Home / Tech News / Featured Announcement / AMD’s official statement on RX Vega64 pricing answers absolutely nothing

AMD’s official statement on RX Vega64 pricing answers absolutely nothing

Yesterday, a lot of concerns surrounding AMD’s RX Vega64 pricing came to a head when new details surrounding AMD’s pricing strategy came to light. Right now, multiple sources are claiming that AMD’s previously announced $499 price tag was only ever intended to be applied to a small amount of ‘launch’ cards. Now today, AMD has finally responded to requests for comment and unfortunately, the company’s carefully crafted PR speech hasn’t really given us any answers.

For those who missed the update to our original story earlier this afternoon, you can read AMD’s full response below:

“Radeon RX Vega64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days.”

This is a carefully crafted statement that can be interpreted in multiple ways, with much of it being ambiguous in order to avoid saying anything definitive.

So what can we take away from this statement? Well in my opinion, the main focus should be on the third sentence as this is where things start to get dicey.

“Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699.”

This is AMD stating specifically that “initial launch quantities” of Vega64 did include cards at $499, $599 and $699 price points. However, it does not confirm that AMD will continue to use this pricing going forward. It simply states that at launch, those prices existed.

The very next sentence says: “We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega64, including standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks”.

This is not AMD saying that GPUs will be back in stock at their original price points, it is merely AMD saying that GPUs will be back in stock. It appears to be intentionally ambiguous, which ultimately means that this statement provided us with no real, definitive answers.

KitGuru Says: Given the amount of questions raised by yesterday’s chat with Overclockers UK Andrew Gibson, this statement is disappointing. I honestly hope that this isn't going to be AMD's final word on the matter. 

Become a Patron!

Check Also

KitGuru Advent Calendar Day 22: Win one of TWO Sharkoon gaming chairs!

For Day 22 of the KitGuru Advent Calendar, we are teaming up with Sharkoon to give TWO lucky readers a new ergonomic chair! 

35 comments

  1. Radeon RX Vega64 at SEP of $499… “SEP” Suggested Entry Price. So yep it seems they will bundle with stuff “miners” don’t want and march the price up. A $50 coupon that can only be used by the original purchaser toward a R5 1600X or above… and the same but also a $50 coupon for X370 mobo, and some games when you redeem those hardware codes. If AMD has a way to boost sales into the gaming community and it gets new hardware to folks who are considering a new builds it works for me.

    Most businessmen would act based that, challenging times require creative solutions.

  2. What a complete shit show this is. Went and bought nVidia today.

  3. Lovely. Avoid the pricing problems completely and just ignore it. yeah thats not going to work – AMD really are just hurting themselves. I mean its not a bad card, its just a year late and £200 too expensive. If they got Vega64 out at £400 and Vega 56 out at £300 it might make some kind of sense even with the huge power consumption and heat delivery. What about the ASUS card you previewed today? whats that going to cost?! £700 ?

  4. ouch – well I had expected them to do a reverse and say they would deliver vega64 at £450 again. But it appears Gibbo was right yesterday 100%. Thats not going to happen. Nice.

  5. Dammit AMD, you were doing so well, and now this. At Nvidia, they’re dancing on the tables right now. They had Volta ready to roll out, and now decided against it because Pascal doesnt have any competition anyways. What a shitty way to treat your customers (and reviewers, and retailers).

  6. Did AMD quickly sell the first batch to miners at the lower price, and now the gamers have to pay more?

  7. prices go up then i will just xfire my fury, its good enough still at 1440p @ 60hz atm and the xfire will help push games that use it

  8. So, what you are saying is you have no idea but you are going to make sure you spin the angle that they “might not be the same price” to create controversy and get page hits.

    And if everyone looks at the price and availability of video cards right now what are the odds that Vega is going to stay at suggested retail price anyway? There’s only one group that makes out from this and it’s the retailer. So, who started this whole expose’? It was a retailer who wants to make all the profit from the inflated mining prices. Why don’t you report on the price gouging that’s going on by retailers? They’re the ones who are stealing our money. Instead everyone gives them a pass and blames the miners and now the IHV.

