Update by Konrad Krawczyk 10/14/14 2:17 p.m. ET – The prices for Radeon R9 290X-based cards on Newegg have fallen even further. You can now get one for anywhere between $350 and $380. This comes after the prices on these cards recently dropped from roughly $549, to $400.
AMD claims that the recent price cuts have occurred as a result of “programs and promotions happening in the channel,” as opposed to slashes made by the company.
It’s worth nothing that we’re also seeing 290X-based cards going for less than $400 on other sites as well, including Amazon, and Tigerdirect.
Original story
In a move that’s likely designed to make its cards compete better with the newest offerings from Nvidia, AMD has significantly cut prices on cards with Radeon 290X and 290 GPUs in them.
You can now find 290X-based cards for $400 on sites like Newegg. That’s a $150 drop from the previous going rate of $550. On top of that, AMD also slashed the prices on cards powered by Radeon 290 GPUs from $400 down to $300, a decrease of $100.
Indeed, if you search for graphics cards with Radeon 290 GPUs in them, you’re bound to find at least a handful with updated price tags.
A few weeks ago, Nvidia debuted its new GeForce GTX 980 and 970 graphics cards. The 980 doesn’t offer performance that’s better by leaps and bounds compared to the GeForce GTX 780 Ti, the card that it replaced. However, the 980’s significantly lower price tag, combined with notably lower power consumption, pushed it to the top of the graphics card totem pole (we haven’t had a chance to test the 970 yet).
The Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti, which was the best single-GPU graphics card that Nvidia offered prior to the launch of the GTX 980, was priced between $700 and $800, on average. You can get GTX 980 cards for $550, and GTX 970 cards for $329.
Meanwhile, the GTX 980 offered better performance than the Radeon 290X for the same price, until AMD decided to slash its price down to $400. However, it’s worth noting that, according to our tests, the 290X was at least able to stay in the 980’s league from a performance standpoint, even when it was bested.
It will be interesting to see how Nvidia responds to this move, and whether a GTX 980 price cut comes about at some point in the near future as a result. Keep in mind that Black Friday is less than two months away.
