It seems that the HD6850 1GB has risen in price!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It seems that the HD6850 1GB is now around £150 at most retailers.

This XFX card was £134 and within a week has risen by around £23:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-x...-dl-dvi-i-hdmi

[amarcus]

Jeeze, not this again... Better not be like the 5xxx series that took an eternity to go back down to its original msrp.

Adam

[barker967]

Supply and demand.

[UseItNow]

Looks like my HTPC will have to wait a bit more for the planned upgrade on the GPU, should have ordered it on Friday but wanted to see what the 6900 parts are like!

[subucni]

Likewise, was planning on a new card upgrade too but that's going to have to wait now. Was originally hoping to grab a cheaper or 2nd hand 5770 but at the bang for buck ratio the 6850 was giving at £130 i was tempted to splash out a little more, but had to wait until yesterday to get my car's MOT done incase of any surprises. But alas the price has already jumped up £25 which is a bit much for me, and until the price falls again i don't see the 5770 prices moving much if at all really.

At least scan managed to hold out until monday morning before the prices went up, unlike ebuyer and others who's prices went up, pretty much the next day. found myself heading to the scan page several times a day over the weekend just to see if the price had shifted up yet. Unfortunately the price just didnt hold long enough for me.

Oh well at least by the time i get around to one hopefully a few benchmarks of the different brands tested against each other will have come out, would quite like to see the Sapphire vs the XFX card to see who wins on cooling and noise.

[scaryjim]

Even at £150 the bang for buck on the 6850 is pretty damn good. I think the £133 cards at launch were some kind of aberration, as performance-wise the card sits nicely at £150 compared to the other ATI cards, and it's not far off the right price compared to the GTX460s, even after the price hacks. Since the 6850 is very competitive performance-wise against stock clocked GTX460s, there's no need for ATI to get into a price war over it - they can set their pricing where they think is appropriate. It's telling that nvidia felt they *had* to cut the price of the GTX460 to keep it competitive.

Let's not forget that the 6850 has a die only 70% the size of the GTX460, or to look at it another way, ATI can make over 40% more 68x0 GPUs on each wafer than nvidia can make GTX460. That means each die is considerably cheaper for ATI to manufacture. The fact that nvidia are having to cut prices to remain competitive is testimony to just how efficient ATI's current architecture it. ATI's GPUs are cheaper to manufacture, so if ATI gets to the point where it feels it needs to push nvidia further, I'm sure they'll take a hatchet to the prices - I'm not sure nvidia have any more room to follow them. In the mean time, let's enjoy the fact that while ATI's new cards might not be as cheap as we'd like, they have forced nvidia to take an axe to their prices and that there's now a choice of good GPUs at around £150

[kalniel]

The only fly in that ointment is that nVidia get better prices from TSMC because their volume of orders is much higher. But still, smaller die is good for many reasons.

[GheeTsar]

The only fly in that ointment is that nVidia get better prices from TSMC because their volume of orders is much higher. But still, smaller die is good for many reasons.

I wonder how/if this position will change when Globalfoundries get established at 28nm. Hopefully it should decrease costs for both AMD and NVIDIA with the additional competition.

[Terbinator]

I wonder how/if this position will change when Globalfoundries get established at 28nm. Hopefully it should decrease costs for both AMD and NVIDIA with the additional competition.

But there will still be the established price brackets. the ~£400 super product will never go away.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The price rises IMHO are more likely due to UK retailers and/or their suppliers.

Until,the HD6850 1GB reaches around 130 quid again I am not considering it at all especially since the GTX460 1GB is available for nearly 140 quid now.

If companies like Sony are offering VAT back schemes for their products then upping prices of graphics cards by around 20% on a whim is annoying.

Of course since there are people who will pay above the odds for computer parts then of course companies will feel it is fine to up prices.

[Iron Sights]

I will hold out for a while, but lets not forget that the VAT will rise soon

[Terbinator]

Scan's cheapest one is Asus (i know some people only buy 'brands') and overclocked - whether that warrants £17 difference is up to you.

[Pob255]

Intresting comparrison for you (based off cheapest, in stock, no rebates, rounded up, direct conversion by XE.com)
newegg (note newegg does not include tax as the amount varies between state)
gtx460 768mb = $160 (£102)
6850 = $180 (£115)
gtx460 1gb = $190 (£121)

Scan
gtx460 768mb = £123
gtx460 = 1gb £143
6850 = £149

EDIT: But it doesn't surprise me, primary stocks always seem to go to the US frist so there's less new card price bumps and price cuts normally take longer to filter down to us in the UK, although I must say nvidia's price cuts seem to have filtered down to us very fast, far faster than intel, amd or ati (I'm still going to call them ATi)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Around £130 to £140 for the HD6850 seems to be correct pricing as this is equivalent to the US pricing with VAT.

Basically,the £10 to £20 extra is a mark up by UK retailers and suppliers. This early adopter tax seems to happen a lot with UK retailers.

[kalniel]

I will hold out for a while, but lets not forget that the VAT will rise soon

VAT is only going up by another 2.5% of the good's original price, the change in price here is more than 10% in a few days. Currency and market forces are going to play a much larger part than VAT increases

[Pob255]

Around £130 to £140 for the HD6850 seems to be correct pricing as this is equivalent to the US pricing with VAT.

Basically,the £10 to £20 extra is a mark up by UK retailers and suppliers. This early adopter tax seems to happen a lot with UK retailers.

From what I've read about the 6850 it was originally supposed to be the same cost as the gtx460 768mb but perfrom around/slightly ahead of the gtx460 1gb.
At £150 it would of been but nvidia lowered the prices and over here they've come down a lot fast than normal and by a far bigger chunk than normal price cuts.