AMD Radeon R9 video cards inching back toward MSRP

Quizzical

Radeon R9 290X:

MSRP:  $550

Cheapest on New Egg:  $570

Radeon R9 290:

MSRP:  $400

Cheapest on New Egg:  $440 (after promo code)

Radeon R9 280X:

MSRP:  $300

Cheapest on New Egg:  $310

Radeon R9 280:

MSRP:  $280

Cheapest on New Egg:  $260

Radeon R9 270X:

MSRP:  $200

Cheapest on New Egg:  $205 (including shipping)

Radeon R9 270:

MSRP:  $180

Cheapest on New Egg:  $180

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Additionally, those "cheapest on New Egg" are all custom board partner models, not the reference card that was so problematic for the Radeon R9 290X and 290.  While a lot of those are still above MSRP, the "cheapest card" prices are generally down about $50-$100 from what they were a couple of months ago.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Bitcoin (which video cards are generally not used to mine anymore) is now around $500, down from an all-time high of $1100.  Litecoin has fallen below $14, from an all-time high above $48.  Dogecoin is at $0.55, after peaking over $1.95.  Cryptocurrencies tend to be way down from where they were a few months ago, and the difficulty of mining a "coin" has presumably gone up as miners bought up video cards.  If buying AMD video cards for cryptocurrency mining is no longer profitable, that means gamers can get the cards at competitive prices again.

That's good news for us, of course.  Falling prices on AMD video cards also puts price pressure on Nvidia's high end that has been conspicuously lacking for months--which may drive price drops on Nvidia cards, too.  It's been quite a while since I've recommended buying a high end AMD video card.  But that seems likely to change soon with the cheapest GeForce GTX 780 Ti on New Egg still at $680.

Trionicus

Yeah, all I can say is This