Things change. Was the EVGA card in stock at $1299 4-5 days ago when this was posted? If so, that was only $20 cheaper than direct from Amazon, and most people probably have to pay at least that much in shipping for EVGA.com (it was $21 with ground for my address). If you have Prime and get free shipping, the $20 difference comes out in the wash. And as I noted in my article posted around the same, the rate of decline for GPU prices is pretty fast right now. So to summarize:
- It's a "deal" in that it was in stock at a reasonable price (based off MSRP) at the time of writing
- Ecomm and deals are a fact of life with websites like Tom's Hardware. Unlike YouTubers, we don't get directly paid for advertising or by views/clicks, and deals help make up a lot of the gap.
- The story is several days old now. If we edited every deals post to try and keep up with stock and changing prices, it would be a full-time job all on its own.