AMD reduces prices, new game bundle inbound

[blastingcap]

NVidia's better drivers (especially for multi-GPU), CUDA, PhysX, better games support via TWIMTBP, Adaptive V-Sync, higher energy efficiency, GPU Boost, and quality partners like eVGA make the GTX 660 Ti a competitive card anyway. Plus some people can't go above a certain wattage on the 12v rail thanks to their PSU; or have cases that will not easily fit a HD 7950. Also, some people really want Borderlands 2 and those who don't can give it away or sell it for a nice chunk of change.

 

[zaydq]

You state that without context. At 1900x1200 they are basically even. Unless I'm reading that wrong.

Don't know why we're still debating 7950 vs. 660ti in this thread but... aftermarket 7950s are 20-30$ more with small ocs... not so even i guess. Or, in the case when i bought mine, $9.00 more.


In line with thread though,

I doubt Nvidia price drops will occur, AMD's image isn't as strong as Nvidia's, and even if AMD has price/perf in their court and arguably the fastest affordable gpu price/perf, Nvidia's sales won't drop a whole lot. 660tis might be hurt, but 670s and 680s will still be flying off the shelves. 660ti prices might drop, but that'll be vendor discounts, not nvidia's official price dropping.

Albeit unofficial/inaccurate, Newegg reflects sales of the 660ti as just mediocre for the hype it got. On a side note, some people are getting pretty decent overclocks on theirs, clearly golden chips from the sound of things, but very surprising.

We're done debating 7950 vs. 660 Ti in this thread. Please stop.
-ViRGE

 

[blastingcap]

7850 - $190
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102998

There is no way a 660ti is worth $110 over this.

660Ti comes with Borderlands 2 code so the difference is less than you are making it out to be.

 

[zaydq]

660Ti comes with Borderlands 2 code so the difference is less than you are making it out to be.

7800 series is getting sleeping dogs. Same difference.

 

[blastingcap]

7800 series is getting sleeping dogs. Same difference.

That specific card was brought up, and I don't see any games attached to it. What will the price be for 7850s that have SD attached?

 

[Phynaz]

NVidia's better drivers (especially for multi-GPU), CUDA, PhysX, better games support via TWIMTBP, Adaptive V-Sync, higher energy efficiency, GPU Boost, and quality partners like eVGA make the GTX 660 Ti a competitive card anyway. Plus some people can't go above a certain wattage on the 12v rail thanks to their PSU; or have cases that will not easily fit a HD 7950. Also, some people really want Borderlands 2 and those who don't can give it away or sell it for a nice chunk of change.

Let's keep this about the AMD price reductions, ok?

 

[sze5003]

That specific card was brought up, and I don't see any games attached to it. What will the price be for 7850s that have SD attached?

Weird the 7850 didn't come with sleeping dogs. I prefer that game over Borderlands, looks a lot more interesting. I may get it anyway.

 

[Phynaz]

That specific card was brought up, and I don't see any games attached to it. What will the price be for 7850s that have SD attached?

The same.

Alongside those price cuts the 7800 series will be receiving a new game bundle promotion in a few weeks.

 

[blastingcap]

Let's keep this about the AMD price reductions, ok?

Have you read your own posts lately? Here's one. I bolded part of it for you. How consistent you are being, I will leave as an exercise to the reader.

7850 - $190
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102998

There is no way a 660ti is worth $110 over this.

 

[zaydq]

That specific card was brought up, and I don't see any games attached to it. What will the price be for 7850s that have SD attached?

This whole topic is about Sleeping Dogs bundled with the HD 7800 series at new lower prices... Its not quite here yet, give it a few days.

In 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.

....

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.

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6175/amd-radeon-hd-7800-series-price-cuts-new-game-bundle-inbound

Opening posts usually should be read to understand the topic up for discussion.

 

[Phynaz]

Have you read your own posts lately? Here's one. I bolded part of it for you. How consistent you are being, I will leave as an exercise to the reader.

Have you read them? I'm talking about the 7850 price cut. Not Physx, Cuda, drivers, etc.

 

[blastingcap]

This whole topic is about Sleeping Dogs bundled with the HD 7800 series at new lower prices...

Did you notice how the 7850 linked to did not have ANY game bundle, new or old? It did not have Dirt Showdown, BF3, Shogun 2, Sonic Generations, or Nexuiz. Hence why I asked what the price of a 7850 + SD will be. Because $190 is apparently the price WITHOUT a game bundle. I guess we'll see how prices will shake out in a few weeks, no biggie. For the record, I own a Sapphire Dual-X OC edition 7850. Good card, cool, quiet and hasn't given me any grief yet. I also own several other 6xxx and 7xxx cards.

