Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

[JEMC]

Hiku said:

JEMC said:

The problem with AC Shadows has never been the gameplay, but the criticisms from some groups and the poor way Ubisoft handled it, leading to other problems.

Yeah I know which group complained about AC and why.
"Not historical accurate" in a series where George Washington had super powers and Leonardo DaVinci built Ezio a tank. "He wasn't a samurai" for a character stated to have been bestowed the status of samurai in a Japanese developed game (NiOh), in the the Jp subtitles. Etc. So Japanese devs seemed cool with it.



But I was thinking the vast majority of gamers don't hang out in gaming communities online like we do. They learn about these games through regular ads and trailers. So I thought of the importance of gameplay for them.

However on second thought to your point, people that buy GPU's are probably majorly in the hardcore gaming crowd section, so most of them have probably heard of this. Question is what portion of them feel negative about it, and were potential customers to begin with, since people often talk about games they never intended to play regardless.

It's a free game though, for seemingly no extra charge for the consumer.
It shouldn't affect Intel or Ubisoft one way or the other.

Complaining that a videogame is not historically correct is, indeed, ridiculous. But there will always be something to complain about. And while those who complain may the the usual groups, social media spreads those messages very fast, and in every group of friends there'll be someone that brings it up either to mock the complains or to join them, spreading that even further to people that wouldn't have known about it. And bad press isn't always a good thing.

In any case, it's a free game and you can either use it, give it away to someone who may like it or even try to sell it online (some people do it with the free games Nvidia and AMD give from time to time to get back some of the money they paid for the card).

Hiku said:

JEMC said:

As for the price of the card, the 400€ mention was something I saw on the net regarding its price in Europe, which didn't make much sense. Hence why I asked if anyone else know where this came from. But it seems to be some nonsense that some tried to spread for some reason.

The card is actually "fairly" priced, with an almost 1:1 conversion. If you pick those $249 and add a 25% VAT (which I think is the one in Sweden), you get $313, making it almost a 1:1 conversion to your currency and Euros. It's actually not so usual nowadays.

As for the price, you're right that VAT here is 25% from what I can tell. In my head I underestimated how much that becomes for a product this expensive.
And I forgot that the US Dollar is now 1:11 rather than 1:10 to our currency. So you're right, it actually lines up just about perfectly.

One thing I noticed that was slightly concerning is that the other models of the card from different brands were significantly marked up in the store I showed above, and another popular local one.

Here's the second store, since the prices are the same as the previous one.
*snip 1*

About $40 more, the same as the RTX 3060, which diminishes some of the appeal. But I still think the B580 is better in most metrics at the same price point.

I had heard that other versions of the card generally are more expensive, but I didn't expect that much more expensive.
I tried looking at some US stores to see how it was tehre, but wasn't able to find a consistent price.

The reason I said slightly concerning is because Intel's own model is labeled "Limited Edition".
Is it expected to run out of stock permanently soon? If so, then the price advantage may disappear along with it.

But as I was looking at a third popular local electronics chain here, I found these significantly lower prices across the board on all versions of the card they have.

*snip2*

They don't have the base version, but the Sparkle version is about $50 cheaper here.
Basically $300.

They don't have them in stock though. Says "Order product", meaning they'll order it upon purchase.
It doesn't include the AC game though, but this seems like a really good deal.

I tried adding it to my cart to see if that's actually the price, and yeah.

Just an added $14 for shipping.
$300 for this card seems very good for Sweden.
Although I prefer the look of the original version, and the 2 fans rather than 3.
But I think I might buy this.

Now I'm curious what kind of prices you guys can find on these B580 cards where you live?

Yeah, the fact that here the prices are final, with all the taxes included, give the impression that we're paying more for electronics than they do in the US. And don't get me wrong, sometimes that's the case, but it's easy to forget to include VAT when comparing prices.

Cards from third party brands usually cost more because the coolers tend to be bigger or have other characteristics or gimmicks to set them apart, like tweaking the card with a mild overclock so it runs faster while still be in warranty. Usually the coolers really do a better job in not just keeping the card cooler, but also with the noise. For example, from the Techpowerup review of the ASRock B580 card, we have this comparison:

The cooler from the ASRock card is noticeably better than the stock one from Intel, and it's also quieter. And for some reason the card also uses a bit less power.

But that doesn't mean that the extra price is always justified or worth it.

I'm not sure how long will the Limited Edition last. Last time around Intel also labeled some of their cards Limited Edition, but it just a marketing name and they kept selling them for many months. Or maybe the demand was low and they had too many in stock, it's hard to say.

As for how expensive the B580 is in Spain where I live... well, I can't tell you because none of the usual stores I check have listed the card yet. Hopefully by tomorrow they'll do it, but we'll see. I've used "Alternate" to compare prices because they operate in many EU countries (but not in Sweden, they only go as north as Denmark), and it's around the 310€ mark. Keep in mind that different countries have different taxes so the price will vary from one to another. Here in Spain the highest one is 21%, 4 points lower than yours.