AMD to introduce its Radeon R9 300-series lineup at Computex

[ShintaiDK]

Did you just look at the graph and ignore it?

I assume you want some kind of focus on Q2 2014. Rather than to look on the normalized trend. Because you want....what?

 

[Qwertilot]

Only one remotely significant looking shift on that graph (in Q3 2014.). The rest must all be well within the error margins on the measurement.

 

[3DVagabond]

Only one remotely significant looking shift on that graph (in Q3 2014.). The rest must all be well within the error margins on the measurement.

Where do you get the margin of error from? Those figures are taken from actual units sold. It's not an estimate.

 

[Qwertilot]

Surely they don't track every single retailer in detail? It'd be a fairly insane effort vs a decent sampling method The other thing is of course plain random fluctuations.

You could (probably should mentally) replace that graph with a straight line 40/60 split for the years in question, and an outlier measurement at the end of it. Whether that is really long term significant or not, we'll see.

 

[3DVagabond]

No. These are not sales at retail. They are sales to the AIB's by AMD and nVidia.

 

[blastingcap]

You need to look at the trend. Nothing out of the ordinary was changed before Q3.

AMD was losing marketshare very slowly in the overall trend, until Q3. Then it collapsed for them. And we know this continued in Q4. And most likely will in Q1. AMD just havent anything to counter with.

Desktop consumer AIB is only part of the overall market and only part of why AMD is hurting. The future is and continues to be mobile, where energy efficiency is king (Maxwell wins easily).

Even on desktop, there are certain wattage thresholds at 75W and 150W (zero to one PCIe 6-pin connector) that prebuilt computers often come with. At 75W you can get crap from AMD, or the 750 Ti which runs under 75W even overclocked to ~GTX 660 speeds. At 150W you are limited to R7 series on the AMD side. Yet you can run a GTX 960 (1 6-pin PCIe) on the NV side.

The people on this forum have unusually powerful desktop systems... fringe enthusiast systems, many of which are heavily modified prebuilts, or computers that we built ourselves.

But back in the real world, most people have weaker desktops, if they have any desktops at all... laptops and tablets are taking over a big chunk of personal computers.

 

[B-Riz]

While we all want shiny new faster things, the 290(x), 295x and 285 being the last AMD releases make sense.

When 290(x) launched, the next big game engine was Frostbite 3, and they were prepared for that, and had Mantle to throw in as a "hey look what can be done" freebie for gamers.

GCN 1.2 and 1.1 cards were the line in the sand before a re-design to GCN 2.0 or whatever is next.

This had to be known when 290(x) was released; the calculated risk was that they were going to stay competitive with the games / engines on the market.

I am thinking the coming 300 series is a complete product stack overhaul, for reduced power consumption and feature addition.

 

[RussianSensation]

While we all want shiny new faster things, the 290(x), 295x and 285 being the last AMD releases make sense.

As I said before the theory of mostly re-brands has a lot of illogical fallacies about it:

1) You can't fit a 390 300W TDP series card inside a laptop's 100-125W TDP limits. Tonga barely got any design wins in laptops and AMD can't use Pitcairn for yet another 1.5 years as it's a 3-year-old design. Therefore, for laptop space, nearly a full overhaul is required. Unless people believe AMD has abandoned the mobile dGPU space forever, we shall see various completely new R9 300M products not related to Pitcairn, Tahiti or Hawaii. While there might be 1-2 re-brands with Tonga, there will need to be all-new 300M DX12 products specifically made for laptops.

2) If they just re-badge R9 280X/285/290/290X, what are they going to accomplish? Those cards hardly sell today at bottom prices. If you needed to re-badge those cards and nothing else, they could have called them 370/370X/380/380X as of January 1, 2015. Why wait so long? Just change the stickers on the GPUs and boxes and sell that "old" inventory as new 300 series. Also, all NV needs to do is drop 970 to $249 to neutralize all of these re-badges. So that doesn't work either. One explanation why you want to clear inventory of your old products is that your new line-up will make them so obsolete and outdated that it would be nearly impossible to sell them without millions of dollars of losses. It's similar to how NV delayed launching lower end GTX600 cards when they had 120,000 of GTX570 stock. I don't remember anyone making claims that because NV delayed GTX660/660Ti launches that those cards were going to be Fermi re-brands.....

