Gateway Cancelled The X800 Xt

[dwayne001]

Like so many others, I purchased/pre-ordered the Ati Radeon X800 XT from The Gateway store in early June. It was supposed to ship on the 14th, guaranteeing me and my machine glory on the battlefields of today's current games. I pre-ordered. Why? Because I wanted to ensure my machine's place amongst the [H] –I wouldn't have to wait for the stock to show up because mine had already been tagged for me—before the release date.

Then things got grey. The card didn't come—Gateway was low on stock—a week. Two weeks, three weeks, a month. I called gateway and was told that it was ready and on cue to ship. It was going to ship any day now—then the bomb: I wouldn’t be able to get the card during the month of July due to problems w/ stock, so the new ship date was something like August 13, 2004.

Forum upon forum arose on the [H], wondering 'wtf?' Some people went elsewhere to buy the card, others cancelled and went so far as to get cards from other places, despite the super-high prices. I was content to wait for my device from The Gateway Store.

I got a call today from Dave (1-800-846-2036 x55020) at The Gateway Store. In a voicemail left at my office Dave told me that they were no longer supplying the X800 XT and that they were downgrading my order to the x800 Pro…for more money.

WTF Dave!?! For the last two weeks Dave's been emailing me, telling me the new dates and like a fool, I respected the customer service and remained a loyal customer. Never again. Gateway will never receive another hit from my computers dudes….for all those out there who had their orders cancelled on them, I feel your disappointment, and I entreat you to make them pay by 1) not hitting their site and 2) not spending a single cent of your hard earned cash over there. As for me, I'm done with them…

 

[dwayne001]

i had a server error so i reposted. my bad.

 

[tranCendenZ]

I got a call today from Dave (1-800-846-2036 x55020) at The Gateway Store. In a voicemail left at my office Dave told me that they were no longer supplying the X800 XT and that they were downgrading my order to the x800 Pro…for more money.

Wow, that is incredibly poor! Worst store ever!

 

[Wildace]

wow that really sucks, and they tried to downgrade you to a Pro?

 

[tenken]

That's terrible man, I guess we all can expect the same BS treatment from Gateway. Give up on them, do the VIVO flash if you still want to stick with ATI. It was rare that I actually needed something from the Gateway store, and seeing how they treat their customers, I'm never going to shop there again. It's not their fault that the X800XT isn't in stock, but pulling crap like this is inexcusable.

 

[CraftyOtter]

I got a call today from Dave (1-800-846-2036 x55020) at The Gateway Store. In a voicemail left at my office Dave told me that they were no longer supplying the X800 XT and that they were downgrading my order to the x800 Pro…for more money.

As for me, I'm done with them…

When I saw that Gateway offer a while ago I said to myself, "But this is Gateway, the company best known for the cow pattern on their cardboard boxes".

The real question is, what is Gateway a gateway to?
Answer: A grassy field littered with fly infested cow pies.

But seriously....

It was mighty nice of Dave to offer you a downgrade in product for an increase in price even though x800 Pro's can be picked up just about anywhere for $400. I don't know how Gateway has survived as long as it has.

 

[dwayne001]

The thing is that Tenken's right--it's not just gateway's fault--ATi has a big part to play.

I don't know what kind of business analysts those Canadians have up there, but all of them, every single one of them needs to be fired for not taking the demand of this device into account when they set out to produce and distribute these cards. Who knows, maybe the marketing people pushed to release the product before the supply chain could fill the already growing demand. Certainly, with the press they put out, and the hype they allowed to be generated, you would think they'd be professional enough, courteous enough to their customers (the retailers) to give them proper estimates of MSRP and sale prices depending on how many of these things they could slap together over the few months after the release. It's BS, on multiple levels, and to that end, I'm seriously considering aligning my rig with nVIDIA. Not withstanding the awful propaganda I witnessed today in the slanted, FOX news-like article they laid out on sister-site HARDOCP.com (i'll rant about that in another post), their product is available, reasonably priced, their drivers are legendary, and they never lied about their pixel shaders.

I'd purchase it right now if i weren't so pissed off. I gotta take some time to fucking chill out.

 

[tranCendenZ]

The thing is that Tenken's right--it's not just gateway's fault--ATi has a big part to play.

I'd blame Gateway though for attempting to switch your order to a pro for more money - they should have just cancelled your order and left it at that.

re: 6800
I'd purchase it right now if i weren't so pissed off. I gotta take some time to fucking chill out.

