EVGA and XFX Reimburse Price Difference on GeForce GTX 200

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EVGA and XFX Reimburse Price Difference on GeForce GTX 200 after Price Collapse

EVGA and XFX to Return Money to GeForce GTX 200 Purchasers

EVGA and XFX, two leading suppliers of Nvidia-based graphics cards, plan to return up to $125 to those, who acquired latest Nvidia GeForce GTX 200-series graphics cards before their prices collapsed. It remains to be seen whether other partners of Nvidia Corp. will also reimburse part of the price difference to their customers.

EVGA will provide $60 and $125 cash back to those who acquired GeForce GTX 260 or 280, respectively, between June 16th and July 7th, provided that the products were bought for full manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP) from an authorized reseller. The company may also offer reimbursement in so-called EVGA bucks, the currency used in the company’s online store.

XFX offers its customers up to $120 back to customers who purchased one of these cards between June 16, 2008 and July 11, 2008. The actual amount of cash back will be determined based on the model purchased, as well as the date and price of the purchase.

Presently the offerings are only valid in Canada and the USA; it is not certain that similar reimbursement programs are set to be launched in Asia or Europe as well.

Nvidia released its GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 280 models in mid-June at $399 and $649 price-points, respectively. But days after the launch it was discovered that competing ATI Radeon HD 4850 ($199) and 4870 ($299) graphics cards offer so high performance that they can easily compete against more expensive graphics cards either directly or in pairs. As a result, to sustain or further increase its market share, Nvidia had to decrease pricing of its novelties dramatically, something, which may anger early customers as well as add-in-board partners, distributors and resellers.

It is unknown whether the reimbursement programs are funded by makers of graphics cards or by Nvidia itself.

X-bit Labs