$405 AMD Radeon R9 290 (reference card) from VisionTek - ??

[Grave]

Not sure what to make of it - they obviously didn't get the "price jump" memo. Anyway, their website says this is in good stock (with a little green bar meter-thing that means nothing, really), at least compared to every single other product they sell. The sales site that is linked from their main website is pretty barebones and uninformative, so I don't know how well I trust it. VisionTek isn't exactly an unknown brand, but I've only just heard of them and I didn't like all those fishy posts about random sites selling cheap R9 cards. It looks legit, just very basic and not updated frequently.

With that being said, the R9 290 is one of the only cards they have in stock (unless their website is lying and they do have stuff in stock). On top of that, it makes me think that they won't restock (weird..) or will take a long time to.

Here's the sales page: http://www.visiontekproducts.com/index.php/component/virtuemart/graphics-cards/visiontek-radeon-r9-290-detail?Itemid=0

This is what you're getting into:

If you think they're worth the risk/are trustworthy or don't have an ass product, jump in. I think a few people might like to pick this up. I really don't know what exactly to make of it.

This comes with a 2 year warranty and "Free Shipping is a $6.25 value. Additional shipping charges to be paid by customer.", so keep that in mind if you end up seeing it. I only found the page, didn't make an account and add to cart or anything.

Sorry if this post sucks, just let it get buried if it turns out to be incorrect about stock/pricing/legitimacy.

[Bluethulhu]

inb4 everyone buys and resells on ebay for $600

[UnderADyingSun]

BUY IT! They have to honor the pricing, screen shot it too. If this sticks I'm buying one, wanna crossfire with the one I have currently. Nice find!

[X1XNobleX1X]

Who the ***** is Visiontek?

[Wano97]

Who the ***** is Visiontek?

[Grave]

Who the ***** is Visiontek?

http://www.visiontek.com/ - Their main site.

http://www.visiontekproducts.com/index.php/products - Product shopping directory.

Anandtech forums topic about their quality (really old, from '07) - http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=114865

[H]ardforums topic about their quality (also old, but from '10) - http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1553045

The general consensus is that their warranties are good, their products may be bad/lower quality compared to others, and I'm betting they're practically out of business at this point.. However, this card comes with a 2 yr warranty, was released very recently and is a reference card (which should mean it's just as good as Asus, Sapphire or other reference cards?).

Edit: Ignore edit. The source I had apparently doesn't exist anymore. I did find out that people have bought the R9 290 recently on the overclock.net forums along with other R9 cards, so they do exist.

[mvitkun]

Who the ***** is Visiontek?

Visiontek is a decent but not in any way above average or amazing AIB to AMD,they're about on par with Powercolor and Diamond multimedia.

The cards they make are perfectly fine,but then again so is that of the next guy,and the other guy has a much better reputation and only costs only $20-30 more.

 

In this case with a $100 discount I would buy it,if only to resell it.

Besides it's a reference card,so visiontek has very little chance to mess the card up.

[Grave]

I would go with an aftermarket 280X for $330.

What with R9 290s running as hot as magma, I figured this would be a very good deal for those wishing to watercool. Or you can just bake them alive in a mining rig, I don't care.

[Nineshadow]

Wow.This is just as expensive as a 760 here.

[VisionTek]

Hi all...hope we're following the Code of Conduct here...felt we needed to reply and tell you more about us so you can be confident in a 290 purchase.

 

First...thanks to all for your interest in us and our products. We've been manufacturing graphics cards for over two decades and this week at CES introduced quite a newsworthy product related to this topic. Hope that then is evidence we're innovation leaders, well positioned for growth, and thus aren't "going out of business."

 

The pricing on our products is correct. No need for suspicion and screen shots. We're performance enthusiasts like you and we're not going to raise our prices to take advantage of tight supply due to any reason. We treat others like we ourselves would like to be treated. We hope you will agree that's a pretty good business plan for long term success. :-)

 

Besides being ethical, there are some company performance things you should know so you can make a good informed decision on which brand to purchase.

 

We offer free US-based lifetime tech support on all our products.

 

We're the only R7/R9 card brand (except for the 290 series) that backs those cards with a lifetime warranty.

