we might give you some of the money back later is the most annoying practice in the industry.just4U - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
god I wish there was a edit button.. anyway, it's odd you know I remember people talking the 780.. it being 20% slower than the 780ti but looking at the 970 which is slower than the 780ti it appears to walk all over the 780. Something odd about that.. have to run the math I suppose.chizow - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
I've actually seen in most of the hot deals threads people are more interested in the 970 over the 780Ti, even though I personally think the 780Ti is a much better built card. Just that power diff and the new Maxwell features I guess in addition to only being ~10% slower than 780Ti, but also a good bit cheaper.Laststop311 - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
How is 370 a good deal? The cards have practically equal performance but in every other performance metric the gtx 970 is the winner. Uses less power, gives off less heat, makes less noise. If anything the GTX 970 should be the more expensive card since it ties or better the 290x in every way. In all reality if the gtx 970 is 330 then the r9 290x should be like 290 or 300 because the gtx 970 is a slightly better card. plus the 390x is just around the corner. So anyone looking to buy a radeon now is rly best off waiting for their next generationmilli - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
Firstly not all AMD's partners cards are loud! Sapphire, HIS, ... make models that are moderately quiet.Secondly, what almost every review forgets to mention is that AMD R9 cards still have better compute performance. While it's not important to some, as time passes, it will get more and more important. Especially now that the current generation consoles have enough GPU power (and not a comparable amount of CPU power).