We got word from sources close to AMD that the Radeon 290, 290X and R9 280 are getting a price drop in order to fight Nvidia's new Maxwell based Geforce GTX 970 and 980 cards.

The Radeon R9 290X has dropped from the original launch price of $549 to $399 and the Radeon R9 290 has come down from $399 to $299. These are the prices you get at the top e-tailers in the US.

Newegg has both cards in stock at the new suggested retail price. The main difference between GTX 980 or GTX 970 and Radeon R9 290X and 290X cards will be power consumption rather than sheer performance.

Hawaii R9 290X at $399

Radeon R9 280X was launched just over a year ago at $299 and it now sells for $269.99 or $249.99 after a $20.00 rebate card. It was indicated that the Radeon R9 280X will drop to as low as $229, but we could not find it at this price.

The Radeon R9 285, based on AMD's new Tonga GPU, sells for $249.99 and up, but we found out that only Gigabyte and Sapphire have cards in stock. The Geforce GTX 970 starts at $439, while Newegg is out of GTX 980 cards.

We don’t have any word on the application of this price cut to other markets, namely Europe, but we think it is just a matter of time.

For some perspective, the cheapest available GTX 980 in Europe (DACH) comes from the house of Gigabyte and goes for €508.56.