News Japanese AIBs Revive AMD's Radeon RX 550 for $155

[Admin]

The "Expert-Oriented" Radeon RX 550 single-slot and low-profile graphics card sells for an equivalent of $155 in Japan. Retailers say there is "sufficient demand for low profile" GPUs.

Japanese AIBs Revive AMD's Radeon RX 550 for $155 : Read more

 

[spongiemaster]

A few months after the April 2017 launch, Tom's Hardware looked at the best prices you could find a Radeon RX 550 graphics card for, and it was widely available between $80 and $100, depending on memory quota, brand, and cooler.

I don't understand why this site continually compares the prices from other countries to prices in the US and then proceeds to provide some worthless commentary pretending an apples to apples comparison. The US pretty much always has the lowest prices for electronics. Here is a very telling comparison of PS5 MSRP's around the globe.

Japan - Playstation 5 - price, June 2023 | GlobalProductPrices.com

The price is 483 USD. The average price for all countries is 677 USD. The database includes 80 countries.

www.globalproductprices.com

Besides the suspect Lebanon price, the US has the lowest MSRP on the planet for the PS5. It costs 40% more in Japan. An RX 550 was likely never available in Japan for $100. So the current price of $155 is probably pretty close to what it originally sold for.

 

[King_V]

Oh, yay. 4GB VRAM, but coupled to the version with 512 shader units rather than 640.

The suckage continues...

 

[digitalgriffin]

Oh, yay. 4GB VRAM, but coupled to the version with 512 shader units rather than 640.

The suckage continues...

It's marginally faster than a Vega 11. You could buy it as a hold over GPU. Pair it with a real CPU, till you can get a real graphics card (6600 and above). Certainly better than the landfill quality 6500XT at $250+. I mean BOTH are garbage products, but at least the 550 is $100 less garbage. That's about as good as we can hope for these days.

 

[King_V]

Though, slower than the Vega in the 5600G and 5700G.

Yeah, I'd agree... it's a hold-out-for-now card, but way overpriced for what it is.

Given the $85-$100+ price it had back before the crypto-craze, when an RX 570 4GB could be had for $99 new on occasion, it was overpriced even back then.

I know there's the whole translating-from-another-country-to-the-US issue, but if that $155 is any indication of what such a card would sell for in the US, it's . . well I guess pick your poison.

 

[InvalidError]

Given the $85-$100+ price it had back before the crypto-craze, when an RX 570 4GB could be had for $99 new on occasion, it was overpriced even back then.

Can't really price stuff lower than the manufacturing, packaging and distribution costs with some profit margin on top, otherwise it doesn't make sense to bother making it in the first place. Profit margins at the low end tend to be thin.

 

[King_V]

That's fair, though, given the small board, older RAM and older chip, at the price given, is the margin really that thin at this price?

Not meant to be a rhetorical question... I don't really know how much of the cost is due to manufacturing/packaging/distribution on this card, given that (at least officially) the 6500XT is $199.

(also kind of an unknown, to me, at least, adjust from $155 to any hypothetical "if it were in the US" price)

 

[InvalidError]

That's fair, though, given the small board, older RAM and older chip, at the price given, is the margin really that thin at this price?

GDDR5 isn't necessarily cheaper since most DRAM manufacturers discontinued it years ago. Nvidia even had to switch the GTX1650 to GDDR6 starting from April 2020 due to GDDR5 shortages. When a memory type is turning into unobtainium, you usually end up paying a premium for surviving inventory just like most other stuff.

The bulk of costs are likely shockingly similar to the RX6500 since things like VRM, PCB, heatsink, etc. have a practical minimum size and associated costs, similar to how all HDDs under 2TB cost about the same due to manufacturing costs not having any meaningful scaling below all of the prerequisites for a single working platter.

I'd imagine the main reason the RX560 can be this cheap relative to the current market is because some suppliers are dumping inventory while they are still able to earn decent money from it to reduce the amount of stale inventory they may have to write off later.

 

[digitalgriffin]

GDDR5 isn't necessarily cheaper since most DRAM manufacturers discontinued it years ago. Nvidia even had to switch the GTX1650 to GDDR6 starting from April 2020 due to GDDR5 shortages. When a memory type is turning into unobtainium, you usually end up paying a premium for surviving inventory just like most other stuff.

The bulk of costs are likely shockingly similar to the RX6500 since things like VRM, PCB, heatsink, etc. have a practical minimum size and associated costs, similar to how all HDDs under 2TB cost about the same due to manufacturing costs not having any meaningful scaling below all of the prerequisites for a single working platter.

I'd imagine the main reason the RX560 can be this cheap relative to the current market is because some suppliers are dumping inventory while they are still able to earn decent money from it to reduce the amount of stale inventory they may have to write off later.

NOS. (new old stock) They likely had it sitting in a back room. As AMD and NVIDIA sell GPU with memory, they likely had GDDR5 sitting in the back room with the GPUs. As they paid for the most expensive components YEARS ago, the majority of price is already baked. They are still making a healthy profit. I refuse to believe VRMs and board cost have gone up over 200%.