Why is the R9 280X so expensive? {UK}

[kamilstoch]

Hi all,
I'm just wondering about the prices of a R9 280X. I've seen them go new for around £270, a whole £90 more than, for example, a GTX 760. This is the same with the the 770. Any ideas? Can someone shed some light on this thing? Thanks

 

[randomhkkid]

There's this whole cryptocurrency mining thing going on pushing up prices of AMD GPUs which happen to be relatively good at it meaning demand for them oustrips supply and prices are pushed up. However the 280X is a card which is competitive with the Nvidia 770 and far faster than the 760, so it makes sense that they are similarly priced. As well as that UK prices tend to be just higher than US ones because of import tax and all that but the affect of bitcoins hasn't been seen much here.

 

[kamilstoch]

Well AMD will have to do something about this lol! As soon as BitCoin is finished, other currencies will appear (like LiteCoin). It's annoying, and it might be a 10 year fad, or might go on for a long, long time. Oh well, thanks for the answer random. Best solution goes to you

 

[randomhkkid]

I know the launch prices of the higher end AMD cards were so attractive considering their performance.