  9. Did you even read what the retailers said? You are way behind the curve on this. Komplett, ocuk, and others have already explained the situation. Im all for supporting amd but seriously man – take your head out of your ass. https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/ocuks-andrew-gibson-clears-up2-rx-vega64-pricing-disaster/

    If these retailers are lying, amd have sat on a statement all week, then decided to say nothing as to why they are not selling the 499 dollar king (their pdf !) at 499 dollars. They never said it was a ‘launch day deal’ on a rebate so they could get favourable reviews. Amazing how you turn this into a kitguru problem (they reported on it to give us clarity) when amd have lied to all the review press, customers, everyone! Why defend that? Seriously?

  10. no surprise with that statement really deliberately refusing to get rid of the confusion, this is also preventing reviewers changing their reviews, as they all refusing to go against AMD without AMD saying so. Nvidia will be rubbing their hands with glee at this, as the one thing AMD always had over nvidia was performance per dollar, but now nvidia has that crown.

  11. This guy has a hard on for AMD. This is literally the only place left on the net since yesterday who still hasn`t heard that NO PRICES ARE CHANGING.

  12. So a card like Vega 56 that is faster than the 1070, and [9/10 agree] will definitely lead by 10-15% somehow owes a lower price than the slower card because it came out a year later?

    The Intel guys are getting desperate. They keep acting like Vega 56 is slower than the 1070, when it isnt. They also keep acting like 64 has peaked out, and wont get boosted by drivers, better API tweaks and the use of the vastly superior memory type.

  13. “So a card like Vega 56 that is faster than the 1070…” Uh yes, but not by very much at all. The point is it should have smoked the 1070, which yes, came out a year ago. Especially with all the hoopla AMD leaked out about Vega over the past year.

    “They also keep acting like 64 has peaked out, and wont get boosted by drivers…” Sure, I believe the drivers will mature, and that will help. A little. But not a huge diff. and it still wont beat a 1080 across the board. This is AMD we are talking about after all, not a great driver history there.

    “vastly superior memory type” HBM has not shown any real benefit to gamers over GDDR5 or GDDR5X, nor do I suspect it will for GDDR6 which is forthcoming. AMD bet the farm on HBM and I think they lost that wager.

    Love Ryzen. They did great things there. Their GPU division however…. wow – not so much.

  14. Wait why should it have smoked it? Who said?
    Pascal is a great design and very very hard to beat and the fact that AMD did it by not just slamming as many transistors on a board as possible is simply amazing. They completely had to reinvent entire aspects of GPUs as we know them. So they deserve the hype. They also deserve an extra year.

    Also, I hope you realize the year was not developing the card, it simply was waiting on the HBM which was almost nonexistent before AMD pushed it.

    “HBM has not shown any real benefit to gamers over GDDR5 or GDDR5X, nor do I suspect it will for GDDR6 which is forthcoming. AMD bet the farm on HBM and I think they lost that wager.”

    This is so wrong, I can`t see a rational person who understands the tech able to take this position. So are you unclear on how brand new tech works? Of course it hasnt shown advantages over the industry standard, the industry hasnt used its massive strengths yet. The Fury was the only HBM offering and it flopped because AMD had no momentum as well as it literally being the first HBM modules used in that way. HBM2 is much, much more supported now in theory and most Devs I talked with are super excited about it. I know Samsung is, as its going to start using it in its top of the line TVs and wipe the floor with the superior OLED or the superior chips Sony makes. HBM allows you to lean much more heavily on the Ram itself as it is entire orders of magnitudes faster and at least now is not bogged down with bandwidth limits.

    Samsung is the most meteoric rise the tech industry has ever seen and everything they bet on wins, and they are betting on HBM now, enough to open new facilities around the world. And so many customers have placed orders they are backed up, and said they were opening Samsung private HBM facilities for new HBM ideas they have learned building for AMD.