 

[zaydq]

Did you notice how the 7850 linked to did not have ANY game bundle, new or old? It did not have Dirt Showdown, BF3, Shogun 2, Sonic Generations, or Nexuiz. Hence why I asked what the price of a 7850 + SD will be. Because $190 is apparently the price WITHOUT a game bundle. I guess we'll see how prices will shake out in a few weeks, no biggie. For the record, I own a Sapphire Dual-X OC edition 7850. Good card, cool, quiet and hasn't given me any grief yet. I also own several other 6xxx and 7xxx cards.

I revised my post before someone (in this case it was you) would nit pick on it. Gaming bundles have never affected the msrp of gpus, why would it now. I know you missed my revision, but i said give it a few days for the new bundle to kick in. The gtx 600 series is not seeing price hikes for Borderlands 2 being bundled to it, why would the HD 7800 series.

Bundling games costs either manufacturer very little. It moves a large amount of copies of the game, and promotes sales of the gpu in question. Its a win win, pay $15-$20 for a game code, bundle it in with your cards free of charge, and the developer is happy, amd is pushing cards, both make money and get a user base.

NVidia's better drivers (especially for multi-GPU), CUDA, PhysX, better games support via TWIMTBP, Adaptive V-Sync, higher energy efficiency, GPU Boost, and quality partners like eVGA make the GTX 660 Ti a competitive card anyway. Plus some people can't go above a certain wattage on the 12v rail thanks to their PSU; or have cases that will not easily fit a HD 7950. Also, some people really want Borderlands 2 and those who don't can give it away or sell it for a nice chunk of change.

Cuda is nifty, PhysX is overrated, agreed with better developer support. Energy efficiency is there, albeit not quite as drastic as everyone makes it out to be.

To be completely honest, psus are not god awful expensive, they're worth replacing with every new build. I agree some people have small cases, and its great theres smaller card options. Anyone unwilling to put money into a decent psu and a larger case wouldn't be looking at high end anyways, or they would get these things to begin with.

Also, why is direct compute so underrated. Its, if anything, superior to PhysX. AMD does loads better at it than Nvidia, but since its not as widely used, its completely shadowed by an inferior software.

 

[blastingcap]

I revised my post before someone (in this case it was you) would nit pick on it. Gaming bundles have never affected the msrp of gpus, why would it now. I know you missed my revision, but i said give it a few days for the new bundle to kick in. The gtx 600 series is not seeing price hikes for Borderlands 2 being bundled to it, why would the HD 7800 series.

Bundling games costs either manufacturer very little. It moves a large amount of copies of the game, and promotes sales of the gpu in question. Its a win win, pay $15-$20 for a game code, bundle it in with your cards free of charge, and the developer is happy, amd is pushing cards, both make money and get a user base.

I had a legitimate question, no need to be hostile, bro. Because I remember when the springtime price drop announcement + 3forFree deal came on, it actually RAISED prices on 79xx cards temporarily. I remember this very clearly as I was in the market for one or two 79xx cards at the time and was keeping a close eye on prices at major etailers.

 

[zaydq]

I had a legitimate question, no need to be hostile, bro. Because I remember when the springtime price drop announcement + 3forFree deal came on, it actually RAISED prices on 79xx cards temporarily. I remember this very clearly as I was in the market for one or two 79xx cards at the time and was keeping a close eye on prices at major etailers.

I know you missed my revision

Not being hostile, i sincerely acknowledged you missed my revision and was merely posting you missed some key points. No trouble from me

With the 660ti released, arguments, trolling, flame wars have sprung up on the video card board. I'm not looking to get involved in any of the said behaviour.

 

[Red Hawk]

NVidia's better drivers (especially for multi-GPU), CUDA, PhysX, better games support via TWIMTBP, Adaptive V-Sync, higher energy efficiency, GPU Boost, and quality partners like eVGA make the GTX 660 Ti a competitive card anyway. Plus some people can't go above a certain wattage on the 12v rail thanks to their PSU; or have cases that will not easily fit a HD 7950. Also, some people really want Borderlands 2 and those who don't can give it away or sell it for a nice chunk of change.

AMD has been upping their game with developer support over the past couple years. Dragon Age II, Total War Shogun 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the Dirt series, Sniper Elite V2, and most recently Sleeping Dogs have all received Gaming Evolved support.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

NVidia's better drivers (especially for multi-GPU), CUDA, PhysX, better games support via TWIMTBP, Adaptive V-Sync, higher energy efficiency, GPU Boost, and quality partners like eVGA make the GTX 660 Ti a competitive card anyway. Plus some people can't go above a certain wattage on the 12v rail thanks to their PSU; or have cases that will not easily fit a HD 7950. Also, some people really want Borderlands 2 and those who don't can give it away or sell it for a nice chunk of change.