Many sources have already stated for months now that AMD's AIBs reduced orders for R9 200 series of cards. If AMD was simply rebranding most of R9 200 series, AIBs would instead have asked AMD to launch R9 200 as 300 series and keep inventory flowing. Reviews would reveal that R9 370/370X/380/380X have solved none of the issues of R9 280/290 cards and no one would buy them for 1.5 years. Why would AIBs want to voluntarily start ordering less 2011-2013 Coca-Cola only just to order more of the same 2015 Coca-Cola 3 months later? That makes no sense!

3) AMD has stated that ALL new GPUs after 200 series will support Adaptive Sync. You need a redesigned ASIC for this feature which means AMD can't just reuse Pitcairn and Tahiti any longer. It's too expensive to just redesign the ASIC for the FreeSync feature alone.

4) It seems almost inconceivable that AMD would have a mid-range 290/290X rebadged as 380/380X using 250W+ power and yet the flagship 390/390X also use 275-300W?

5) If 390/390X are monster 500mm2+ HBM designs, the gap between a 290X re-badged as a 380X and 390/390X will be way too large performance wise.

6) Why would AMD spend 1.5 years to just release 2 new SKUs that target < 10% of all PC gamers ($400+ desktop cards) and everything else is re-badged? I know some people on our forum think $400+ desktop GPU market is all that matters but AMD isn't about to ignore 90% of the desktop market and the laptop market by putting all their eggs in 1 basket with a 390X HBM card.

The most telling is if AMD were going to do mostly re-badges, why would they be worried about having millions of unsold Pitcairn, Tahiti and Hawaii chips? Surely 4-5 months ago AMD would have known that yes they are going to re-brand 80% of their line-up and starting Jan 1, 2015, everything will just be called R9 300 series besides R9 390/390X. Even if AMD had excess supply, they would just stock-pile them and print R9 370/370X/380/380X boxes. They wouldn't be that worried about inventory management in such a situation.

That's why to me the 2 new SKUs only and everything else for desktop and laptops being re-brands sounds like a total FUD theory being pushed by the media that has been unable to get any key information on AMD's line-up.

my thinking is that AMD's reference design will be water cooled so reviewers won't be criticizing temps and that AIB vendors will provide their own air cooled design

That's exactly it. The initial launch reviews of R9 290/290X reference cards (and 7970Ghz) forever tarnished their reputation with most of the market viewing them a hot, loud and power hungry. R9 290 was an amazing value card against 780/780Ti. Just look back in hindsight and R9 290 was $400 vs. $650 780 and $700 780Ti! Even after 780 dropped to $500 it was still a bad value and had just 3GB of VRAM. Today it's obvious as ever. It took NV a whopping 11 months to beat an R9 290 by 5-7% for $70 less with a 970. If R9 290 was an NV card and it took AMD a whopping 11 months to beat it by 5-7% for $70 less, most PC gamers would laugh at such an effort by AMD. Yet, reviewers and gamers praised NV. Talk about marketing spin. In the amount of time that passed since R9 290 came out at $399, 970 hardly changed the landscape for gaming in terms of actual performance but because of how well it was marketed by reviewers and by reviewers bashed the reference R9 290, the 290 seems like a total write-off in comparison all this time. It's unbelievable that it took NV nearly a year to barely beat a $400 AMD card by less than 10% for $330. Other than HDMI 2.0 and lower power usage, 970 brought nothing to the table in terms of moving the performance at the sub-$400 price level. In fact, most after-market R9 290 cards were already selling for $350-375 for several months prior to 970's launch. Therefore, AMD's $399 MSRP was long outdated.

Even when after-market R9 290 cards came out with performance = 290X, almost no one bought them for $400 still as gamers kept buying 770 4GB, 780 and 780Ti. The damage of a terrible reference cooler has been done. Now reviewers won't be able to talk about the card running at 95C while operating at obnoxious noise levels. I still think the usual NV-favoured sites will pimp 6GB of VRAM by downplaying 4GB on the 390X, despite not even mentioning 2GB as a bottleneck on a 960 on day 1 in their glowing reviews, and will try to spin WC as a negative by implying that "AMD needed to resort to WC because air cooling wasn't sufficient to cool their cards" instead of "AMD is working towards improving a reference cooling solution in delivering superior temperatures and noise levels which means the evolution of cooling in the enthusiast segment and moving from air to water". I also think huge fuss will be made over 50W of extra power usage but the pricing delta will be more or less ignored because Price/performance seems to have fallen out of favour in terms of PR/marketing vs. perf/watt.