    Number one. 64 bit processors had the same people just like you. “We will never see the day that a GPU needs more than 1 GB of Vram let alone the massive limit of 2 GB” Right? Hell I remember a ton of guys on forums explaining how AMD wasted its 5 years creating the 64 bit CPU and then it literally changed the entire world of gaming.

    So even though no one knew how to or what to use the extra Ram on, it didnt stop them from thinking outside the box and seeing 20 years down the road in a world with 4k Displays and OS`s that run on a minimum 2 GBs. If I told you Windows needed 2 GB just to run back in 2002 you would have laughed me out of the room.

    HBM isn’t even a stretch compared to that. Its simple, Memory has hit its hard limit [or will in 10 years] but its simple. WE CANT KEEP MAKING THINGS SMALLER WITH OUR LEVEL OF TECH. So, we have to be creative and instead of building a city [of Ram] with HUGE 10 acre lots between each house and taking us 30 minutes to drive across, HBM simply built city block of SkyScrapers that takes a person 1 minute to get to the floor they live on. This both increases speed and saves massive amounts of space that WE WILL NEED if we want Nano computers or anything resembling them.

    So saying HBM is a failure is not even worth arguing with. In a tech world where everything is judged on speed and therefore size, the tech that can pack the most into the smallest package wins. And this is the equiv of the dark ages of HBM, and it still puts up insane bandwidths and takes a inferior design [all be it very, very little difference] when it comes to games and smashes the competition. Why? Because HBM is so much better in theory and so many steps ahead of typical “Vram setups” that it literally carrys Vega 56 over the finish line and smashes the 1070.

    Seriously if you cannot see the relevance of HBM, you either dont understand the tech, you are a hopeless fanboi or you just happen to be smarter than Samsung who has decided to basically put most its eggs in this basket since they saw what AMDs HBM modules that samsung built them were actually capable of.

    Samsung just became the number 1 CPU designer and Manufacturer in the world surpassing Intel and the very first thing they did was expand HBM facilities by 8 times. They filled orders for them so fast to Hynix and other COMPETITORS that Samsung knows they will be the only ones left in the cold, and the yare making the chips.

    Just like you, Hynix and Intel and Nvidia were all skeptics, and now I have 4 buddies who work at all 3 places and 1 at Google and they are all saying the same thing.

    Cloud is the future of everything to do with computers. And the main weakness was? You guessed it packing massive amounts of Ram and achieving the massive bandwidth needs that cloud brings. Most thought HBM was hands down the future but it was 20-40 years off in a real setting.

    AMD proved its not, and so any way you slice it Vega was a success. A card that was built for compute and massive amounts of workloads that also is fast enough to hang with the Ferrari of the GPU Gaming world, and somehow thats a failure to you?

    Im just not sure how to even argue this point as its so obvious. Other than me trying to think like a fanboi who hates AMD, or a uber nerd who will simply melt unless I use anything but a 1080 TI level card and then act like I am the “Everymans Gamer” and ignoring that almost no gamers use the TI and hell, that the 1060-1070 level cards are buy far the best bang for the buck and also ignoring that 90% of gamers do so on 1080p and at a 60 FPS cap in which the 1080 TI is a complete waste.
    Other than than those two [Useless fanboi or Taurus driver who wants to be a Ferrari owner even though my roads dont even allow 80 MPH+] I cannot see a argument at all for Vega being a “Failure”.

    Instead I think it shows how out of touch with reality fanbois really are. Rather than just be excited for a card that beats the high end mainstream model [and has tons more raw power just waiting to come alive], the Bois have to refer to… “Well the 1080TI still wins and even though I cant own one because I dont have 900$ for a card that might be completely smashed in a year by volta, I am happy knowing the top 4% of card owners will beat AMD.”

