Radeon HD 7970’s retail FOB price is cut down to $475

As of the 22nd of December, AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 is official and will become available in the retail channels by the 9th of January, next Monday. Prices were mentioned, the retail FOB price was initially of $525, but according DonanimHaber and its market sources, that price had been cut down to $475.

The FOB price refers to the freight-onboard price, in other words the price at which each ships from its place of origin, which in this case is Hong Kong, China. This specific price however doesn’t necessarily reflect the retail price.

As was mentioned in previous reports, the target price for the HD 7970 is of $550, and it will be up to the distributors and retailers to decide whether they will lower the price as well or keep the bigger “cut” for themselves.

This presents a major competition to Nvidia, who, according to various reports, should present their GT 600 generation Kepler GPU sometime during Q1 2012. This is most certainly something good, with AMD already planning on more than one release, it was more than time for Nvidia to present its own 28nm product.

Naturally, sources close to Nvidia and AIB partners are telling that Kepler is faster than the Radeon HD 7970, but doing the contrary wouldn’t really help the company, now would it?

With CES coming up next week as well, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Kepler in some way, maybe as a behind-closed-doors presentation for select members of the press and investors.

We will certainly keep you up to date with any new developments.

For more information about the Radeon HD 7970, you may want to check our review here.

Source 1; Source 2