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6950 & 560 Ti Prices

Netmeister

Netmeister

Netmeister

Associate
Joined
27 Dec 2011
Posts
25
Evening all,

Upgraded my PC a few weeks ago to get myself back into PC gaming where I'm meant to be, but decided to hold off on the graphics card (was pretty much set on a 2GB 6950, maybe the 560 Ti) knowing there's new ones just around the corner.

Originally I held off thinking the new cards would be around/a little more than their current equivalents price wise, and the current gens would be reduced in price to make way. The more and more I'm reading about the 7970 and 7950 though it seems that the starting price for these cards isn't going to be anything lower than £300-£350, which makes me think why would AMD drop the price of the 6950 when it fits so perfectly in their 'price per performance' scale?

So my question then, is it worth holding out for the release of the 7000s hoping for a seismic shift in price? I'm not involved in this game enough to know the price trends when new tech is released so would love to hear from some vets.

I was quite happy to wait, but found a link on here to this little beauty which has got me salivating just a little

Yummy!

Also as a side note, I'm looking for a card to run BF3 at ultra at above average fps, so not really dipping below 30fps would be lovely (not too fussed about AA as 1080p on my monitor looks miles better than my xbox on my 42"). New system specs are:

i5 2500K @ 4.5
8gb vengance DDR3 1600mhz
850w Antec PSU
24" 1080p monitor.

Most people say the 6950s & 560 Ti's would breeze it, but I see some people struggle to get smooth gaming from BF3 with these cards.

All opinions and comments welcome :D

Oh I should probably add, £200 is pretty much my budget for a GC, but would happily throw a few more tenners on for the right card
 
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I have a 6950 and that seems to run BF3 pretty well on ultra. Never actually tracked the fps in numbers but even on 64 player servers I've had no issues.

The 560ti 448s look interesting as they aren't much more than the 6950s but are very close to a 570 in performance. Remember seeing a review of this card and on BF3 at 1920x1080 it was about 3fps better than the 6970. With a decent overclock that 560ti 448 should be more than adequate.
 
Prices will not change that much, a few beers either way but the manufacturers want your $$$ so don't expect any real deals
 
im in the same boat here, except looking at the 6970 but holding out for the new ones to be released but dont have any previous knowledge of price drops on old tech.

so is it the card manufacturers that make the shops sell at a cetain point or will the shops out do each other for the sale?

What im trying to say is for example apple are very strict on their prices thats why its is really hard to find any kind of deals.
 
Not really any price fixing going on .... just that cards are typically priced vs performance therefore any new GPU which is cheaper to make than an older model will typically be priced a little cheaper than the competitors equivalent model rather than significantly cheaper as this gives maximum profits.

Manufactures don't price at manufacturing cost + % profit, they price at market parity as they are driven by shareholders who want a return on investment.

New cards are due, there may be some deals on older cards but you won't get any half price deals and it's likely to be the higher end cards that suffer the bigger drops as midrange cards tend to get rebranded.

There are only two manufactures so they sell the chips or prebuilt cards at a price, usually not that much option to undercut unless you want to loose money.



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decto said:
Not really any price fixing going on .... just that cards are typically priced vs performance therefore any new GPU which is cheaper to make than an older model will typically be priced a little cheaper than the competitors equivalent model rather than significantly cheaper as this gives maximum profits.

Manufactures don't price at manufacturing cost + % profit, they price at market parity as they are driven by shareholders who want a return on investment.
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Actually, that's almost entirely incorrect. Firstly margins are almost the only thing these big companies care about, not the actual price of sales, and higher prices don't give you maximum products.

if there is a market of 10million users who want £200 cards and a market of 100k who would pay for £400 cards, you will not make more profit pricing it at £400. nothing stopping you having a £200 and a £400 card, however you get into a balancing act, if the £200 has half the speed, then that 10million user market for those cards gets slashed dramatically as the upgrade in speed for £200 gets halfed, etc, etc.

AMD have been making more profits on gpu's over the past several years by selling high performance cards at lower price points, because they've made vastly more sales than they otherwise would have. Also because if the competition pricing. if Nvidia had a card 20% faster that cost 20% more, then there isn't inherently a better reason to go AMD than Nvidia, if the card is 20% faster but costs 40% more, then a lot of people will save money and buy an AMD card when they would have normally bought a Nvidia card, that is a sale AMD wouldn't have made turned into one they can make.

