RussianSensation
Elite Member
- Sep 5, 2003
- 19,458
- 765
- 126
I found it interesting that only 3,000,000 out of the 68,000,000 discrete cards sold were priced at $300 and above. I knew that bracket was the minority, but didn't know the arguably high end (I tend to think $450+ is a high end card) only accounts for about 4% of the market. That's a whole lot of GTX 550s/560s and 6850s/6870s and way down the line to HTPC cards.
It makes even more sense to me seeing $500 7970s now, considering the $300+ price point cards are only 4% of the market. Wish I knew what $500+ cards account for... 2% ? 1%?
Pricing such a small segment of the market lower isn't really smart, it looks like that is a segment of buyers that will buy $500 cards regardless - and paying less would just be a welcomed bonus, but not necessary to get them to open their wallets.![]()
Ya, exactly. From their point of view if someone is an enthusiast and wants to game on a high-end PC and not a console, they'll probably pony up $500+ anyway. Almost 2 years ago NV presented their market share breakdown and based on sales trends at the time > $199 segment only comprised 14%. OTOH, some people with older $250-350 GPUs might have upgraded to an HD790 if it wasn't $550. AMD probably calculated that the profits would be higher if they sold X units @ $550 than X+Y units @ $400.
With popular sub-$300 cards such as GTX550Ti/GTX460/470/560/560Ti, HD5770/6770/5850/6850/6870/6950, it's somewhat understandable that high-end discrete GPU market is so small. Rory Read probably saw this and realized how much $ it takes to keep making the highest-end GPUs. Consequently he probably realized that people who want the best single-GPU at the time will pay $450-550 for it. Realized that launching first is a key competitive advantage to capture those enthusiasts and decided it's time to raise prices. It would be interesting to see how much profit that 14% >$199 market brings.
Lulz at the current console market: MS is still trying to shove a $350 6-year-old console on gamers. Unbelievable considering a $140 HD6870 provides a very good gaming experience.
Last edited:
