Pricing Discussions around AMD VEGA *over-flow*

Not sure (also if the shop discriminates at all in their public sales statistics).

 

Guys third party coolers seem to tame the beast a little
Hexus.net/qadkqw


They hit 1980 MHz core and 1000MHz memory with a draw 532W "at the wall." Not that great of a perf scaling though.

 

Are you being obtuse on purpose or what? They state FREE games. If the pack which includes the games is more expensive than the stand alone cards, the games are NOT free. What is so hard to understand? Its the same as a supermarket selling 3 items for the price of 3 items, while advertising selling 3 for the price of 2!

As far as I understand, the packs do NOT include the motherboard and monitors, they only include vouchers for discounts on them, which may or may not be used.

From the horse's mouth:
https://gaming.radeon.com/en/rx-vega-radeon-packs/

"At SIGGRAPH, we announced three Radeon Packs — featuring Radeon RX Vega graphics cards — that supply the perfect path to maximizing your gaming experience. Each pack includes the following:
Radeon™ RX Vega 64 or Radeon™ RX Vega 56 — the world’s most advanced, forward-looking GPUs*

• A steep discount on Samsung’s stunning CF791-Series 1440p Curved Ultrawide FreeSync™ monitor for smooth, tear-free gaming*
• An exclusive discount on select groundbreaking Ryzen™ 7 CPU + AM4 motherboard combos*
• Copies of both Wolfenstein® II: The New Colossus™ and Prey®*."

The only thing a buyer is guaranteed to get is the card plus two games, for more than a stand alone one, therefore they are anything but free. The definition of free is not paying more than normal to get more than normal. It is paying what is normal and get more. It is not having to buy more things to then be able to say they saved a bit either.

Besides, we all know now that the MSRP is 599, not the announce 499. All this mess seems to have been created with the purpose to confuse and meddle the waters, granting them better initial reviews.

 

Reading the AMD doc linked by CarstenS it would appear that the up-charge for "packs" is a result of the coupons (monitor and cpu) plus the two bundled games. So you're either paying $100 for the coupons that total $300 or you're paying for the bundled games. Definitely a convoluted and, frankly, stupid pricing/bundle strategy as it creates confusion and likely buyer's remorse. AMD need to work on this stuff. It's not that hard to be coherent with such schemes, so I'm at a loss why they bungled it so badly.

 

How is it confusing?
$599 for vega 64 with 2 games, you also get 2 bonus coupons for a monitor and a ryzen CPU if you were on the fence.

Seems like it's easy enough to understand. Added value for gamers and longer ROI for
Miners.

 

As far as I can tell, AMD's official statement on the subject appears to re-affirm that the MSRP of the stand alone cards has not changed and that they are restocking standalone card SKUs:

 

It's confusing because you're paying $100 for those two "free" games *or* you're paying for the coupons?

 

You're paying for the whole lot of it regardless if you use the chance to get lower prices on cpu/mobo and/or display

 

The confusing part is that you can buy the "pack" version without buying the "pack". I pay AMD $100 more and get two $30 games for it...

The $499 SKU doesnt exist. Here in germany even the 509€ buyers got the "free" games.

 

That statement is about stocks and previous prices. It is not possible to conclude anything about future prices. However, we have already several sources, including AIBs, on this thread saying that the 499 was the launch price and the normal price will be 599.

 

Hence the games not being free.

 

Who ARE all these miners clamoring for $500 Vegas when you can get RX 580 for $350 at Newegg?

Besides, "we are doing this because of the miners" has been exposed as a rather transparent lie the second AMD chose to invest development effort into releasing the "mining driver". They are just SO worried about the threat of miners to the GPU supply that they went ahead and spend time and effort to make their GPUs MORE ATTRACTIVE to miners.

 

Just did ctrl+f for "free" and I couldn't find it on website with the ad. Where did you see free?

 

Let's think about it, In a vacuum it wouldn't make sense to introduce a mining optimized driver if they want mostly gamers to buy them. I can see that. However AMD still has to compete with nvidia and being competitive there, even in mining is very important for them.

 

On the slides of the pack launches.

 

Well then, you can have one narrative or the other, but not both at the same time. They are mutually exclusive.

 

Regardless of what AMD says, they've got a dud of a gaming card that's also a dud of a mining card; they need to do whatever they can to generate sales at profitable price points. I'm quite certain they'd be happy as a pig in shit to see Vega become a preferred mining card in such short supply that gamers were upset.

 

Perhaps we shouldn't think of gamers and miners as disjoint sets. I can see a gamer looking at two graphics cards and thinking "well, they both perform the same in games, but card A is better than card B for mining, so that might be a good way to offset the cost of my purchase when I'm not gaming".

 

Maybe AMD changes their mind, given the apparently unexpectedly high demand, they might just distribute their profit over more units. Defy Convention and Join the Rebellion!

 

You mean that now miners not only will get the VGAs but also discount in items that they can sell at nearly full price on ebay later? thats a bargain.