 

[theeedude]

I think the good news everyone is ignoring from this leak is that AMD expects to stay solvent at least till June.

 

[DownTheSky]

As I said before the theory of mostly re-brands has a lot of illogical fallacies about it:

1) You can't fit a 390 300W TDP series card inside a laptop's 100-125W TDP limits. Tonga barely got any design wins in laptops and AMD can't use Pitcairn for yet another 1.5 years as it's a 3-year-old design. Therefore, for laptop space, nearly a full overhaul is required. Unless people believe AMD has abandoned the mobile dGPU space forever, we shall see various completely new R9 300M products not related to Pitcairn, Tahiti or Hawaii. While there might be 1-2 re-brands with Tonga, there will need to be all-new 300M DX12 products specifically made for laptops.

Sure you can. Lower the clocks and lower the voltage.

 

[Kuiva maa]

^^^THIS^^^

nVidia was starting to bleed market share.

It was just the miners buying everything they could find,retailers sold out then ordered more from AMD.Then gpu mining collapsed and all those cards found their way to 2nd hand and refurbished market and this was evident around summer.GM204 came 1 or 2 weeks before Q3 2014 expired,many countries barely scored sales during that window.If GM204 was the reason for the decline ,lower prices would ameliorate that.Unfortunately for AMD customers largely buy even cheaper used radeons,stores which are full with unsold cards won't order new ones and their market share collapsed.New maxwell cards were the icing on the cake.Even a full range of new cards might not be enough for AMD to fix this mess with unsold volume.

 

[Enigmoid]

I still think the usual NV-favoured sites will pimp 6GB of VRAM by downplaying 4GB on the 390X, despite not even mentioning 2GB as a bottleneck on a 960 on day 1 in their glowing reviews...

To be honest you can't complain about the 970's 3.5 GB (yes you can complain about Nvidia's sneakiness but not about the 3.5 GB limit) if you accept that a card ~50% faster than a 290X has the same amount of vram as the 290x.

If 3.5 GB on the 970 isn't enough then 4 GB on a card ~50-60% faster isn't enough either.

 

[Techhog]

Well, I definitely called the direction of this thread! Bias on both sides and assumptions being thrown around, yet little about the actual topic being said.

 

[ElFenix]

really don't get why 290s aren't flying off the shelves. best value in graphics right now.

even assuming it actually uses 100 watts more at the wall, that's 10 hours of gaming before you've reached a kilowatt. if you game 3 hours a day, that's 10 kilowatts in a month. at US prices, that's about a dollar a month.

 

[Ramses]

really don't get why 290s aren't flying off the shelves. best value in graphics right now.

even assuming it actually uses 100 watts more at the wall, that's 10 hours of gaming before you've reached a kilowatt. if you game 3 hours a day, that's 10 kilowatts in a month. at US prices, that's about a dollar a month.

I sure bought one and wish I'd bought two. My flavor of choice is out of stock now, so someone is. Heck of a card for the money still.

 

[FatherMurphy]

I think AMD pushing the 300 series' release back until it can clear inventory of the 200 series is potentially a bad sign, and a forecast that the top end 300 series GPU (Fiji) does not perform that much better than Hawaii.

Here is my thinking. The only reason the release of the 390x/390 would interfere with the sales of the 290x/290 is if the 390x/390 is released in the same price ranges or performance ranges as the 290x/290. If, for example, the 390x is a larger die with expensive HBM and a fancy water cooler, and comes in at 50% faster than the 290x, there is no way AMD will sell that part any near the price range where the 290x sits. Under that scenario, the 390x likely comes in at $500 or more, because it would beat a 980 while maintaining similar price/performance as the 290x.

If I can sell the 390x at $500 or $550, and I could release it now (i.e. barring supply constraints or other issues keeping AMD from getting the 390x to the market in March), releasing a part at that price with that kind of performance would put it in a different market than the 290x. People who want top tier will buy the 390x, people looking for mid-range bargains would keep buying the 290x.

