Hi there,
How can you be so sure on the estimated pricing of these cards? surely (as past history has shown) new items arrive at higher costs, especially in this case as they are supposedly manufacturered on a newer process.
New items arrive at a higher cost, history has shown this......... when exactly?
There was an increase between the 4870/5870, this was because the 4870 was a roughly 250mm2 core and the 5870 was a roughly 350mm2 core on a worse process AND the exchange rate went from best point in years, to worst point in years. AMD are also insanely unlikely to go "big core" a la Nvidia, because its silicon suicide, no one else but Nvidia thinks huge cores are a good idea. AMD will almost certainly be closer to 300mm2 than 400mm2, and that frankly is what will establish the price. Without a huge exchange rate drop screwing the UK, its unlikely we'll see any increase in price.
How much was the 5850, how much was the 6950, £200 each time. I got a 6950 for £190 around a week after launch..... its still not particularly easy to find one at that pricing. The 6970 hasn't decreased much in price since launch.
Then there's the quite simple fact that, new cards displacing old ones causes price drops in old cards AND if a new card was £700, no one would buy it. IE just because a card is roughly speaking twice as fast, will never, and HAS never meant it will come out say 70% faster and 70% more expensive, otherwise no one would ever upgrade.
electronics industry in general and computer components especially have price points things get sold at. AMD
WILL have a card at around the £300, £200, £150, £100, £75, £50 price points, because, that's what they can sell cards at to Dell/HP/whoever else.
New processes enable more transistors in the same die size, a 4 billion transistor chip would be twice the size on 40nm as 28nm, and cost twice as much to make.
WIth wafer prices fairly similar from one process to the next, cost is most closely associated with DIE SIZE and yield, not from the process its on, nor how fast it is.
Generally speaking it was known that the 6970 wouldn't be more than 20% faster than a 5870, purely because it wouldn't be much more than 15% bigger in die size, and costs stayed roughly the same as yields improved and you got roughly the same number of cores off a wafer.
Anyway, that's why I listed 3 situations, in which you can't lose, lets say the 7970 does come out at £400 for some reason, and the 7950 comes out at £300, it will still cause big price drops on the 6950/70, and the 6850/70, so if the 7950 isn't good value, then you go with 6950 xf instead, etc, etc. You can't lose as even if something is off with prices, theres still a bunch of new options and you choose whichever feels best. For some people that will be 7950, some people 7970, 7950xf, 7850xf, 6950xf at new EOL pricing.
You can't lose by waiting this close to release. Remember if pricing were due to new processes and new processes always cost way more, who would make, develope or use new processes? New processes DECREASE costs, not increase. Likewise, history has shown us exactly that price points change based on die size, NOT processes. 3870 was significantly cheaper than the 2900xt, new process, the 4870 was much more complex, same process, much cheaper again(thats because with similar transistor count they shrunk it hugely, the 3870 had a LOT of waste in it). The 5850 went up in cost because of die size, not because of the process, die size went up 30-40%... so did the price point. How much does a 6870 cost, similar to a 4870, infact a little less, and its a similar die size, around 250mm2.