Hd5870 - $299

[Stukov]

So why aren't they gaining market share? Even with Nvidias supposedly low margins they're still making money (before the warranty charge). Thus far there are no tangible gains in marketshare or profits. A lot of goodwill though so that could eventually affect the bottom line.

Of course they made money, however they also had to burn through quite a bit of capital over the past year or more. However, they most certainly made less profit than what they anticipated. When you have to drop your average selling price of your product's projection by 30-50%, you aren't making as much money.

If AMD wanted to they could have, in theory, had a real price war with Nvidia for market share, driving prices so low Nvidia was selling products for a loss. However, this wouldn't benefit AMD especially in a time where they need as much income as possible. AMD is the type of company satisfied with steady growth. Nvidia is the one more concerned with "opening a can of whoop-ass".

[eleeter]

If AMD wanted to they could have, in theory, had a real price war with Nvidia for market share, driving prices so low Nvidia was selling products for a loss

If AMD had been sitting on a nice pile of cash, I wonder if they would have done just that, and make Nvidia bleed red.

[Stukov]

If AMD had been sitting on a nice pile of cash, I wonder if they would have done just that, and make Nvidia bleed red.

Naw, I mean yeah they did raise average selling price back in the A64 vs P4 days, but I would imagine that under current leadership, they would opt for a more sustained gain of market share or profit rather than quick bursts. It may also raise suspicion of .gov should they corner the market.

AMD is a much more well rounded company than it was several years ago, it isn't going to huge leaps and bounds in a single market group such as GPUs and see it's revenue soar, it has its entire portfolio to consider.

If AMD makes GPU buyers unhappy they have to contend that they wouldn't buy AMD CPUs, chipsets, etc. AMD can't stay in business against Intel or Nvidia if they plan to play the same game as them, they have to do things differently to survive and make gains.

[eleeter]

.

Good post, I have to agree with you.

I'm still amused by the people that said AMD only acquired ATI for chipsets and integrated stuff so they could be a one stop shop for OEMs. Supposedly AMD was going to give up completely on the high end, maybe even completely on discreet parts, and ATI IP would essential cease to exist.

Seems as though AMD is more than a little interested in pushing forward with graphics just like ATI would have done on their own.

[tajoh111]

I think AMD should raise their prices too if the performance of the 4870 is indeed higher than the gtx 295. Sure its not good for the consumer, but its much smarter business wise.

If people think a 399 is too much, they can obviously purchase the 5850 which should be in the 299 price range. At that price it still beats everything on the market and is a single card. Not only that, there are likely going to be supply constraints as 40nm not going the smoothest, so that will increase demand futher and allow the higher price of admission.

If it does make it to street at 299, I have a feeling we are going to get 4870 x2 performance(which isn't bad) or worse because of the rumored 2.1 teraflops of performance compared to the 4870x2 2.4 teraflops. Although it will rock the boat and the gtx 285 will be unsellable, it will give alot of room for the gt300 to work against.

[003]

If the 5850 has 1600SPs w/ slower clock like the 4850, then destroying the GTX 285 should be child's play.

Perkam

Wow now that's impressive. ATI's new generation beating nvidias old generation.

RV870/Cypress will be competing with the GTX380. The fact that it beats the GTX285 should not be a surprise nor should it be impressive. Nice marketing though, making a big deal of it beating the GTX285.

[Sly Fox]

Wow now that's impressive. ATI's new generation beating nvidias old generation.

RV870/Cypress will be competing with the GTX380. The fact that it beats the GTX285 should not be a surprise nor should it be impressive. Nice marketing though, making a big deal of it beating the GTX285.

He specified destroying the 285 as being like child's play. Doesn't sound like he's making a "big deal" out of anything.

You seem to be under the impression G300 will be in a whole 'nother ballpark entirely (IE revolutionary, not evolutionary) from the 285. Source?

[spursindonesia]

Wow now that's impressive. ATI's new generation beating nvidias old generation.

RV870/Cypress will be competing with the GTX380. The fact that it beats the GTX285 should not be a surprise nor should it be impressive. Nice marketing though, making a big deal of it beating the GTX285.

LOL, will we see any GTX 380 on the retailer shelves when Cypress based cards hit the market ?