6800GT series looks like the best deal this generation. Fastest opengl performance, dx performance on par with ati's, more features (sm3.0, fp16 for hdr lighting, full trilinear filtering) , 16 pipes for $399, etc... And like you said, its available right now for $399 from evga.com. Nothing wrong with switching to nvidia, better to be product smart.

 

[iZero]

This is why I don't play the pre-order game. I ordered my 6800 GT from Chumbo and got it the next day. No clowning around with some guy on the other end of the phone who doesn't know jack squat. Besides that, I've never known Gateway to be a good company to order from.

 

[Hurin]

Not withstanding the awful propaganda I witnessed today in the slanted, FOX news-like article they laid out on sister-site HARDOCP.com (i'll rant about that in another post)

Why keep us in suspense?

I can't keep this straight. . . [H] is biased towards NVIDIA this week, right?

H

 

[Unit-0]

Pre-ordering is not so bad =)

If you can stand being jerked around for a month or two of backorders you might get lucky. $300 GTs from BestBuy =o

 

[TimothyB]

Did you try to argue with Dave to lower the Pros price to match the $100 retail difference of you current XT order price? Did you tell him that there was a 30-50% differnce in performance between the cards, especially in Doom3? For me, I've almost had two months of waiting, several cancels undone, some reps saying discontinued, then the fools put it up for sale again after all that to become even more backordered. After June7th when those ordered on the 2nd weren't getting their orders no one should have been able to order another. What the hell are they thinking.

My latest ETA is today, the 22nd, I wonder when my call will come.

 

[GabooN]

Well I called Gateway today and the CS rep saying my order is still on for Aug 9th... I ordered mine back in June as well... I know CDW has the same card for $460, I am tempted to go with them...

 

[TimothyB]

People have been on backorder with CDW maybe longer than Gateway people. They have missed their shipment 4 times and that they may just cancel ever getting it if the trend continues, at least that's what someone said their response from CDW was recently.

 

[agar]

My response from CDW was, "we were told from ATI, no less than 2 months". Yeah kids, 2 months or more from now. WOW, GG ATI!

 

[douglas25]

Don't worry my friend. In 5 years there won't be a Gateway Inc to worry about.

 

[Evil Scooter]

In a voicemail left at my office Dave told me that they were no longer supplying the X800 XT and that they were downgrading my order to the x800 Pro…for more money.

I would ask the Gateway rep. if they were aware that these type of "bait and switch" tactics were pretty frowned upon by the BBB. As an earlier poster said, I doubt Gateway will be an issue for anybody in 5 years or so as they do not seem to be able to compete in any market whatsoever ATM.

On a side note I pre-ordered mine through GW mid June. I recieved one call about 1.5 weeks ago saying my order delivery would be pushed back to teh 28th. The GW site still shows this gate though there might be a message at my home as I type. Either way this GW deal has not cost me a cent yet and if ZI get it the savings is substancial. If not I'll get whatever is available in the next few weeks... my2c

 

[UltimaParadox]

Another Gateway horror story...

Ordered on the 2nd, got an order status yesterday saying I must call customer service for info. I was informed that my order did not go through because of bad "credit". I tried to get him to explain what he meant and he said either my card got rejected or a system error...... . So I ask him where I stood concering others people's orders on the video card. He told me that the product that I orignially order was no longer for sale, and may have been replaced with the more expensive X800 Pro. I of course told him no, and he then said that I could not repurchase the product named x800 XT PE since, he was certain it was renamed the x800 Pro. I chuckled a bit, but was let down after a month of waiting. I really thought they were going to get it right since no one else had got theres. Once again gateway has proven themselves to be the most unorganized company around.

 

[TimothyB]

My ship date was today, the 22nd, so I gave my dad a call to let him know to expect another call from Gateway about a delay and maybe that they'll say it's cancelled. But dad then said he already got a call yesterday. They told him it was delayed again because of manufacturing problems or somethign and a new ETA of August 5th.

Again, ordered on June2nd. I really hope they do get them the first week of August, that's what I've been hearing. But then some are trying to say CDW directly supplies Gateway, but I don't believe that at this point since CDW has their own backorder list and if they were supposed to supply gateway, then they would be obligated to first attend to them before their own backorder. If they sold them first it would be kind of unethical as a business practice. Sort of like if ATI.com started selling XTs instock before supplying cards for backorders at BB or CUSA.