Honestly this has not been my experience at all.

5 nvidia cards, and 2 AMD cards later I can honestly say that I had more issues with the drivers on the nvidia side. This is more than likely due to the fact that I simply had more nvdia cards to experience problems with.

This lead me to the conclusion that anyone who switches between camps comes to and that is that both sides have driver issues, and neither is necessarily better than the other all things considered. The "AMD drivers are crap" concept is just something that the uninformed continue to perpetuate.

Nvidia drivers = AMD drivers

How many times do I have to say this? We're done debating AMD vs NV in this thread. Stop. For the love of God stop!
-ViRGE

 

[RussianSensation]

7850 - $190
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102998

There is no way a 660ti is worth $110 over this.

:thumbsup::thumbsup: I feel great about dumping my 6950 1.5 months ago. 7850 2GB for $190 is great. With OC on the 7850, that's ~7870 performance and within 10% of the GTX660Ti. Obviously GTX660Ti can also be overclocked but it doesn't scale that well since many reviews even show a 1300mhz 660Ti can't come close to a stock 670 overall.

 

[3DVagabond]

I love that there are actual options for performance in the GPU space. Hopefully the cpu issues with AMD won't spill over in to the GPU space.

If nVidia had the Fabs that Intel does, that might be a concern. GPU's is not a similar situation at all.

 

[3DVagabond]

Whomever brings the GTX580 level of performance at the $200 price point has my money. Unfortunately my GTX460 is still remarkably capable at 1080p, so the NEED really isn't there. Just that scratch that needs itching.

If the 7870 gets anywhere close to $200 bucks though, I'm in.

THIS is the review that started the whole 7850 overclocking rage. Originally the 7850 was reviewed only at stock voltages. When they started voltage tweaking them in reviews it opened the performance capabilities right up. Note that in this review the 7850 O/C'd has no trouble hanging with even heavily O/C'd 580's in 3D Mk11. Now, you might say that it's a canned benchmark and not games, and that's true enough. It happens to be a canned benchmark though that GCN isn't particularly strong in.

 

[Crap Daddy]

This is the only review found with a MSI 7850 clocked at an astonishing 1250MHz:

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/47...ion_overclocked_video_card_review/index2.html

Although the game selection is poor you get the picture. Of course not all cards can get that high and stable but the 7850 proved to be quite a card if you take into account overclocking.

 

[sandorski]

Only a few months left for 7xxx before switching to 8xxx manufacture. May as well grab as much volume as possible.

 

[Silverforce11]

NVidia's better drivers (especially for multi-GPU), CUDA, PhysX, better games support via TWIMTBP, Adaptive V-Sync, higher energy efficiency, GPU Boost, and quality partners like eVGA make the GTX 660 Ti a competitive card anyway. Plus some people can't go above a certain wattage on the 12v rail thanks to their PSU; or have cases that will not easily fit a HD 7950. Also, some people really want Borderlands 2 and those who don't can give it away or sell it for a nice chunk of change.

There's no doubt anything NV makes will sell well relative to AMD. It's just that most consumers dont a) research b) care about factors such as perf/$ or perf/w etc. They've used one brand and they stick with it, cos it worked, why change??

 

[Silverforce11]

This is the only review found with a MSI 7850 clocked at an astonishing 1250MHz:

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/47...ion_overclocked_video_card_review/index2.html

Although the game selection is poor you get the picture. Of course not all cards can get that high and stable but the 7850 proved to be quite a card if you take into account overclocking.

It's average summed up OC from oc.net and other forums is ~1.2ghz.

I haven't investigated 7950 as much but looks like the average is around 1.15ghz or similar. Essentially these 2nd tier cards OC on average to the same OC as 7870 and 7970. Clock for clock, perf difference vs the higher tier is a few %, hardly worth paying so much extra for.

 

[3DVagabond]

Newegg has the HIS IceQ 7950 for $320. No rebate Free shipping.

Just thought I'd throw this in here. Not really worth starting it's own thread, IMO. This card is unique amongst the aftermarket crowd because it uses a centrifugal blower style cooler. Don't be fooled though. It easily holds it's own against the dual/triple fan types and exhausts all of the air out of the case for those who desire that setup. Personally I would always opt for a cooler that exhausts the hot air outside the case if it performs equal to the dual axial designs.

Drawback is it's a bit bigger using just over 2slots and is ~6" (160mm) wide. Some cases with side fans might have issues accommodating it.

This is worse case while bitcoin mining, and for the temp readings it was in a closed case. It was the only card that ran as cool as on an open bench. The benefit of pushing it's own hot air out of the case.

Edit: This is also a 900MHz version in the review. The stock clocked unit should be cooler or quieter. Not that it matters much as we're all likely to O/C the living daylights out of it anyway.