    Even if I was a Nvidia guy [Which I actually am both, I use a 970 now] I would say. “AMD/Vega just hooked me up bigtime. Within 1 month of announcing Vega, Nvidia lowered 1060 through 1080 lines by 20% They got off there asses and started making more 1060s-1070s rather than use “Miners” as an excuse to clear out older stock and jack up prices. Nvidia also started giving free Tixan XP Drivers that increased performance by 300% in certain programs [I suppose you think they developed this all in a few nights, and were not just being greedy until Vega chin checked them right?] I mean 30% I can understand, but 300% means you were either lazy rolling them out, or intentionally holding back [which is more likely] [One thing I love about AMD is they risk a lot usually]

    Or how about Nvidia now having to up its game and actually design new shit? I suppose its best to trust a corporate group to do the right thing and not price gouge or release 10 times slower than they would, or maybe they have been sitting on things like MFAA and Pascal hoarding the tech as well as renewing patents on multiple cycles because “they can” and why not if they make more money, no matter how much hardship that puts on your loyal fanbase.

    So where Nvidia just used the same old GPU design and just made it one gen newer, AMD did what it does and risked a lot by pushing the tech envelope knowing it isn’t as safe an option and also knowing most tech makes the second guy rich, not the one who actually suffered to make it so.
    And AMD actually pulled it off when talking Vega 56, and yet you still are bitching about a year? And still saying its not enough to beat the 1070 in its own price point? Even though it [1070] was lowered to that price point because the Vega.

    I mean seriously just from performance, the 1070 was more powerful than the 980TI…By a lot. And this card for 400$ beats custom cooled and BIOS`d boards all while being much more power hungry and easily being able to run at 1650 MHZ when they give it a unlimited power curve. So basically for 400$ you are getting a 980TITI that will when unleashed beat ANY 1070 and it should do so in ANY title given time. HBM is like candy for game designers.

    Sorry, but I heard the same shit about Ryzen on week one from the same types. Ones who didnt understand the true design genius and the ywatched a few techtubers say “Its gonna be terrible for gaming” and all the sudden week 1 it was a “Flop”, and gonna bankrupt AMD and “Finally the hype train derails” BLAH BLAH BLAH and now all the sudden, everyone was a Ryzen believer from the start.

    The same guys who told us “IPC IS EVERYTHING and the reason it will never compete with ANY INTEL.” Then, Intel realized the same thing AMD did and the same thing Nvidia is…We are approaching the limits of “Pack trans on a board and make the gaps smaller”. And it simply isnt gonna be viable.

    So AMD made Infinity Fabric which Intel and its fanbois laughed at, until they copied it and now “Mesh” is a great design that scales so well. Except it somehow lost its edge over Ryzen??? Because the IPC mattered a lot less than the CCX/Mesh vs Ringbus methods and because AMD was pioneering that tech while Intel just copied it, AMD made up for its lower IPCs with much better Cache and non shitty manufacturing using thermal pads and pastes. Now the 1600 and 7800x are within the Margin of error on 90% of games.

    Vega 56 is a smash hit to anyone with a brain that doesnt have such hate, it is blinding. Just like the Athlon starting the 64 bit and multicores which is the standard now, HBM will be the standard in 20 years and it will be traced to Vega.

    Now Im much harder on Vega 64 and TBH its not impressing me to much. I think they should have just used 48 units and 56 units and used the extra power it saves not using those and packs it into the cards/HBMs clocks.
    Also, the 56 is gimped on purpose by many factors, but I was at a testing session last night in San Fran and I saw a Linux Vega simply have its BIOS not load and it literally gained 8% FPS in 10 out of 12 games tested and it gained 12% in the last 2 and 6 of them were Nvidia titles all the way.
    I also saw a 56 using a AIO and packing a Liquid Bios hit 1720 stable and adding 70+ watts to it and it beating a Blower Asus 1070 by 20%!!!

    So before you guys talk about how bad they are, please go learn about how amazing the VRMs are, how bullet proof the components are and finally how insanely fast HBM is when OC`d. It literally raises FPS 2:1 when raising the HBM vs the Core. And its saying it almost never drops frames when you rev up the power is an understatement. It whomps the 1070 by 40% if you count the upper average 75% of frames recorded and not just the 1%/99% and overall averages.

