07-25-2019, 09:31 PM
https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/29551...gpu-prices
Quote:It’s no secret that upper-end GPU prices have come down recently, thanks to AMD’s recent launch of its RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT. AMD has now stirred the pot a bit, claiming that it successfully bluffed Nvidia into cutting costs, only to yank the rug out from under them and cut prices even more.
This bit of data is embedded in Hot Hardware’s 2.5 Geeks podcast/interview with Scott Herkelman, AMD’s VP of Radeon. Scott goes on to detail how AMD laid its plans carefully, with evaluations of what the RTX cards were capable of in terms of clock speeds, die sizes, Nvidia’s expected revenue and margin targets, and much more. AMD’s initial prices for the RX 5700 and 5700 XT were $500 and $379, but after Nvidia unveiled its Super family, the company cut them back to $350 and $400. According to AMD, this was always the plan.
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Matched equally on price, the 5700 and 5700 XT would have been less-well positioned against the RTX 2060S and 2070S than they are now. AMD made a decision to position their GPUs more advantageously by reducing prices. Do I think they planned for that? Absolutely. Do I think AMD would’ve kept its prices higher if the 5700 and 5700 XT had been faster cards? Yes. I can scarcely argue otherwise. I spent six months writing articles about how AMD wouldn’t give its CPUs away if it achieved performance parity with Intel just because some fanboys thought it was a good idea. There’s no reason to think the company wanted to improve its CPU margins but is fine with giving GPUs away at a fraction of what it could charge for them.
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The bigger and more important takeaway here is that companies absolutely will raise prices when there is no competition. Nvidia didn’t just magically find a way to reduce Turing costs the same month that AMD launched new GPUs. They raised prices with Turing in part because there was no competition with AMD to stop them.
As soon as AMD re-entered the market with a competitive part, GPU prices came down again. If AMD had been able to ship competitive parts last year, Nvidia might not have been able to increase prices in the first place. If Nvidia hadn’t been focused on squeezing gamers like Juicero bagjuice (and hadn’t possibly misread the crypto market as new gaming sales), it wouldn’t have raised prices regardless. AMD’s attempt to spin a relatively prosaic price cut as a dramatic coup against Team Green doesn’t really track, but high-end GPUs are undeniably less expensive today than they were a month ago. That’s a win for everyone, no matter whose hardware you favor.