nVidia Xmas sale starts early on GTX470/480

KitGuru spends far too much time trolling bars and eavesdropping on conversations. We admit it. We need help. However, in the meantime, when we frequent the ale houses of Theale, it's always possible to hear something juicy. Especially about price drops.

Supping on cider at 22 Church Street, Theale in Berkshire, KitGuru's tummy started rumbling. We noticed the bar menu and cross the sawdust-strewn floors to pick one up and flash an awkward smile at a lopsided barmaid.

As luck would have it, we passed a table with a couple of tired looking execs. Initially, the conversation seems to be about David Cameron and the economy.

“Worse than we thought” and “Urgent need for a stimulus package” were bandied about.

However, as KitGuru flicked between roasted lamb and the house-special stew, we realised that the subject was high end GTX cards.

No idea who these fellas work for, but they said a massive discount programme was about to be launched into the UK channel. The idea was to help move high-end GTX stock by dropping the price into distribution by $20.

Now £15 might not seem like much, but if a card was costing a disti £200 and you lop off £15, then the final street price might drop by £20 or more.

This table shows the way that a $20 price drop from nVidia to a distributor could get translated to a street price from a store:-

	Old Price	New Price
Distribution Buy Price	$435	$415
GBP @ $1.45 to £1	£300	£286
Distribution Margin	7%	7%
Reseller Buy Price	£323	£308
Reseller Margin	15%	15%
Reseller Sell Price	£380	£362
VAT	£66	£63
Shelf Price	£446	£425

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If you are an nVidia fanbois and wanted GTX action for less cash, then it seems a good idea to wait a week or two for this price drop to filter through. With good news on pricing like this, we guess it's “Happy (early) Xmas GTX lovers!” from Jen Hsun Huang and his band of merrily pixilated men.

After staggering from the pub, we texted a leading ATI partner and asked if they planned to respond with some knicker dropping of their own. The sound of laughter filled our ears. Seems they still can't make enough of the things.

KitGuru says: No indication yet that the GTX465 will drop in price, but KitGuru will keep knocking back the pints in Theale until we hear something. Hard work, but someone has to do it.

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