I dont want add the discussion but well ... MSRP are 419$ for the 7970 and 469$ for the 7970GHZ... if ALL 7970 GHZ i have seen are correctly in the 469$ range ( 459-469$ ), many non reference 7970 are with a larger price difference: 419 to 459$ mostly. ( with 3 games free coupon, free shipping and rebate in some case ). I dont know if this is the shops, AIB, partner who have not adapt enough fast the 7970 price, or they play on the fact, not all AIB partners have their GHZ edition on shop. ( you see the Asus 7970 price skyrocket with the DCII, when Asus have not release yet their GHZ edition ).... Add to this all the "custom version " ofc with different price tags ( you rarely see a reference "cooler " one at least )..
Whatever here, prices between a brand or another + special price ( limited to 1 week ), make even reference cards have a 30-40$ price difference depending if this is an HIS, a Sapphire etc .. so yet MSRP given, and what is applied along the chain is offtly different. ( stock, distributors price, AIB choice ). Nothing new there, i dont remember it have been different thoses last 10years.
Does the idea to annonce the 7950 "boost" right now, is a good idea for AMD ? bad timing.. as for the 7970GHZ edition, 1 weeks before the 680 is released will have been an excellent timing. .. Everybody was know the "Power Tune Boost " etc can, will be applied to the 7950 one day or the other. The card was a bit too slow on reference edition, 125mhz difference with the 7970 was too much, then the 7870 was allready too close ( imagine if a 7870 Boost edition is released then ) .. And physically, there's no reason the PTboost cant apply on the cards who support PT.
There's many custom cards who was allready run in the range of the PT boost clock speed, AIB need to take too the lineup, and increase them a little bit. Instead shops flash themselves the cards, you will need a bit of time for see thoses cards appears, specially when some brand have decided to differenciate them a bit a more of the reference. AMD, Nvidia dont sell cards.. AIB sell cards, and competition between them is not a bad thing ( have we allready seen so much custom design and coolers by the past on a same lineup ? )
At the end of the day, AMD could have only play on the price of the 7970-7950-7870.. Many consumers dont buy forcibly the best cards, but money is a big part on their choice. At the same time, the Halo effect make too, some buy extreme low end cards, based on the high range performance reputation. AMD ( ATI) have do it by the past, Nvidia too. remember the x1900XTX and X1950XTX etc. ( in this case, just with higher clock speed and GDDR4 instead of GDDR3 ) .. Im not even sure if AMD had release a 7980 with PTboost, peoples will not have claim, this is just a 7970 with higher clock speed and Boost. Well something we see regulary on CPU side with Intel or AMD who increase the frequency of 100mhz, and up the number anyway.
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