    Until you see a Vega run, you dont understand or believe how those guys in texas ran the “Blind taste test” and almost all said the Vega was much smoother than the 1080. Sorry but it is. It simply never bogs down, no matter how much is happening. Sure it lowers from 85% to 75% to 65%. But I never saw it ever drop below 60 FPS/60% of its max FPS and in super busy scenes at 1440 ultrawide @ 100 FPS. This is because its not limited by heat or Vdrop like most things are [because its VRM is the best I have ever tested at 92% efficient out of the box, which is unheard of and almost the absolute limit]

    So i am sorry, but I know more than most do about Vega and Pascal. I got to test both heavily the launch weeks, partially because I live in the tech belt, but also because I am a nerd who doesn’t simply listen to peoples opinions, I test them. And I try not to get bogged down into who is evil and for why [even though I do with Intel I admit it.] or “AMD did X, Y and Z 8 years ago, they must still be the same group because they never learn.”

    Last fact is both Intel and AMD and Nvidia are not the companies they were, not at all. AMD is not the shady habitual liars who used to seem to do it out of habit or because they were always fighting for there lives daily. And Intel is no longer the stalwart tech leaders they were, who I revered as noble and above the pettiness in many ways. Now they are the low blow artists who make so many unforced errors they feel like attacking a much smaller company is the way to go. It used to be Intel would simply ignore AMD and keep its cool, but Intel is now the spoiled Brat who thinks its so much greater than it actually is, that it has a whine fest every time it beats itself or AMD beats it, which is weekly now.

    Sry for Wall, but I have seen this argument 100 times and already had a answer formulated and ready. Simply put

    TL;DR
    HBM is as cool as it seems.
    HBM is being fully picked up by Samsung who is the largest chip maker in the world as well as the most successful rise in the history of tech.
    Everyone said you needed X86 or Mobile chips would fail 100% of the time. Bam wrong. They said Samsung spent to much on Ram and would never make money at such a high quality. Bam wrong, they just are the most popular Die company on earth now, and companies realize they dont need to make ram, when they can buy it from Samsung and repackage it.

    Lastly it was suicide and insane to back a search engine over the worlds largest and richest Mobile and Desktop market. And yet Samsung is now whooping Apple in sales by a huge margin.

    They have become the leader or runner up in every single tech field they entered within 4 years of entering.
    -Best PC monitors 2 years in
    -2nd Best Tvs in world by a huge margin
    -Best Ram, and non X86 mobile chips that are now in everything.
    -Best Appliances including Washer/Dryers and Fridges.
    -Best mobile phone platform and API
    -By far best App integration in every single item they make. Samsung could make a brick smart.

    So whoever they back, you better believe will win, if not by genius, by sheer market share at this point. Now add Hynix, Izuzu and Micron all ordering more HBM than can be produced and that is 80% of the worlds Memory makers all switching focus to HBM.

  15. I agree about the mechanic. We should never “Join sides” as these companies are not on our side, and never will be.

    But it was clear as far as NA goes this was a rumor that mutated. Just more PR teams trying to screw the others over by starting rumors the others has to defend.

  16. Actually. No. Its not just ocuk. Its multiple retailers that have explained the situation. Its all very well trying to move the blame from amd but there are too many sources indifferent countries confirming a launch day price ONLY OF 499 DOLLARS via a rebate system. The press were conveniently not told , again confirmed by many many press. This was clearly intentional so reviewers would think the retail price was much less thsn it actually was. Dont come here blaming retailers and kitguru because you really do just sound like an amd shill. These companies, whether its intel, nvidia, amd – need called out for dodgy practices. This kind of behaviour does not help consumers.

  17. Sorry, but this has been cleared up. Im not blaming retailers. Im saying this whole “Rebate” part was true, but this article was not about that and was misleading. At least on the surface. I think they screwed up no doubt, but what was fueld was the idea AMD did this on purpose to somehow sneak a major price increase ON ALL FUTURE CARDS.

    FACTS SAY NOPE. Simply not true. All future cards will cost what they were announced at. And I just read those rebates are being taken care of on top of it.