I didn't see anyone complained when G80 (8800 GTS) was compared against ATi's X1900 cards back in the day. As long they're on the same price segment, the so be it.

[003]

You seem to be under the impression G300 will be in a whole 'nother ballpark entirely (IE revolutionary, not evolutionary) from the 285. Source?

The leaked specs that have been circulating for quite some time indicate it will more than double the SPs up to 512, and they will be MIMD units, as compared to GT200 which was SIMD.

[The Dome]

Heh. Keep dreaming. Good fglrx driver is an oxymoron. Curiously, that driver produces identical performance among a wide swath of generations of hardware, and it's always slow.

haha one can hope it'll be interesting to see how long ati decides to support RV700 based cards. Atleast we have a decent merge-able xfi driver coming up in the latest ALSA release.

[jaredpace]

The leaked specs that have been circulating for quite some time indicate it will more than double the SPs up to 512, and they will be MIMD units, as compared to GT200 which was SIMD.

....and also that it won't be available to purchase until jan 2010.

[Smartidiot89]

Pure speculation of course but hopefully we should see some Vapor-X/IceQ 5xxx versions by December/January would you say?

Sounds about right

We'll probably see a change of cooler within a few weeks, but a new PCB or a "makeover" usually takes about 3 months to reach market.

[labs23]

....and also that it won't be available to purchase until jan 2010.

Worth noting that Jan. is not even sure.

There's a very clear sky for ATI's 58xx series ahead for sure.
If they can release in Oct. with the assumed specs./performance, two or three months w/o competition is without competition.

[iTravis]

$299 is a nice price point, it would force Nvidia not to milk customers too much with their GT300 and by the time GT300 releases, a price cut from ATI would end up in a win-win situation for all of us.

[Farinorco]

I insist that AMD is NOT in the same situation than NVIDIA with the last gen. AMD is desperately trying to gain market share, now they have the edge in performance per dolar and performance per mm2, but the war for the marketshare is just started. Last round NVIDIA sacrified revenues to keep as much market share as possible (near halving the prices of their cards few weeks after their launch) so even being a very bad round to NVIDIA, they didn't lost much of it. AMD should have put more pressure with the prices war, but their partners didn't allow it: remember the announced price drop that partners refused claiming that the prices then where more than adequate for the performance and competence? You know, partners are not particularly interested in the GPU developers market shares, but on their revenues, specially those selling cards with GPUs from both companies... they were not making much money with each GT200 card sold, so even lower prices didn't drive them to any good place.

So maybe AMD is trying to put that pressure in other ways. They had ~2x the performance/size than their competitors in the last round, and they used it to make videocards with near the enthusiast NVIDIA cards performance, with half the size chips and starting a prices war, which was stopped by their own partners. How about making bigger chips now for the same price brackets? If they can't go lower in prices, maybe increasing the costs (and the value of the product) keeping the prices the same, makes the same effect.

AMD is desperately seeking for increasing their market share, and NVIDIA is fighting nail and tooth to keep their own market share. That's what it was about the last round, why should be different this one? NVIDIA don't need (or is interested to) this bloody fights because they're leading the market right now. They're interested in calm waters. On the other hand, AMD has now the edge in performance/cost so they should be trying to make the war as bloody as possible because now is when they have a chance to recover some market share...

Many people is comparing the G80 situation with this Evergreen, but they are completely different situations. AMD is well behind NVIDIA on the market lead (despite the "triumph" of their last generation over competition), and that makes a whole different scenario than the G80's one was.

[Calmatory]

I guess it comes down to GPU yields and what AMD thinks GT300 yields are. The less mature the 40nm is, the better for AMD. Small chips suffer less of a hit in yield % when the process is bad as compared to huge chips. One could argue that the die area difference isn't that big this time.

I'm fairly sure that the prices will be around 249(if not even 299) and 349 at launch, coming lower during the months after.

[Helloworld_98]

Thinking again about price points,

I'd now guess $349-449 for the 5870 and $225-349 for the 5850 at launch, if the 5870 is as good as we think it's going to be, it's a fair price choice being marketed as performing better than the 4870 X2 but having DX11, same idea with the 5850, better than the GTX 285 but it has DX11. This allows them to rake in the profit while still having a fair price point, and Nvidia won't have as much pressure to rush the product out.

