NVIDIA price cuts
We asked Raja what he thought of NVIDIA dropping the prices of its GPUs. “ATI’s move was unexpected really; NVIDIA didn’t have much option but to cut the price,” he said. “No one likes a price drop when a product has just been launched but NVIDIA has done a good job of protecting board partners.”
When NVIDIA drops its prices it ‘protects’ its board partners by compensating them for the amount of the drop. It’s then up to the board partners to pass on this compensation to the channel and, ultimately, to consumers. Of course, this is no consolation to those consumers who bought the product at the higher price, but this is the risk early adopters always run.
The price cuts seem to be working. “I think we’ve seen a sharp jump in NVIDIA’s sales after the price drop,” said Raja. “Considering the price of the cards, the GTX 260 and 280 are selling really well and the new PhyX enabling drivers provide another reason to buy. Sales of these graphics cards often lead to sales of other components like motherboards, PSUs etc.”
But what about the new AMD/ATI GPUs? Have they been as popular at Scan as they have elsewhere? “All the ATI cards that came into stock sold out, so consumers are obviously fully aware of what’s out there,” said Raja. “This is the first time in four to five years that an ATI launch has been sold out in advance.”
So there you have it: the ATI cards are selling like hot cakes and, thanks to the price cuts, the NVIDIA ones are doing pretty well too. Looks like it’s a pretty good time to be selling, or indeed buying, graphics cards.