On the other hand, if the 390x is not such a great jump in performance/feature set over the 290x, then bringing the 390x to market now would encroach on the 290x's price/performance market segment.

This thinking, of course, wouldn't apply to the release of a new mid-range ASIC that would perform like Hawaii but at a much lower TDP and better feature set. I can understand why AMD would hold off releasing such a new card until inventory of 290/290x depletes. See, for example, the GTX570/GTX660 situation RussianSensation brought up.

My hope, of course, is that the real reason AMD has apparently delayed the introduction of the 390/390x is that it anticipates really high demand because it has a really competitive product, and it cannot meet its expected demand due to supply issues (e.g. securing enough HBM memory). So, it is building inventory of the 390x/390 over these next two months.

 

[Madpacket]

At current prices in most areas anyone who buys a 970 over a 290 for a primary gaming system is essentially an utter moron who just likes to waste money (I have both cards). The 970 is only useful for tight ITX areas with the short PCB's they have on offer. They really cost too much money for what they offer compared to what AMD has and the 980 is simply a joke at the current price.

Warning issued for inflammatory language.
-- stahlhart

 

[FatherMurphy]

I'm not trying to pick a fight Madpacket, but that's a pretty ridiculous overstatement (and off topic). At 2560x1440, the 970 gives you slightly better performance (~5%) while using ~80W less power. That's a significant reduction in the amount of heat spilling out of one's PC case. And that is before overclocking, which the 970 is far superior at doing while maintaining its efficiency. In Georgia, where I live, the summers are really damn hot, and I welcome the reduction in the heat dissipation (I suffered through a GA summer with SLI GTX 470s... yikes). That's not to mention the Nvidia software ecosystem that might attract a potential buyer to pick a 970 over the 290. In other words, there are plenty of reasons--other than being an "utter moron who just likes to waste money"--why someone might purchase the 970 with its price premium over the 290. IMHO....

 

[Ramses]

It's situational, that's for sure. I live in a very mild climate and have a very good flowing case, the 290x is way cooler running than the pair of 280x I had and even those were not an issue. At 1080p with the money thing and the whole incorrect spec debacle it was enough to turn me off on em. $300 is about my limit on a single component, so.. 290x it was.

 

[RussianSensation]

The

I think the good news everyone is ignoring from this leak is that AMD expects to stay solvent at least till June.

AMD is not going anywhere.

1. Their business model is now diversified enough that 50% of their business comes from non-PC sector.

2. Mubadala invested $10B into GloFo and GloFo depends on contracts with major sellers of chips to justify new fabs. AMD is one such key customer. If AMD needs $, Mubadala will sustain AMD since their investment in GloFo is way more costly than providing AMD with another $1B capital if required in case of an emergency.

3. Even with struggling GPU and CPU segments, AMD makes sufficient income from console contracts on PS4/XB1 to survive well into 2H of 2016. At that point AMD will be very close to launching all new Zen CPU, 14nm GPUs won't be far away and of course we'll soon find out that AMD won a major contract for Nintendo's next generation gaming device/console.

If AMD went under, who would manufacture the APU's in XB1 and PS4? Considering how heavily Sony has bet on the PlayStation brand this round, it would be catastrophic to their own strategy. As far as MS goes, they lost an astounding $4 Billion when they went Intel+NV with the Original XB.

Right now too many key players depend on AMD. Also, top management at MediaTek and Nintendo wouldn't even commit to new projects with AMD if they really thought the firm was close to bankruptcy. You will read a lot of FUD and anti-AMD propaganda but much to the chagrin to the naysayers and those who wish for AMD to be dead, AMD isn't going anywhere any time soon. AMD messed up badly with Bulldozer, 2900XT and delayed 300 series but considering AMD was basically MIA in laptops for 3 years, it's almost a shoe in that 300M will gain market share against NV in 2H of 2016.

Sure you can. Lower the clocks and lower the voltage.

That's not logical. Have you ever tried taking a 290X/7970Ghz and lowering clocks and voltage to see what it takes to get it to 100W? AMD would use a mid-range 300M card for a 100W TDP product. Your theory doesn't work because neither 7970 nor 290X could ever be downclocked/downvoltaged to a 100W TDP in a laptop. If that was possible from a performance and financial point of view, such options would have been provided. AMD/NV/ATi do not take 250-275W chips and downclock them to 100W. That's now how chip design for laptops works.

