Still waiting for either of you to present any figures that show this is a bad business deal.
They won't. They wish NV offered the same deals. I don't recall Keys criticizing the AC3 bundle with the GTX650Ti, despite stating how much "value" that card offered over the 35% faster HD7850.
Instead of looking at it from a positive point of view to gamers getting more for less and automatically assuming that AMD is losing even more $ over this, they paint AMD offering more value negatively. That's expected since AMD's already class leading price/performance and overclocking makes all NV cards even more overpriced.
Many companies would wish to have brand loyal consumers like Apple or Nvidia. Others have to deliver more features or lower price to be entice consumers to switch brands. Many companies in the grocery, fashion, automotive industry deliver more for less.
The irony is the same people criticized AMD's inability to deliver high-end flagship performance with HD4000-6000, claiming they are a budget brand and we need more competition on the high-end. Then AMD released HD7970 and raised prices, they criticized that too. Now that AMD is delivering more performance, enthusiast overclocking feature and free games, you'd have to be completely NV-brainwashed to buy a GTX680 for
$450 with no games against a 1Ghz HD7970 for
$380 with free games.
I guess when you have nothing positive to say about NV's pricing, you start attacking AMD's profit margins, etc. Pretty interesting how all NV users suddenly became professional financial analysts/equity research associates with this generation. I don't recall the same people being worried for AMD when HD4000-6000 series barely made them any $, which is why their low pricing strategy was abandoned by Rory Read. I do remember the same people not seeing the value of HD6950 unlocked or HD6950 unlocked x 2 against GTX580.
These people bring up the business related stuff because that's the only thing that's making their favorite company look better than AMD right now
Exactly. If GTX680 was $380 and shipped with 2 free AAA games while HD7970GE was $450 and came with no games, we wouldn't hear the end of it of how ridiculously overpriced AMD cards are. And it would be fair. When the reverse happens, we hear things like "AMD is desperate", or "AMD is near bankruptcy", etc. As I said before, this generation only reinforces the idea that many NV buyers are brand-attached. These people are willing to buy a slower card, pay more $ for it, accept gimped overclocking features, ignore freebies like bitcoin mining or 3GB of VRAM for mods. The same people who were glorifying TWIMTBP's collaboration with ugly looking console ports like Black Ops 2 or AC3 being bundled with budget GPUs, are now dismissing what are surely to be much more popular titles in the form of Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite. Outside of GTX690 and special situations involving 3 monitors being driven off DVI, or SLI >> CF, most of NV's single GPU cards have been overpriced since late June 2012 for enthusiasts, and it's only getting worse. Luckily for NV, years of marketing have created a loyal Apple-like following for their cards. It takes a while to change consumer's perceptions but it can be done (ask Hyundai and Kia).
NV's price premiums are built around perceived brand value. With AMD cards outperforming NV in nearly every Gaming Evolved title last year, having more AMD Gaming Evolved games is a major threat to NV's performance leadership and brand equity. Thus the ability to justify high prices for NV's cards becomes harder and harder. This is a threat to NV Focus Group members who will never acknowledge that their brand's products offer poor value or need price cuts (GTX280's $649 launch price or GTX580's $450 prices for most of its life say hello), or people who financially invested in NV's stock.
When you can now buy 2x HD7950s for
$560 and get 6 free games, how does someone justify the value of a
$560 GTX680 4GB when a
single overclocked HD7950 can outperform a 680?
How do you downplay the value of a 7950? You downplay overclocking, a complete reversal of GTX460-470 days, and blow up frame-times issues out of proportion, despite Fermi cards suffering from these issues last generation, but hardly anything was said from the same vocal NV users about frame times on Fermi cards. :biggrin: