NVIDIA Wanted GTX 590's Price To Be Even Higher

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Regular TFTS readers will know that when NVIDIA unveiled the GTX 590 last week, I was utterly disgusted by the $700 price, calling it a return to a dark place in graphics card history – or something like that. Now, a shocking report is coming out of some of NVIDIA’s partners – that the company originally wanted to charge more for the card, but couldn’t in order to compete with the AMD Radeon HD 6990.

This report comes from website Fudzilla.com, who has a few feelers into the computer hardware industry and has been right more than once on a few computer graphics rumors. They’re reporting that NVIDIA wanted to charge more than the €650/$699 reference price that the GeForce GTX 590 is currently demanding. Why? Well, NVIDIA knows that their “halo cards” typically sell very few, and that crazy enthusiast consumers (like yours truly) will buy the cards no matter what the price. So why not ratchet up the price a little more?

Unfortunately, they’re facing strict competition from the AMD Radeon HD 6990. The ’6990 is AMD’s competing “halo card” and most independent benchmarks show that both cards are about even. The 6990 was selling around around $750 in the United States when the GTX 590 came out (it’s since dropped to around $700), but in Europe, it was selling for the incredibly low €550, almost €100 where NVIDIA has the GTX 590 pegged where it stands.

So, NVIDIA doesn’t want to completely price themselves out of the race in Europe while pissing off the American consumer. It’s worth noting that now, some shops in Europe are starting to lower the price of the GTX 590 dramatically. In the United States, demand seems to be extremely high, with Newegg and other retailers sold out. With demand that high, it looks like the $700+ price for the GTX 590 will stick in the United States for the time being.

(Image Credit: PCPER.com)