Then when Nvidia comes into the market with their DX11 cards @ around the same price points, (which would be logical, because it's nvidia, and because it's supposed to be amazing and if it is then they'll be much better than ATi in the Price/performance area.) They can drop the price dramatically to $225-275 for the 5870 and $150-$175 for the 5850.

[Xoulz]

Thinking again about price points,

I'd now guess $349-449 for the 5870 and $225-349 for the 5850 at launch, if the 5870 is as good as we think it's going to be, it's a fair price choice being marketed as performing better than the 4870 X2 but having DX11, same idea with the 5850, better than the GTX 285 but it has DX11. This allows them to rake in the profit while still having a fair price point, and Nvidia won't have as much pressure to rush the product out.

Then when Nvidia comes into the market with their DX11 cards @ around the same price points, (which would be logical, because it's nvidia, and because it's supposed to be amazing and if it is then they'll be much better than ATi in the Price/performance area.) They can drop the price dramatically to $225-275 for the 5870 and $150-$175 for the 5850.

Also meaning, that the 4870 will probably be $99 bucks come Xmas. How is Nvidia going to sell the GTX260's for that..?

I hope Nvidia has something up their sleeve for the next 3 months.. other than just slick marketing.

[Jamesrt2004]

Also meaning, that the 4870 will probably be $99 bucks come Xmas. How is Nvidia going to sell the GTX260's for that..?

I hope Nvidia has something up their sleeve for the next 3 months.. other than just slick marketing.

get ready for some renaming!!!!

Thinking again about price points,

I'd now guess $349-449 for the 5870 and $225-349 for the 5850 at launch, if the 5870 is as good as we think it's going to be, it's a fair price choice being marketed as performing better than the 4870 X2 but having DX11, same idea with the 5850, better than the GTX 285 but it has DX11. This allows them to rake in the profit while still having a fair price point, and Nvidia won't have as much pressure to rush the product out.

Then when Nvidia comes into the market with their DX11 cards @ around the same price points, (which would be logical, because it's nvidia, and because it's supposed to be amazing and if it is then they'll be much better than ATi in the Price/performance area.) They can drop the price dramatically to $225-275 for the 5870 and $150-$175 for the 5850.

I doubt they would be THAT extreme if im honest, they could have done that with the 4 series but they still priced it lower I think maybe the low estimates of both the cards are realisteic at launch but not like 449 for the 5870, even if it is as fast as they say it is I doubt the "new" amd/ati would do that

[Calmatory]

GTS 250.. err GTS 320..

[Jamesrt2004]

wonder what the 285 price will go to when this comes out, wouldnt it have to go around 200~ish to even match it price/perf wise if it stays where it is thats bad :/

[LiquidReactor]

Any concrete specs leak out yet?

[SKYMTL]

Whichever way ATI goes with this one, I don't think we will see a price above $349 for the high-end, single chip SKU. If they go any higher than that, they will have a serious pricing problem when any "X2" card is released. It would also make sense that with an "early" release of the Cypress family, they will be able to release the "X2" card to counter Nvidia's upcoming cards.

[Jamesrt2004]

Whichever way ATI goes with this one, I don't think we will see a price above $349 for the high-end, single chip SKU. If they go any higher than that, they will have a serious pricing problem when any "X2" card is released. It would also make sense that with an "early" release of the Cypress family, they will be able to release the "X2" card to counter Nvidia's upcoming cards.

+1 the "surprising" news that the x2 is delayed for "around 3 months" is quite in line to when people are expecting Nvidia to launch their cards which imo is a pretty damn good idea.

[Manicdan]

im worried about what cards we will see a year from now. they are using a decently sized chip for these cards, and the just did the 40nm shrink. so we are gonna have to wait until the next shrink, or they will have to put out a 600mm2 chip for the 68xx series.

prices for GPUs came down quick and hard in 2008/9 and 2010 i expect either a standstill in price, or performance. then again, who knows if we will see ANY game hurt a 5870x2, and maybe quad fire/sli will become more efficient.