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AMD sends word this afternoon that they&rsquo;re instituting an official price cut for one of their more recently launched video cards, the Radeon R9 280. The 280, AMD&rsquo;s lower tier Tahiti part and Radeon HD 7950 analogue, was launched back in March, shortly before Cryptocoin Mania subsided and AMD video cards came back to their MSRPs. As a result of being launched in that time period, the 280 launched at an inflated MSRP of $279, suitable for a time when the higher tier 280X was well over MSRP but uncomfortably close now that AMD&rsquo;s faster card is back at $299 where it belongs.</p>
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Consequently AMD is cutting the price of the 280 to bring its price back in line with its performance relative to AMD&rsquo;s other video cards. Effective today the 280 is getting a $30 price drop, from $279 to $249. This puts it almost precisely between the 280X ($299) and 270X ($199) in AMD&rsquo;s product stack. Meanwhile a $249 MSRP also means the card is now more directly competing with NVIDIA&rsquo;s GeForce GTX 760, which has a similar $249 MSRP, though can often be found for $10-$20 less. As one would expect, that is a very close matchup and it&rsquo;s no mistake these cards are priced so close together now that AMD has better control of their retail pricing.</p>
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Wrapping things up, AMD tells us that they expect it will take a few days for the price cuts to filter through various partners and retailers, though a quick Newegg check is already turning up two cards priced at $249 or below. In fact Sapphire&rsquo;s R9 280 Dual-X is already well below AMD&rsquo;s new MSRP, with Newegg running what&rsquo;s undoubtedly going to be a short-lived deal that sees the card priced at $219 after mail-in rebate, with Newegg taking off a further $20 for signing up for their newsletter to bring the final price down to $199. Meanwhile despite the price cut the 280&rsquo;s status in AMD&rsquo;s Never Settle Forever program remains unchanged, so the 280 is still a gold tier card that qualifies for 3 games through that program.</p>
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" width="575">
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<td align="center" colspan="6">
Spring 2014 GPU Pricing Comparison</td>
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<tr class="tlblue">
<td align="center" valign="middle" width="224">
AMD</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle" width="120">
Price</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle" width="227">
NVIDIA</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
&nbsp;</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
$500</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
GeForce GTX 780</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
Radeon R9 290</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
$400</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
&nbsp;</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
$320</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
GeForce GTX 770</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
Radeon R9 280X</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
$300</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
Radeon R9 280</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
$250</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
GeForce GTX 760 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
Radeon R9 270X</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
$200</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
Radeon R9 270</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
$180</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle">
GeForce GTX 660</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
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Source: AnandTech
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