    AMD was scared a vendor would just get greedy and sell 100 cards to miners and so they limited the window of time hoping no one would hang on to them a wekk then make a killing at the gamers expense. It backfired because everyone assumed there was a shady motive, where as I just see a company not used to launches and simply rusty.

    So sorry but your wrong, it wasn’t for reviewers to make better reviews or else AMD would have simply given them all 56`s and AIO only cards, and listed the Liquid cards at a 499 in the beginning then change it, and say “No the 499 was for the air cooled card, not the AIO model”

  18. Not used to launches and rusty? Are you being serious or on a troll run here today? You defend AMD on this and attack everyone else – thats some serious spin going on….

    OCUK and Komplett and other stores have answered this – they won’t be getting in stock of Vega64 again for anything close to 499 dollars in the UK, its going to be priced at £550-£600 and this has nothing to do with retailers jacking the prices – you need to go read the comments.

    Komplett said ‘“Komplett.no today confirms to Tek.no that the price of just over
    5,000 kroner was limited to a limited edition of 275 graphics cards, as
    the company – as one of AMD’s “selected” online stores – was allowed to
    sell at a favourable price at launch. The RX Vega 64 version we had for
    sale was in a limited edition of this price and will unfortunately not
    be put up for sale again. When these were sold out, we had to remove
    this product from our pages”.

    So in the launch PDF files (shared everywhere) its said VEGA64 the $500 dollar king. ~But its not 500 dollars, so its not a 500 dollar king card. its £550 in the UK after the first day of sales (If you see £600 then THATS £50 retailer ‘mark up’). No press were told the retail price was £550. They were told it was 499 dollars, so around 450 ish with taxes etc. The lied about the price. No other way you can spin it. The fact they never even address it in their press announcement this week is just putting the finger up at the public. so my Vega money went into a GTX1080.

    If you are happy with that, well thats great for you – a lot of people aren’t. I think its a shady thing to do to get favourable reviews. But its backfired because most of the people I know waiting on this have bought nvidia. They are cheaper, cooler, quieter and take less power. No brainer.

  19. Who is attacking? Can you not read?

    Also I guess you cannot do math well either?

    AMD is still leaving the MSRP as it always was. Do you want them to be facists and force companies to sell them at the price they dictate? Of course not you let the market dictate that.

    The only issue was the rebate, appearing to be proof that the future price was going to be higher. IT ISNT. I DONT KNOW HOW ELSE TO TYPE IT.

    AMD was trying to help out some of its favorite vendors and giving them double and triple what a normal vendor makes on the card. How do you not understand this?

    The Vega is selling for the same 500$, and AMD isn’t making anymore off the card if the vendor decides to charge more. People arent happy because they are drones and watch Youtube like its a god. They are not smart enough to do research beyond hearing what a few “Experts” have to say.

    And then when the real experts who just had 2 hour meetings with the entire AMD make a video to explain it, people like you somehow miss the retraction and will still years from now remember AMD for something they rectified.

    It sounds like your angry they ran out of stock. Thats fine, but don`t try to spin it into a massive conspiracy where there isnt one.

    AMD couldn`t wait any longer because guys kept saying “Its been a year it better be double as fast” and then when they ran out of cards, and 3rd party vendors start losing there discounts, you are saying AMD is raising the price….WHICH THEY ARE NOT.

    MSRP is and always has been a suggested retail price.

    So if AMD tells the stores they are not getting a discount anymore how in the hell do you think that is raising the price on you? Do you own that store?

    So please explain how AMD could fix this? Threaten the vendors ? Yeah that would go over super well.

    The real issue is some of these vendors got pissed they wouldnt be making such big markups and so they shared this story hoping AMD would panick and continue the massive “VENDOR DISCOUNT”. So everyone jumped on the train and it turns out it was much different.

    They made these “Rebates” to protect us gamers from super greedy vendors. All the vendors had to do was say they sold out immediately, then wait 2 weeks when absolutely no one had cards and sell them at literally double or better yet, sell them at normal price but keep the motherboard and game combos to resell.