Also both Nvidia and AMD have almost always priced vs the market, market share, margins and against their own cards, this is one of the first times AMD has introduced such a pricing strategy(and with a new CEO and his first cpu and gpu launches, that isn't entirely surprising).

However its worth noting two things, firstly, we haven't actually seen pricing in the UK and secondly, we have no idea what will happen to pricing once the 7870 is available, if that tanks 6950/70 pricing, that could have a BIG effect on 7970 pricing. This could simply be short term cashing in but in 2 months we get the "normal" pricing and much better deals.

Hell, Nvidia might tank 570/580gtx pricing after CES and that could cause 7970 price drops within a couple weeks of real availability.

For the OP, unfortunately without AMD launching at £300-350 then lower cards aren't dropping yet, or not quickly, they could drop fast in the next few weeks, or maybe not for a couple months, hard time to know when the best time to buy is, everyone hates buying something and seeing it tank in price only weeks afterwards. :(

I would at least wait till the 7970's are actually in stock and see if retailers see 6970/50 orders die and adjust pricing accordingly, or what the real final prices are, etc, etc. After that, you could go for something a tad cheaper, a 6870 maybe, or even something second hand and hold on, should you choose to upgrade again in a month or two you'd be some what insulated by how much you lost selling on whatever card you got.

With people who can't help themselves getting 7970's you could see some good 2nd hand pricing on currently top cards also.
 
if you saw a vtx 6970 for 220GBP for example would you snap it up?
definatley hear what your saying about buying something then seeing it 20% cheaper a week or 2 later!
 
drunkenmaster said:
However its worth noting two things, firstly, we haven't actually seen pricing in the UK and secondly, we have no idea what will happen to pricing once the 7870 is available, if that tanks 6950/70 pricing, that could have a BIG effect on 7970 pricing.

I would at least wait till the 7970's are actually in stock and see if retailers see 6970/50 orders die and adjust pricing accordingly, or what the real final prices are, etc, etc.
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I doubt there's going to be much fall in HD 6950/70 prices.

Look at the OcUK site and a lot of the 69xx cards have little or no stock.

I think it was Gibbo who stated that OcUK had bought the last HIS stock.

I don't think there are going to be thousands of 69xx series card to disposed of so there'll be no need to reduce prices.
 
drunkenmaster said:
For the OP, unfortunately without AMD launching at £300-350 then lower cards aren't dropping yet, or not quickly, they could drop fast in the next few weeks, or maybe not for a couple months, hard time to know when the best time to buy is, everyone hates buying something and seeing it tank in price only weeks afterwards. :(
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This is exactly the reason for the post really. I wouldn't mind loosing £10-£20 by buying now as apposed to in a couple of months time, but if we're talking £40-£50+ then I start to have a problem with it.

Trouble is I'm still using my old 8800 Ultra (which is a fantastic card and lasted me nearly 4 years), that is now struggling with the newest titles i.e. skyrim averages about 25-30fps on medium, and I wouldn't even bother trying BF3, so I don't really want to wait months to find out how prices react.

AndyH said:
The 560ti 448s look interesting as they aren't much more than the 6950s but are very close to a 570 in performance. Remember seeing a review of this card and on BF3 at 1920x1080 it was about 3fps better than the 6970. With a decent overclock that 560ti 448 should be more than adequate.
Click to expand...

I agree it does look interesting. I plan to read up a little more on this card, however some of the better versions are starting to stretch what I'd be happy to pay for a graphics card so would want to see good performance vs the 384's
 
drunkenmaster said:
Actually, that's almost entirely incorrect. Firstly margins are almost the only thing these big companies care about, not the actual price of sales, and higher prices don't give you maximum products.

if there is a market of 10million users who want £200 cards and a market of 100k who would pay for £400 cards, you will not make more profit pricing it at £400. nothing stopping you having a £200 and a £400 card, however you get into a balancing act, if the £200 has half the speed, then that 10million user market for those cards gets slashed dramatically as the upgrade in speed for £200 gets halfed, etc, etc.

AMD have been making more profits on gpu's over the past several years by selling high performance cards at lower price points, because they've made vastly more sales than they otherwise would have. Also because if the competition pricing. if Nvidia had a card 20% faster that cost 20% more, then there isn't inherently a better reason to go AMD than Nvidia, if the card is 20% faster but costs 40% more, then a lot of people will save money and buy an AMD card when they would have normally bought a Nvidia card, that is a sale AMD wouldn't have made turned into one they can make.

