14 DAY TRIAL // You've not doubt been quite pleased to learn that AMD's Radeon R9 280 and 290 series of graphics cards have been reduced in price over these past two weeks. What you won't be glad to learn is that the price modifications are just temporary.
Sure, some of the video cards may retain their reduced tags, but the majority of them will likely reclaim their previous prices in a few weeks or so. Probably when NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 900 boards finally become available properly.
That's another thing we noticed: the GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 aren't available for sale almost anywhere. Oh sure, you can place orders, a spot in line as it were, but inventories are mostly empty.
That digression aside, it turns out that the price cuts applied to AMD's video cards weren't set in place by Advanced Micro Devices itself.
Instead, each OEM acted independently (though not totally bereft of coordination) and cut the prices for a limited time.
The new prices of the AMD graphics adapters
The list is pretty impressive, starting with the Radeon R9 290X, which used to sell for $549 / €540 but now can be found for $399 / €399, in the US anyway. The EU price cuts will go live soon enough, according to a report.
The RadeoN R9 290 now sells for $299 / €299 and is followed by Radeon R9 280X with a tag of $260 / €260. Right below it is the R9 285 with $229 / €229 and, finally, the Radeon R9 280, with a price of $210 / €210.
These promotional prices should at least somewhat pull customers away from NVIDIA's Maxwell graphics cards.
The GeForce GTX 980 has a better performance (according to some reviews anyway) than the Radeon R9 290X while using a lot less energy, and yet its price is the same $549 / €549 as the latter used to have. Obviously, the R9 290X wasn't going to do well on the market while being so severely undercut. Same for the $329 / €329 GeForce GTX 970 and the Radeon 290 / 280X.
The sad case of the temporary boon
We can't know for sure how long the AMD video cards will retail their low prices. It's still possible (and we're not the only ones who think so) that these really are genuine MSRP reductions imposed by AMD itself, since its stock price has been waning and it needs some way to encourage demand.
Just in case it's not, though, you might want to at least check with your retailer to see if any low-cost boards are there, since the price cut may only apply while current stocks last.