    So AMD made it so that huge discount would expire very fast and would force the vendors to come back to them for new rebates. Its a way to maintain a measure of control.

    Seriously some of these small shops got 200 cards. Now imagine they would have said they sold out in the first hour, kept all 200 cards and sold them all to miners in 4 or 5 sales.

    Im sorry but people are such bitches now a days. AMD couldn’t do anything without pissing everyone off.

    They risked a lot in using HBM and a new 14 nm process rather than just repackage Fury like they could have. In doing so this takes tins of time, in which guys bitch about this card being more expensive and a year to late.
    And then trying to keep a leash on vendors and miners they are getting accused of trying to skew reviews WHEN THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Anyone knows changing the MSRP would be 100x more harmful to your product than a few Techtubers not liking it.

  20. Ah ha – but you do know that AMD control the pricing of the cards right? Its not a retailer. its AMD. They force a price at a certain point for their reference cards and thats how it is. Custom cards fall outside this a little as the partner develops their own cooling system. You think Asus and Sapphire make their reference cards? they are ALL THE SAME with DIFFERENT STICKERS ON THEM! DOH! AMD control them, not Andrew Gibson at OCUK in the UK.

    His words? “£449 is not possible, $499 is below what they cost us direct from the board partners by a large chunk of cash, AMD rebated us to hit $499 on a set amount of units. As such $599 is now the minimum”.

    AMD rebate the dealers for the first day sales. So customer buys card at £450, OCUK sell it at £450, get a £100 rebate – £550 total for that card. AMD subsidise the first day sales with all their ‘preferred etailers’.

    Once those cards are sold – its retailing for £550, not £450. So it reality the 500 dollar king was always £550.

    Its simple maths BntyHunter – no point attacking people because you can’t grasp how economy works and who forces the prices. Its AMD who control it all.

    There have been a zillion AMD launches and this has never happened before. They aren’t rusty, its not a mistake – it was a complete con from day one because the card underperforms and it was simple PR damage limitation. Pretend its £450/$499 but after a small amount of cards sell out, raise the price.

    That was never in any PR slide. If you dont believe one media site, check – like ALL OF THEM! They all say the same thing. They were never told the real price and scored the card based on a huge price difference.

    AMD were under attack for this and took 4 days to issue the most watery, non descriptive press release stating how great their sales were and nothing else. So if you want the 500 dollar king, be prepared to pay well over the odds.

    Not sure what the whole fuss is about – the card is basically dog shit anyway. even at 450 quid, so only AMD fanboys like yourself will buy it. ~Go get a GTX1080, save money, generate less heat, run cooler. Get faster performance.

    Or just be a shill and find another angle now to save your blushes.

  21. Wow, Vega must be costing AMD a *lot* of money to produce!! I bet they’re even losing money at £449, hence they just can’t do it without taking a big hit 🙁

  22. WTF….. To add to the MSI Lightning you bought a few weeks ago? Must be getting mighty tight in that case of yours dreamer lmao

  23. Dreamer? I am building a new threadripper system. Ive 2 pcs in the house. This will be the third which was going to be all amd. First time in a long time, but that didn’t happen. Thought you said you were leaving here for being called out by mods for being a troll? Welcome back.

  24. Yeah sadly my Vega money is likely going to a 1080 ti. I mean that’s the level I was planing to buy at and AMD doesn’t even have a product for me there. But if Vega was close I would still get it because of my Freesync monitor. But its’ not and not even competitively priced for the performance it does have, even assuming the liquid version can beat most 1080s by like 10% with better drivers. Which is the best I think we can realistically hope for. Vega is an unmitigated disaster for AMD which why they are pulling shenanigans like this. They have no where to go. Liquid Vega 64 will never match much less beat the 1080 tis that share it’s price point and might take 6 months to a year to even consistently beat 1080s on the one hand, but Vega cost AMD so much money to make they can’t charge any less for it on the other hand. So all they have left is tricks.

