Hd5870 - $299

[SKYMTL]

The problem with that logic is this: what happens if initial costs on a more complex product means that they can't stick to that pricing structure?

In addition, we are talking actual costs to the consumer here as well. ATI and Nvidia love quoting SRPs to reviewers and consumers. How many times do we actually see those SRPs stick at the retail level? Very rarely, if ever for a new release.

One way or another, I am anxious to see what becomes of pricing in this round.

[Stukov]

The problem with that logic is this: what happens if initial costs on a more complex product means that they can't stick to that pricing structure?

In addition, we are talking actual costs to the consumer here as well. ATI and Nvidia love quoting SRPs to reviewers and consumers. How many times do we actually see those SRPs stick at the retail level? Very rarely, if ever for a new release.

One way or another, I am anxious to see what becomes of pricing in this round.

That is the problem that Nvidia has with their larger GPUs as compared to AMD. Forcing them to sell at a lower profit margin due to higher costs. You can either stay at cost and lose market share, or take the profit hit and keep market share (which was what Nvidia did).

That is why performance per mm2 is as important as performance per $$.

Btw, AMD's is making a pretty healthy margin at 299 price point of a x870 card, the 299 is just the starting point for new products. As competition and yields get higher they reduce the price to increase market share further. They aren't stonewall stupid, they know some people wait to get a card to it reaches a certain price point, such as 200 for a x870 type card.

AMD's position is market penetration over low penetration with high margins. As long as they can keep some advantage in die size vs performance they can keep this. Right now I personally think that AMD/ATI has this advantage getting GDDR5 and 55/40nm to the market first. Until either Nvidia leapfrogs ahead (hard to do that in manufacturing tech) or AMD screws up with a new process/technology AMD will prolly have this lead. If there is Nvidia can do is to not have any screw ups and see if they can beat out AMD in performance per mm2, then it won't matter if your chips cost a little more to produce as you will be able to charge more and have more leverage to dictate market prices/tempo.