To be honest you can't complain about the 970's 3.5 GB (yes you can complain about Nvidia's sneakiness but not about the 3.5 GB limit) if you accept that a card ~50% faster than a 290X has the same amount of vram as the 290x.

If 3.5 GB on the 970 isn't enough then 4 GB on a card ~50-60% faster isn't enough either.

If 390X has major stuttering issues with 4GB of VRAM compared to GM200, I'll favour GM200. 970's problems clearly aren't only VRAM related. In some cases it loses badly against the 780Ti in frame times where VRAM doesn't exceed 3GB on the 780Ti, which can be attributed to poorly optimized drivers for the 970.

Also, your comparison would ONLY work if GM200 was just 5% faster and not much more $ as is the case of an after-market 290 vs. 970. The reason 3.5GB of VRAM and 970's stuttering is brought up is because the 970 costs more than an after-market 290 while barely faster, while a 290X actually beats a 970 at 1440P and up. Since I don't know the pricing of 390X vs. GM200, nor their performance, I can't say anything about how important the 4GB VRAM limitation on the 390X is. For example, if GM200 is just 10% faster but costs $749 and 390X is $549, then in that case 4GB is a decent trade-off for saving $200 to me. However, if GM200 is 15-20% faster for $150 more, well that's a completely different story. We can't talk about 4GB vs. 6GB here because we don't know price/performance and absolute performance. In the case of 970 it's a big deal since it costs more and performs worse than 290X at higher resolutions. Its price/performance is also really bad against an after-market 290 in Canada and often in the US.

really don't get why 290s aren't flying off the shelves. best value in graphics right now.

even assuming it actually uses 100 watts more at the wall, that's 10 hours of gaming before you've reached a kilowatt. if you game 3 hours a day, that's 10 kilowatts in a month. at US prices, that's about a dollar a month.

It's all about perception, marketing, branding for the average consumer. Seen threads in non-tech savvy forums like Vgchartz or Gamespot? Gamers just hear that R9 290 series run hot, loud, use as much power as a village in Africa and they don't even look at after-market cards or performance characteristics. In Canada, you can find an after-market 290 for 30-40% less than an after-market 970. Right now a 295X2 costs $599 which means when CF is completely broken it's 10-15% slower than a 980 but when CF works, it's a whopping 35-55% faster. The disparity is shocking and yet people are buying the 980.

Look at after-market 290 that matches 960 SLI for $50 more only but review sites are hardly praising the amazing value of an after-market 290. Sites like TechReport and TechPowerUP are giving Gold Awards to a 2GB VRAM crippled 960 after slamming the 285 and there is hardly a mention that cool & quiet after-market 290s can often be found for $240-260 with rebates.

Haven't you seen where the average PC gamer thinks a 280X and 290 require a 750W PSU to run?

I think AMD pushing the 300 series' release back until it can clear inventory of the 200 series is potentially a bad sign, and a forecast that the top end 300 series GPU (Fiji) does not perform that much better than Hawaii.

AMD never announced a release date for 300 series which means technically there is no delay. AMD hasn't even made any official statement as to their desire to launch the entire 300 series at once, or do a partial roll-out. All we get are sites posting rumours. For all we know AMD knew 6 months ago that 300 series launch was scheduled around Computex. Even Gibbo stated so months ago, way before these rumours.

It's quite possible there are supply constrained issues that AMD wants to alleviate or perhaps they want to get AIBs to have after-market cards ready too. Perhaps they want to nail the drivers starting day 1. There are all kinds of reasons that may have little to do with how the performance stacks up against a 290X. For example, what if AMD initially wanted to price 390X at $499 because they thought GM200 would be a beastly product. Then we see Titan X launch at $1350 and AMD sees the benches and notices that their card is 90% as fast, 95% as fast, or faster. All of a sudden AMD can change their strategy and push 390X Platinum Edition at $599, 390X at $549, 390 non-X at $449. That's a huge difference compared to starting off at $499.

