Have you seen the prices on these R9 280x's? They've blown up to $450! The prices have skyrocketed because of Lite-Coiners eating up all the cards. I think I'd rather have a cheaper and better GTX 770. That's how you make it easy for gamers; just make it too expensive to justify and force everyone to buy NVidia instead
Does this mean im in the money? Edit: just had a quick look on scan and ebay, same prices and in stock. must be a US thing. Also "better" is debatable, there pretty on par with each other.
It does seem to be a US thing, although to an extent I'm happy for everyone, because let's face it gamers can still get a fantastic deal buying an Nvidia card, both companies get to do well (Nvidia gets to own the graphics market while AMD own the altcoin one) and all the alt-coin speculators are paying for the improvement of gaming-kind.
Yeah, to be fair, it's hardly AMD's fault they happen to make a card that is more attractive to miners than gamers. AMD do make other cards too, and are doing some decent work with mantle at the moment.
Despite the fact that it's probably doing them more harm than good, AMD should be proud that they are the clear leaders in the world of compute power at the minute.
But real compute cards are more expensive for a reason: those GPUs are either made on a different process or binned to run 24/7. Gaming GPUs are generally not, they have peak loads and spend a large % of their life at idle. Home consumer compute is a similar type of load I would expect.
AMD doesn't set the price for its card - the retailers do. RRP = recommended retail price - 'suggested' by the manufacturer. Newegg has a complex algorithm that sets pricing based on supply and demand. Lots of miners buying the 280x? Price will go up. No one buying the 780ti? Price will go down. So don't blame AMD for actual gamers not being able to afford their cards. Sure its good for their bottom line, but at a time when they are trying to push two new proprietary technologies (TrueAudio and Mantle) its not good news for them long term.
Until crypto currency implodes and then there will be hundreds of cheap 2nd hand AMD cards on the market!
I saw an article somewhere about the 750ti's hash rate being a big improvement over the Kepler, so i expect when the full Maxwell line appears things will swing the other way with it's significant power savings. Edit: this article http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonev...eal-the-cryptocurrency-mining-crown-from-amd/
Unless you buy a card where the warranty is serial based - these cards aren't likely to be very old when the owner gives up and realises they've wasted a heap of time and money, so most of them will likely still be covered. That said, it's always worth buying new if you can afford to.
USA is crazy money for AMD cards at the moment. If it catches on elsewhere then AMD could have a problem, As they are trying to get 2 new techs into gaming area and if everyone is just mining on there cards they are not going to get that going. hopefully the crypto currency will explode and save us all the paper work.
I'm actually not so sure that it is a problem. AMD ultimately care about units shifted, and if the mining craze is causing them to sell so much faster that the price goes up then good for them - they're going to lose a small chunk of the gaming market but a gain bigger slice of the consumer GPGPU market.
I'm almost surprised that AMD hasn't released a consumer gpgpu card for the mining market. Something like a lighter pro feature cut variant of the RadeonSky with less memory and an approachable price.
AMD does make it easy for gamers. Thanks to AMD, the 780/290 cards are priced in the £300-£350 range and I was able to get my Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC for £320.
AMD's philosophy is, and always will be value priced products. That's how they started and that's how they continue. If they start turning into an Intel or Nvidia they will just push people away as they are not known for bleeding edge products at bleeding botty prices. This surge in prices isn't really helping them. Nvidia drivers have always been better and always will be better. Nvidia spent a lot of money on SLI and making it work properly whilst AMD just misled every one (just making a poiint here...) TBH? I think this coin nonsense is ridiculous. Just another way to make money yet you end up cutting off your nose to spite your face. Still, if it helps AMD in any way that's always going to be a good thing. I shudder to think what the world would look like without them and with Nvidia and Intel being able to charge whatever they like.