Also both Nvidia and AMD have almost always priced vs the market, market share, margins and against their own cards, this is one of the first times AMD has introduced such a pricing strategy(and with a new CEO and his first cpu and gpu launches, that isn't entirely surprising).

However its worth noting two things, firstly, we haven't actually seen pricing in the UK and secondly, we have no idea what will happen to pricing once the 7870 is available, if that tanks 6950/70 pricing, that could have a BIG effect on 7970 pricing. This could simply be short term cashing in but in 2 months we get the "normal" pricing and much better deals.

Hell, Nvidia might tank 570/580gtx pricing after CES and that could cause 7970 price drops within a couple weeks of real availability.

For the OP, unfortunately without AMD launching at £300-350 then lower cards aren't dropping yet, or not quickly, they could drop fast in the next few weeks, or maybe not for a couple months, hard time to know when the best time to buy is, everyone hates buying something and seeing it tank in price only weeks afterwards. :(

I would at least wait till the 7970's are actually in stock and see if retailers see 6970/50 orders die and adjust pricing accordingly, or what the real final prices are, etc, etc. After that, you could go for something a tad cheaper, a 6870 maybe, or even something second hand and hold on, should you choose to upgrade again in a month or two you'd be some what insulated by how much you lost selling on whatever card you got.

With people who can't help themselves getting 7970's you could see some good 2nd hand pricing on currently top cards also.
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Interesting view, but I think you will find it's you that is almost entirely incorrect.

AMD haven't had the fastest card for many years now so they have had no option but to price competitively. If the AMD card has 90% of the performance of a Nvidia card then you can't price at 90% cost since most buyers will see the value if spending extra. AMD priced the cards cheap so buyers would think what... 10% performance for 40% price increase .... it's not worth it. (% quoted to illustrate only). Despite what AMD may say in press releases, this is the only strategy that could work for them given the performance of their product. In effect, Nvidia set their pricing.

In some sense you are correct, there is a bigger market for lower performance cards which explains the 550TI, 6670, 6870 etc etc. You design a card for the lower price points using a smaller core and cheaper manufacturing processes. The 7970 card you reference is a premium product and AMD are acting as such. Sure they could start a price war with the GTX580 but then they both loose and market share volume at the price point is insignificant.

I'm sure AMD could sell a lot more HD7970's at £200 however they won't as the share holders want a return, they need to make cash fast before Nvidia has a competing part and there will be plenty of other GPU's to fill the £200 slot.

There will be some changes in the mid range over the next months but AMD is competing with Nvidia not itself so there will be some price erosion.
AMD won't double the volume of sales by dropping the 6970 from £270 to £200, buyers with a £200 budget already have the 6950 which is nearly as fast.

Not forgetting of course brand loyalty.

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Netmeister said:
This is exactly the reason for the post really. I wouldn't mind loosing £10-£20 by buying now as apposed to in a couple of months time, but if we're talking £40-£50+ then I start to have a problem with it.

Trouble is I'm still using my old 8800 Ultra (which is a fantastic card and lasted me nearly 4 years), that is now struggling with the newest titles i.e. skyrim averages about 25-30fps on medium, and I wouldn't even bother trying BF3, so I don't really want to wait months to find out how prices react.



I agree it does look interesting. I plan to read up a little more on this card, however some of the better versions are starting to stretch what I'd be happy to pay for a graphics card so would want to see good performance vs the 384's
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If you shop around the 448 can be had for 220, only 10-20 pounds more than a 6950. As for losing money, new stuff comes out all the time so your kit is going to depreciate at some point anyway. I can't see major price drops coming for a good few months yet as Nvidias cards aren't ready and the New AMDs are hitting a new performance/price band.
 
for smooth fps go for 580 or wait 7970

there is no way ti run ultra smooth on 560 ti or 6950

then u need sli or cf
 
Thanks for your input all (even the in depth economics lesson ;)).

I simply can't be arsed to wait weeks/months to see what the prices do - especially with my ageing 8800 ultra now struggling - so have risked it and plummed for an MSI HD 6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition, with maybe a cheeky little BIOS upgrade in the near future.

Worst case scenario I'll use this card till the summer and upgrade again once the kelper beauties come out.

Excitement.......building :D
 
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Cheers Surveyor,

I did take this into account and I was aware it might not be able to, but it wasn't a deciding factor, just something I thought I might try in the future.
 
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