Of course I just provided a hypothetical example. However, I think AMD really didnt' like the fact that Kepler 670/680 took the wind out of their 7950/7970 sales and they want to repeat 290/290X launch of making NV's prices look high but now with a great reference cooler and wide availability. If they know where Titan X lands, they basically know where GM200 will land and it gives them a lot more information to adjust launch pricing.

I'm not trying to pick a fight Madpacket, but that's a pretty ridiculous overstatement (and off topic). At 2560x1440, the 970 gives you slightly better performance (~5%) while using ~80W less power.

And that is WHY AMD failed completely to communicate how good their 290 cards actually are.

An after-market R9 290 like Club 3D Royal Ace > 290X. 290X is 4% faster than a 970 at 1440p. That means it takes a an overclocked after-market 970 to beat an after-market 290 by 5% because it has to make up 9% of performance disadvantage at 1440p.

MSi Gaming 970 = $477 CDN after rebate and taxes
R9 290 Club 3D = $339 CDN after taxes (so 970 costs 41% more for 5% more performance as you say. Holly cow!)

But don't forget the 960.

The cheapest 960 at the same store is $293 CDN after tax. Essentially for $50 more over the 960, a 290 offers double the VRAM and at least 45% more performance. Nearly no one should be buying a 960 and yet it sells like hot cakes.

This has a lot to do with R9 300 launch execution based on the lessons AMD hopefully learned with R9 200. AMD needs to more effectively communicate to reviewers the price/performance, absolute performance and availability of solid after-market cool and quiet options. Meaning AMD should seriously ditch all reference blower cards as far as launch reviews are concerned.

What do you see in nearly every 960/970 review? A complete lack of reference models. NV basically provides reviewers with after-market 960/970 cards and pretends those represent reference models. Did you ever see a reference 970 reviewed by TechReport or TechPowerup or AnandTech? NV is using the best after-market cards in reviews like MSI Gaming or Gigabyte G1 and that's all the user sees as a reference point for 960/970 performance. AMD needs to do exactly the same. No more reference blower cards. Send ONLY after-market factory pre-overclocked cards like Sapphire Trix, Asus DCUII, Gigabyte Windforce. It's unbelievable to me that AMD still hasn't figured this out.

Let's see now, the factory clocks of a 970 are 1178mhz but sites review 1329mhz GTX970. Then gamers remember how a highly overclocked MSI Gaming 970 beat out a stock 290/290X and they just remember 145W TDP. Amazingly misleading marketing but it works.

 

[Madpacket]

I'm not trying to pick a fight Madpacket, but that's a pretty ridiculous overstatement (and off topic). At 2560x1440, the 970 gives you slightly better performance (~5%) while using ~80W less power. That's a significant reduction in the amount of heat spilling out of one's PC case. And that is before overclocking, which the 970 is far superior at doing while maintaining its efficiency. In Georgia, where I live, the summers are really damn hot, and I welcome the reduction in the heat dissipation (I suffered through a GA summer with SLI GTX 470s... yikes). That's not to mention the Nvidia software ecosystem that might attract a potential buyer to pick a 970 over the 290. In other words, there are plenty of reasons--other than being an "utter moron who just likes to waste money"--why someone might purchase the 970 with its price premium over the 290. IMHO....

Fair enough my words were a bit harsh and off topic but not ridiculous. I just hate seeing (as I own both cards) how the 290 is treated like a redheaded stepchild when it's a very good card (arguably better at higher resolutions and in mullti card situations) for the price. Yes it can be situational but you better have a darn good reason to spend an extra $100+ on something that's almost a wash performance wise.

I also have a hard time believing someone would have an issue cooling an aftermarket 290 vs. a 970 if using at least a decent mid tower ATX case (if you can afford either card you will likely be able to afford a decent case). They both give off considerable heat but not really enough to warrant a major change in air case flow management. Most aftermarket 290's have incredibly good heatsinks and the heat they dump can be managed with proper airflow (which all decent cases should already have).

As for the other areas (eco systems) they both have their pros and cons. Nvidia is not really much further ahead like they used to be but *that* I agree is situational.

Also, living in Georgia I'm sure you already have air conditioning where cooling an extra 80w of heat (only while gaming mind you) would be of little consequence to your TCO.

