Beans - All AMD Radeon HD 4890 prices set to drop massively?

[HEXUS]

A sudden price drop from a leading distributor has forced others to follow suit and created chaos in the channel.

Read more.

[misae]

Are these price drops happening because of news of speculation AMD may be dropping prices officially or XFX pulling from the arrangement with AMD as an AIB?

Or is the sky falling?

[The Jambo]

Are these price drops happening because of news of speculation AMD may be dropping prices officially or XFX pulling from the arrangement with AMD as an AIB?

Or is the sky falling?

Does it matter?

BUY BUY BUY!

[jackvdbuk]

Does it matter?

BUY BUY BUY!

you bought one then? im awfully tempted! though dont really need it!

the card i have now is doing ok. might just wait for next cards to be released, any news on them?

[funke_munke]

you bought one then? im awfully tempted! though dont really need it!

the card i have now is doing ok. might just wait for next cards to be released, any news on them?

Same here, was going to buy a new soundcard and some banging headphones, but now these prices are out there it's kind of hard to resist! I have a similar card to yours and was waiting for the next generation of cards too.

[Main]

I'd been wondering why it was only the one brand that had had the massive prices slashing...

Given that OCuk have XFX's 4890 black edition listed at ~£230, and that XFX cards in other countires are in line with the prices of others in those countries, it doesn't really look like something planned by XFX...

Still, make hay while the sun shines and all that - I'm also tempted by the cheap 4890s

[neologan]

my guess is that 70 cards being bought in this manner, possibly due to a poor distributor decision won't have any implications beyond what you've reported. They'll be sold, the price will go back to normal, the end.

[Caudovittatus]

If the 58xx series is imminent (maybe announced at Computex?) couldn't this be a distributor pre-empting further (deeper?) price drops. I'm not basing that on any concrete knowledge, just speculating... Wasn't it about this time last year that the 48xx's were released, and they normally release new products at similar times each year.

[borandi]

If the 58xx series is imminent (maybe announced at Computex?) couldn't this be a distributor pre-empting further (deeper?) price drops. I'm not basing that on any concrete knowledge, just speculating... Wasn't it about this time last year that the 48xx's were released, and they normally release new products at similar times each year.

Imminent in this case means end of august AT THE EARLIEST. That's still 3 months away.

hmm.. two 4890s in Crossfire looks tempting...

[Caudovittatus]

Imminent in this case means end of august AT THE EARLIEST. That's still 3 months away.

hmm.. two 4890s in Crossfire looks tempting...

A pair of 4890s in Crossfire is just what I was thinking (just speccing up for a new system build at the moment), but then the deals on 4870X2's are pretty good too (I know it's going to be slower than two 4890's but since you can get one for £240 it does look quite tempting too. The only thing that was making me hesitate was... if they're going to release something new in a couple of weeks, I'd rather go for that.

[SuGaR847]

If the 58xx series is imminent (maybe announced at Computex?) couldn't this be a distributor pre-empting further (deeper?) price drops. I'm not basing that on any concrete knowledge, just speculating... Wasn't it about this time last year that the 48xx's were released, and they normally release new products at similar times each year.

I was thinking the exact same thing. I know for my self that if a 58xx series is announced in 2 weeks I would prefer to wait until August to get the extra benefits (performance, power consumption, DX11, etc).

[scaryjim]

I do wonder what's happening with XFX. When their ATI cards were first released they were generally more expensive than the equivalent cards from other manufacturers, to the extent that their stock 4850 was only a few pounds cheaper than the cheapest 4870. Now they seem to have massively over-compensated in the other direction. Does make you wonder if there's some problems between XFX and ATI - or maybe XFX have just found a way to push out the cards at lower costs? While it's good for consumers, I do worry that smaller (r)etailers won't be able to cope with this kind of nonsense...

[Caudovittatus]

I may well be wrong, but I was under the impression that AIB manufacturers generally weren't 'manufacturers' - so that if they were using the reference design, ATI/Nvidia actually produces the board and the manufacturer just adds their logos to the coolers (or put a new cooler on)

[OilSheikh]

Question : Will ATI lose a lot of money?

[Caudovittatus]

Question : Will ATI lose a lot of money?

I suspect not... I bet it doesn't cost much more to produce a 4890 than a 4870 and if they're still making profits on those then 4890s should be (just speculating again). One thing I've heard though is that ATI's boards cost a bit less to produce than the current NV boards, so I guess AMD is taking advantage of that.

[borandi]

The 4870 is just a lower binned 4890 chip, so I'm guessing it's just a case of stock.

I have noticed a few XFX products being rated at slightly lower speeds than the rest - maybe they just buy lower binned stock?

Saying that, my XFX GTX280 gets some monster air overclock.