Pictured: AMD's new Radeon R9 285

[InvalidError]

If AMD did an R9 290X promotion where it was $300 a card if you buy two for crossfire, they would reclaim lost market share.

AMD does not sell GPUs at retail; their AIB partners do. AMD does not have the power to make sales since they are not involved in the retail pricing beyond saying what their target MSRP for a given GPU is. If individual board manufacturers want to do promos, that is up to them.

As for comparing GPU prices with i5 price, Haswell is ~180sqmm while the R9-290(x) is nearly 440sqmm. A die two and a half times as large is considerably more expensive to manufacture. A PCB with enough layers to route a 512bits memory controller is also going to be considerably more expensive than a 4-6 layers board for CPUs with 128bits memory interfaces. The video card also includes VRM, GDDR memory chips, the PCB itself and tons of extra-cost items that are not included with a boxed CPU.

For the R9-290(X) to retail at $300, someone would probably have to eat losses.

 

[mapesdhs]

InvalidError writes:
> "For the R9-290(X) to retail at $300, someone would probably have to eat losses."

Probably, but it wouldn't be the first time a company has sold something at a loss
in order to procure market share. I doubt AMD could withstand such a move though.

Ian.

 

[RedJaron]

The GTX 750 Ti competes with lower end AMD cards... like the R9 270X.

Um, no. The 750 Ti is actually a little slower than the older 650 Ti Boost. Game performance-wise, the 750 Ti is around the 260X, except the 260X is notably cheaper. You have to go through the 265 and 270 before you reach the 270X. The 270X is not a "low-end" card unless you consider the 280X and 770 to be "mid-range."

 

[InvalidError]

The 270X is not a "low-end" card unless you consider the 280X and 770 to be "mid-range."

Enthusiast often forget that the rest of the non-enthusiast world which represents something like 90% of the PC market still exists. On the enthusiast scale, I can imagine the R9-270 being considered low-end and R9-280 being mid-range.

On the global market, the R9-270X is at the premium end of what I would consider mid-range mainstream.

 

[jdon]

My hope for this card is that it's HDMI port is v2.0. If it does that, it will get plenty of love.

 

[RedJaron]

The 270X is not a "low-end" card unless you consider the 280X and 770 to be "mid-range."

Enthusiast often forget that the rest of the non-enthusiast world which represents something like 90% of the PC market still exists. On the enthusiast scale, I can imagine the R9-270 being considered low-end and R9-280 being mid-range.

On the global market, the R9-270X is at the premium end of what I would consider mid-range mainstream.

Same here, though I may split "enthusiast" a little more. Someone who is properly knowledgeable on the different levels of tech and their applications, someone who can look at something like a 7770, a 750K, or an i3 and say, "That's a good component for these types of uses, but it's not for me," I can categorize as a real enthusiast.

Someone who sees anything below an i7 and GTX 770 as "low-end" parts that aren't worth anyone's time I'd categorize as "more money than brains." But hey, now we're getting into semantics.

 

[ambientblue]

285x with extreme OC like with a Vapor-X cooler could match a reference 290, and be significantly cooler