Quote:
Originally Posted by
Benchmarksli 
puhleeze! This is yet ANOTHER desperation move on AMD's part. They've been losing profit ever since kepler arrived on the scene. Why do you think the 7950 sales WELL below it's original price of $500.00?
When the consumers aren't buying your product, you have no choice but to lower prices.
business 101
But the thing is they can't go much lower that $349. At the same time Nvidia's 680, the card which is much cheaper to produce goes for $499.
So what does AMD do? The
only sensible thing they can do in this situation.
They protect the margins, by keeping the price tag.
They sacrifice TDP*Noise and take back some of Tahiti's generous OC potential.
GCN is somewhat similar to Buldozer in this:
Underlying design, and basic principles are great, but it's simply not as refined product as competition's offering.
Although this is much less pronounced with SI, you can see these glimpses of BDZ character.