ATI raises the price of the 5850 by $20+

[dirtmountain]

It looks as if the 5850 was so successful that ATI has decided to raise the price due to demand and poor 40nm fabrication results.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20091102102459_Price_War_Reversed_ATI_Icreases_Pricing_of_New_High_End_Graphics_Card.html

This other article by Xbit may have something to do with it also.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5850.html

 

[jaguarskx]

It makes perfect business sense since demand still outstrips supply. Some people will think of it as price gouging simply thing that AMD is raising prices because they simply can. Yes, price is driven buy supply and demand and the "right price" is the highest price the general consumer is willing to pay, but have products fly off the shelf. But there's more to the story...

I am actually glad that AMD is raising their prices (who else is with me on this?). Due to the lower than expected yields at TMSC, it costs more for every single 40nm GPU to be produced, thus cutting into their profit margin. People need to realize that it cost tech companies 100's of million on R&D to develop a product, then more money to manufacture the product and even more just to run the company.

The extra $20 per GPU will allow AMD to earn a profit or at least decrease their losses. AMD has been loosing money hand over fist so they really need to bring in money. The alternative is being inched closer and closer to bankruptcy.

AMD is not as big or as important to the overall US economy so the US Gov't will not step in to save them. They are not AIG, GM or Citibank, they will be allowed to fail. In the worse case scenario the bond holder (a.k.a. Bond Bullies) will swoop in and start sell pieces of AMD left and right to re-coup that massive amount of money they lent AMD over the years. Bond holders trumps stock holders (unless the Federal Gov't decides to change the rules, which they had done so before [idiots!!!]). The end result means Intel will be the single manufacturer of mainstream CPUs and nVidia will be the only game in town when it comes to performance oriented video cards.

Just keep in mind that AMD is doing this survive, not to take advantage of the consumer.

 

[mactronix]

What i dont get is this thing with TMSC and the low yeilds making the cost per chip more. Every business i have been involved with has very harsh penalties attached to inability to meet an agreed order. How come TMSC seem to be able to take orders and then just say sorry guys but actually we cant do that, we will still take the full price for the order but you will only get part of the order. Just dosent sound credable to me.
AMD are financialy of late looking a lot beter than they did so i dont think they need to do this but as you said its business and it makes sense and i for one cant say i blame them.
Heck im pissed and i want my hardware cheaper, but understand business is business

 

[Onyx2291]

Well as long as it drops back, if not a little lower when I am ready and have the wallet to do so.

If they are selling and continue to sell even after the raise in price, they're not going to lower it even after a small drop in sales. Good luck to me.

 

[cyberkuberiah]

i wonder when they'll shift to gpu manufacturing on global foundries .

 

[bige420]

I really think Ati is justified in the price raise. You can get a 5850 for $299 and it performs better than a GTX 285 which costs $70-$100 more. I just dont see why anybody would buy a Nvidia card right now. $20 really isnt much either, if someone is willing to spend $279 on a video card they probably dont have a problem going $20 more.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

If the competition doesnt lower the prices of their hotter, slower more power hungry cards, why should they staye that much cheaper?

 

[trinix]

It will also make them able to have their own cards compete better, to sell the cards they still have in stock from the 4 series.

20 is nothing. The cards were a good deal to begin with and performed really good. It's only a matter of time before they will go down again, but it's more up to the green team than the red team atm.

 

[brockh]

Like has been said, the card was an incredibly good deal to begin with and nothing at its price point compared. If I needed to upgrade, while it would pain me to part with more hard earned money, the $20 would not sway me from my choice. We all know AMD needs the money anyways. They have to make it up somehow, and lets not forget it's still cheaper than the alternatives.

 

[OvrClkr]

AMD can sell a 5850 for 325.00$ and still make a large profit. The card is just a beast for the price.

The only drawback is that AMD is not even selling GPU's due to the limited stock and that can backfire since it will give more time for others to decide if they should buy or wait... I called both Tiger and the Egg and they do not have an ETA on their next (BIG) shipment. Both companies said today they should see at least 5-10 units in stock, but they said don't count on obtaining one unless you are ok with hitting the refresh button the whole day till you see one available.... what a joke....

 

[fatherczar]

Bestbuy currently has them for sale online only.

$279 = 5850
$389 = 5870


Happy shopping =)

 

[OvrClkr]

Yep, looks like they have some in stock.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olstemplatemapper.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=-557921097590618124&id=pcmcat182300050008&type=category&usc=abcat0500000&cp=1&sp=-currentprice+skuid&nrp=15&qp=crootcategoryid%23%23-1%23%23-1~~q70726f63657373696e6774696d653a3e313930302d30312d3031~~cabcat0500000%23%230%23%231nn~~cabcat0507000%23%230%23%233b~~cabcat0507001%23%230%23%231q~~cabcat0507002%23%230%23%2317~~ncpcmcat182300050008%23%230%23%23c&pagetype=listing