Vortez - Computer Hardware News & Reviews » News » August 2012 » Further AMD Price-Cuts Incoming

Reacting to the release of the GTX660Ti, AMD's 7000-series pricing is tweaked downwards for added value.



Competition is nip and tuck between NVIDIA and AMD these days, and AMD look set to make it even more tasty. Tweaktown are reporting that, following a reduction in July, the California-based company are reducing pricing yet further for key members of the 7000-series and bring even more bang-for-your-buck to stretched consumers:



Most eye-catching of these new prices is that of the 2GB 7870, down to $250 (or close to £200), but keen overclockers will want to grab a piece of the 2GB 7850 action with aftermarket cooling.

The key precipitating factor may well be the broadly positive reviews of NVIDIA's GTX660Ti, with sites putting the new card between the the 7870 and 7950 in performance depending on benchmark and driver selection. In our review W3bbo viewed this as a key weakness, and AMD may be looking at exploiting just that weakness in the months to come.

In addition, NVIDIA's low-end Kepler parts are still AWOL, resulting in the 7850 and 7870 only competing against the previous generation of cards. AMD need to push this advantage home in advance of both the 650/660's release and build market share before the October release of Windows 8.


Source: Tweaktown

Tagged as: AMD, 7000-series, 28nm, GCN

martian_aphid Posts: 25 Joined: 2012-07-27

#26188 Posted on: 22.08.2012 10:49:09 Good to see some cards dropping sub-£200 at last! Now which is the best replacement for an ageing 4870 in a X38/Q6600 machine, any advice?

Suicidal Zebra Moderator Posts: 400 Joined: 2010-11-15

#26193 Posted on: 22.08.2012 17:22:59 Good to see some cards dropping sub-£200 at last! Now which is the best replacement for an ageing 4870 in a X38/Q6600 machine, any advice? Honestly, it's a tough call and depends on your budget. The Q6600, although a great CPU (hell, ran one for years) is just slightly starting to show its age - though would be relatively expensive to upgrade (CPU + mobo + RAM). If you want to save a little to put towards such an upgrade, getting a ~£165 7850 2GB and then overclocking the nuts off it would be a grand plan. A budget of £250 and you're firmly into 660Ti or 7950 GHz Edition territory, which are both excellent for high quality 1080p gaming. W3bbo's the expert, but I'd be happy with either of them. Perhaps NVIDIA for PhysX and TXAA, but neither feature are deal-makers in my eyes; game-by-game variation is a toss of a coin because both companies favour their own stable of studios.

martian_aphid Moderator Posts: 25 Joined: 2012-07-27

#26194 Posted on: 23.08.2012 08:58:19 Hey Suicidal Zebra, thank you for your advice. As far as budget goes I'm looking sub-£200 but preferably closer to £150, I suppose that puts it in the 7850 territory but I hear the vanilla 660 is coming fairly soon so perhaps I should wait for that? As far as a whole upgrade goes, I don't have any plans to change mobo/CPU at this time - the reason I'm looking at the GPU is it seems to be regularly hitting the high 90s these days (I'm thinking dust that I can't blast out). I should clarify that this is more of a work machine and still seems to handle most of those tasks okay, I only really play a bit of SC2 on it. I mainly need the GPU for working with Autocad, PS and 3D modelling/rendering software - so maybe AMD is the route to go with their superior GPGPU performance to the Keplers. Considering that I'm keeping the X38/Q6600, is the 7850 going to be limited at all by that combination and should I be looking lower down the spectrum i.e. 77xx or is the 7850 a worthy replacement for the 4870. Thanks again for your help

Mishima Administrator Posts: 4326 Joined: 2009-07-28

#26195 Posted on: 23.08.2012 10:02:28 Another idea would be to grab a 660Ti second hand. There will surely be some folk who will buy and then sell on and that way you get a new card, and warranty inc. too. The cheapest 660Ti is around £250 in stores so you could expect to pay just under or just over £200 and this would keep you within budget or there abouts

martian_aphid Administrator Posts: 25 Joined: 2012-07-27

#26196 Posted on: 23.08.2012 18:56:43 Hey Mishima, yeah that's definately something to consider, plus the fact that AMD seem to be getting pretty aggressive on pricing right now that I have a feeling it may be only a matter of time before nvidia have to follow suit with their pricing. Its nice at last to see some more competitive pricing

Mishima Administrator Posts: 4326 Joined: 2009-07-28

#26198 Posted on: 23.08.2012 20:46:14 Yeah they could well respond to those price-cuts. Watch this space!

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