 

[FatherMurphy]

AMD never announced a release date for 300 series which means technically there is no delay. AMD hasn't even made any official statement as to their desire to launch the entire 300 series at once, or do a partial roll-out. All we get are sites posting rumours. For all we know AMD knew 6 months ago that 300 series launch was scheduled around Computex. Even Gibbo stated so months ago, way before these rumours.

It's quite possible there are supply constrained issues that AMD wants to alleviate or perhaps they want to get AIBs to have after-market cards ready too. Perhaps they want to nail the drivers starting day 1. There are all kinds of reasons that may have little to do with how the performance stacks up against a 290X. For example, what if AMD initially wanted to price 390X at $499 because they thought GM200 would be a beastly product. Then we see Titan X launch at $1350 and AMD sees the benches and notices that their card is 90% as fast, 95% as fast, or faster. All of a sudden AMD can change their strategy and push 390X Platinum Edition at $599, 390X at $549, 390 non-X at $449. That's a huge difference compared to starting off at $499.

Of course I just provided a hypothetical example. However, I think AMD really didnt' like the fact that Kepler 670/680 took the wind out of their 7950/7970 sales and they want to repeat 290/290X launch of making NV's prices look high but now with a great reference cooler and wide availability. If they know where Titan X lands, they basically know where GM200 will land and it gives me a lot more information to adjust launch pricing.

Your point is well-made (i.e. that AMD hasn't technically delayed a launch that it hadn't officially scheduled) but the gist of the article cited in the OP is that AMD could launch the 300 series right now, but has elected to wait until its partners can sell of excess 200 series inventory. Assuming the author of the article knows what he is talking about (that's a big IF), then we aren't looking at a lot of other, legitimate reasons AMD might be refraining from launching the 300 series now. Instead, you have to ask "well, if AMD is simply waiting to move the remaining 200 series inventory, how would launching the 300 series affect the sales of the 200 series." Thus, the point of my point.

I'm inclined to believe that the KitGuru article is poppycock, old ideas and speculation published for ad clicks. Like you said, Gibbo posted several months ago that AMD wouldn't have anything new until May 2015.

 

[FatherMurphy]

Fair enough my words were a bit harsh and off topic but not ridiculous. I just hate seeing (as I own both cards) how the 290 is treated like a redheaded stepchild when it's a very good card (arguably better at higher resolutions and in mullti card situations) for the price. Yes it can be situational but you better have a darn good reason to spend an extra $100+ on something that's almost a wash performance wise.

I've never owned a 290/290x, but having read dozens of GPU reviews since they launched, I completely agree that they are really solid chips (and good cards as long as aftermarket coolers are used) and on most metrics do not fall as far behind Nvidia's equivalents as the perception might be.

But that's on AMD. Perception is part of the competitive battle for sales, and they are losing/lost the perception tug of war when it comes to the 200 series. They not only need to put good hardware out, package that hardware in competitive AIBs, but also do a better job of marketing their products and changing the perception that AMD technology is a "red-headed step child."

 

[Enigmoid]

@Russian

When the 980 launched you wanted more than 4 GB on it. Now 4 GB is perfectly fine with a card 30-50% faster.

Total 180 there.

Not sure why you pick the cheapest 290X and a more expensive 970 which start at $410. Its been shown from multiple reviews that pretty much all 970s reach at least 1450 mhz with most reaching ~1500 mhz on the core so there really isn't too much to gain from an expensive aftermarket edition.

The club3d card is $299 but is out of stock, in store only, and no exchanges or returns after 7 days. Not something easy to buy and not something with a lot of piece of mind.

Or you can get a cheaper 970 for $380

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_1200_557_559&item_id=076678

Then again these cards are only available at certain locations and inventory is low. Lets leave them out of the discussion for the average canadian buying a GPU its not something they are going to consider.

Or why the 960 has to be from a specific store when you are buying over the internet.

960 start at $240-250.

On the internet the cheapest 290/290x are $339. The cheapest in stock 970 is about $410. $70 difference.

The 970 doesn't have a common reference model. You might find a couple from bestbuy or somewhere else but Nvidia never officially launched a reference 970.

 

[Ramses]

Are those canadian prices? Bit lower at newegg in the US. I paid $309 before taxed and free shipping for a 290x a few weeks ago, it hit $280 before it sold out. There are a couple in that range still, non-x a bit less. I notice some 970's way cheaper than they were too, pretty early on to be cutting prices so much.