 

Do a few searches for reviews on the R7/R9 cards from us and see what other sites are saying.

 

Once you consider all above, we hope you come to a conclusion that we are a very solid brand that offers both high performance and high value.

 

Thanks and hope we have the pleasure of serving you soon and earning your trust.

[Wiflare]

lol VisionTek is a newbie.

 

Other than that, I'm liking the good business practices going on. Wish I had money to spare ;P

[Mentalguy]

Hi all...hope we're following the Code of Conduct here...felt we needed to reply and tell you more about us so you can be confident in a 290 purchase.

nope. other companies have come to the forums before.

[DefinitelyNotAPedophile]

Ooooooh lifetime warranty seems good

[Retro Gaming]

That V on the card looks terrible!

[SoySauciE]

The V doesn't look to bad, it looks like every other r9 290 just the sticker is diff.  At a far glance it does look like the V is an egg and is surrounded by sperm cells, maybe i just have a dirty mind dunno.... :wacko:

[Suika]

I like this, an MSRP card. Reference or not, it beats paying $600 for one.

[nicehat]

That V on the card looks terrible!

 

When its in your system you dont see it

[Cheesy]

Hi all...hope we're following the Code of Conduct here...felt we needed to reply and tell you more about us so you can be confident in a 290 purchase.

 

First...thanks to all for your interest in us and our products. We've been manufacturing graphics cards for over two decades and this week at CES introduced quite a newsworthy product related to this topic. Hope that then is evidence we're innovation leaders, well positioned for growth, and thus aren't "going out of business."

 

The pricing on our products is correct. No need for suspicion and screen shots. We're performance enthusiasts like you and we're not going to raise our prices to take advantage of tight supply due to any reason. We treat others like we ourselves would like to be treated. We hope you will agree that's a pretty good business plan for long term success. :-)

 

Besides being ethical, there are some company performance things you should know so you can make a good informed decision on which brand to purchase.

 

We offer free US-based lifetime tech support on all our products.

 

We're the only R7/R9 card brand (except for the 290 series) that backs those cards with a lifetime warranty.

 

Do a few searches for reviews on the R7/R9 cards from us and see what other sites are saying.

 

Once you consider all above, we hope you come to a conclusion that we are a very solid brand that offers both high performance and high value.

 

Thanks and hope we have the pleasure of serving you soon and earning your trust.

omg restock pls

[GzeroD]

They ran out of stock while I was Filling out my payment information . Now I have another store to check several times a day. 

But it's great to see someone selling these things without the massive markup.

[VisionTek]

Hey...good news so you don't have to check any other sites! We should have large volume of both 290 and 290X cards as early as this Friday but most likely on Monday.

[SkilledRebuilds]

Hey...good news so you don't have to check any other sites! We should have large volume of both 290 and 290X cards as early as this Friday but most likely on Monday.

Thanks for the Heads up.

International Shipping?

[VisionTek]

Thanks for the Heads up.

International Shipping?

yikes...that is one thing we are working on...we just rolled out our ecomm site in November after only have a retail focus since 1988. So, some baby steps along the way. Thus, unfortunately at this time, we can only ship to U.S. addresses. Maybe you can use a freight forwarder? Or use what some refer to as a "hop shop"?

[GzeroD]

Hey...good news so you don't have to check any other sites! We should have large volume of both 290 and 290X cards as early as this Friday but most likely on Monday.

 Any chance the CryoVenom R9 290 Will be included in that batch the more I look at it the better it looks. @.@ ; also will this card be happy on a 240 rad (alone) or should I grab a 360 to throw in the loop.

[Advent]

Good guy @VisionTek, responds and addresses concerns and replies to questions. Now if only this had shown up before I purchased my 780 Ti.

[GzeroD]

Good guy @VisionTek, responds and addresses concerns and replies to questions. Now if only this had shown up before I purchased my 780 Ti.

I know how you feel, I didn't go as far as you but i do with I found this out before I spent some money on a (rather cheap 7850 ) card to hold me over as i was expecting a long wait (several months) for the 290's price to drop again. Then again I got it for less than its selling on ebay so if all goes well my ownership of that card will only be measured in days instead of my usual years  .