  25. yeah AMD 100% knew what they were doing. Vega at 1080 performance for $500 is an ok option when most 1080s are in the $500-$550 range. At $600, might as well get a cheaper 1080 that is cooler, uses less power, and out performs Vega in some games. Vega 56, that matches a 1070 is really $499. The starting price of 1080s. AMD knew they were basically screwed since they could not charge less so they played games with bundles to “discourage miners” to make it seem like the real prices were lower and it was those dirty miners driving up the price. But the reality is Vega is just too expensive to sell for less while not having enough performance to justify the price. It’s the worst failure AMD has had since Bulldozer nearly killed them off in the CPU market.

  26. Yes, you have a Ferrari and a unicorn too lmao. I have no problem with you but I’d never even read your name until you turned up in the EVGA article running your mouth about who you’ve reported and trying to win favour with your psycophantic fawning. Having an opinion isn’t trolling and yes for the most part I am a pretty negative person, wouldn’t the world be a shitty place if we all agreed.
    Now why would a man who insists on only the best Nvidia MSI Lightning cards which we all know are overpriced be so concerned about the pricing of a blower style RX Vega 64? Somethings not adding up.

  27. So AMD cards can be boosted by drivers but NVidia cards are required by law to use the same drivers without any improvements. Two can play this game.

  28. Sorry, NO COUPONS. NewEgg said that the bundles are for The RX Vega 64, the Ryzen 1800X, and an expensive mobo for $1,100 ($1,200 -$100 “instant rebate”). You have no choice over the contents of the bundle. Take it or leave it.

  29. OMG. Look at the pack prices at NewEgg! So much for a $499 RX Vega 64 card!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5b300ff98a489853792b73f6103615cafd0f05c2fc120029cb549f77f944ab84.jpg

    https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.3616080

  30. All the NewEgg Vega deals:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a794a7c8f117708b1ae666b4d5ec17c4050495444b986c6bcb0b79f47f2a70a9.jpg

  31. That’s not what the AMD statement says. Right now we have several retailers being very clear about future pricing, and AMD saying the launch ‘included’ these lower prices, and nothing else besides “we’ll get stock up again soon”. That’s ALL it says, you can read it again if you like. It’s written in a very dodgy way specifically to avoid having to confirm future pricing.

  32. Hey ive a good job and love my pc’s. Sorry to hear that for you having 2 or 3 systems in the house is comparible to owning a ‘unicorn’. Maybe if you had spent less of your life arguing with people, calling them liars and more of your life improving your career and working hard it might not seem ‘impossible’ to own more than one computer! What a bizarre sense of logic that is. Ive also an xbox, ps4 and a few tablets, and a ton of other tech. The fact you dont seem to believe any of this doesnt make it less true.

    You are seriously comparing one of these vega reference cards with an msi gtx1080ti lightning? I may buy a lot of tech, sure – but i dont waste it on overpriced garbage when there is something better around. the msi lightning gtx1080ti is a fantastic solution built to the best standards and its one of the highest performance cards you can buy at 4k. The rx vega isnt, its just a worse performing gtx1080, overpriced, hot, loud and very late to the game.

  33. Go back and read the EVGA comments, I’d never said a bad word to you in my life before you said you’d been reporting me for trolling for some time. Now just so you know I always stay within community guidelines. I’m always willing to drop everything to help anyone if they need help or advice, I’ve known Allan many many years, long before this website, back to the days when we were alpha testers for ATI Catalyst drivers under NDA. I’ve been building and selling PC’s since the early 90’s and i’ve used that experience to publish a number of reviews for a laptop magazine, before my career as a toolmaker and Ill health meant I had to stop reviewing. Now I’m not sure how this petty bickering spiralled out of control but I’m quite happy to call a truce, life’s to short and it’s a good time to be a tech addict, XboxOneX event 8pm tonight.

  34. In Taiwan, the retail price(reference design) is around 670 USD which is way much higher than its recommended price. The Vega series TDP is high either so I think Vega is not a good choice now if you would like to buy a new video card.

  35. The why are VisionTek releasing the stand alone RX Vega 64 at $699? this can be confirmed via the press release on Toms Hardware and on VisionTek’s own website…