 

[ToastyBoy]

I ordered my xt on 6/22 and the expected date was 7/21. So yesterday, right as I'm calling up my order status on their site, my phone rings. I'm sure it was just a weird coincidence, but it was some girl from Gateway customer service calling to tell me my item is still on back order with a new date of anywhere between 8/4 and 8/11. Now I don't have a lot of faith in their dates and I still think they suck overall, but it was pretty good from a customer service standpoint to call me instead of the other way around.

 

[kuyaglen]

I preordered on July 3rd and still show a ship date of Aug 3rd.

This reminds me of when I really started to get into PC gaming. The industry was all excited
about the the new V1000 chips from 3DFX, I was reading about AA, AF and motion blur and
distance focusing...all the videos of what this card can do were awesome. You cant really
play Unreal or Half-Life on anything that says Trident.

So then it was an easy choice to go with teh VooDoo 5, the price for the 4 chip Voodoo 6
was too much for me.

The launch was was announced and the dates came and went...the stores I went too all
were taking pre-orders, there were posts a-plenty filled with how people were waiting on
3-4 weeks for thier pre-orders.

Then Nvidia struck with thier GeForce 2 GTS and all of a sudden when still trolling at stores
to see if they got a Voodoo 5, I bought an Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 GTS VIVO.

Sweet Jesus that card was nice...the rest is fanboy history.

But I'm gonna wait on this Aug 3rd date (I dont know why) but I hope that ATI's openGL
drivers improve and I feel the overall performance of the XT will worth the $434.95 I pre-ordered.

 

[Okatha]

Ah dammit, my ETA is the 29th. Well if they try to change my order to a Pro then not only is Gateway not seeing money from me, but ATi has blown their chance as well. I'm just going to upgrade the eVGA 6800nu card to the Ultra when it becomes available. Tired of dealing with this crap.

 

[TimothyB]

Yeah, my June 2nd order now shows 8/22 for the date.

I've ordered an MSI 6800nu, it comes with Myst Uru, XIII, and Prince of Persia full games, plus a bunch of other stuff for a total of 14 cds in the box.

 

[JayD]

Here is a portion of a chat session I just had with a Gateway rep:

(At first I was excited, but it sounds to me like they are just trying to make me feel better by lying to me, because this person obviously knows nothing)

14:58 Agent> It appears that you video card is very close to getting invoiced which is very good (i.e close to shipping)
15:00 Me> Thats good. How close is very close though? Will it ship before the estimated date of 8/4/2004 then?
15:04 Agent> It doesn't give the specific date of shipping
15:04 Agent> When it is ready to ship it will ship
15:17 Me> but you said very close, can I ask how you know that?
15:20 Me> the reason I ask is that a heard a lot of people were told that their orders were going to ship, but then got delayed
15:28 Me> I just want to make sure it truely is 'very close to shipping'
15:29 Agent> I can say that because of the order status - next step is going to be shipping
15:31 Me> So you wouldn't know if the order will be delayed again?
15:34 Agent> Unfortunately I don't know - you can check your status @ 800 846 8529
15:39 Me> Thanks

 

[TimothyB]

Wouldn't you think they'd have a notice sent to everyones' desk by now about this situation?

Ah well, will have to declare a new holiday or add a passage in the bible the day Gateway ships these cards, it will truly be a miracle

 

[UltimaParadox]

Wouldn't you think they'd have a notice sent to everyones' desk by now about this situation?

Ah well, will have to declare a new holiday or add a passage in the bible the day Gateway ships these cards, it will truly be a miracle

A simple mass e-mail to the sales team would be waaay too easy

Since they are all probablly sitting at their computers all day.

 

[dwayne001]

I got the same information from a rep as well once, about a month ago--it's been invoiced--it's ready to ship. What I don't get is why some people posting here are still under the impression that they are getting the XT--they told me literally that they DO NOT carry it and that I could change to the pro....

why would they tell me one thing and then not tell others...perhaps they were earlier in the queue?

One of my friends gave up on the gateway order and went elsewhere for a x800 Pro w/ VIVO that he could mod through flashing for XT performance. Like me he's frustrated at more than the reseller-- a huge part of it's ATi's ass backwards logistics people. Here's a portion of the email conversation we had:

So that store I ordered from is on backorder for yet another undetermined amount of time. I’m ordering from allstarmicro now, who should have a card in stock. Now I’m aiming for the Gigabyte VIVO model, already comes with 16 pipes so it’s just a matter of overclocking to XT speeds (if the flash fails). The total is now $500 with overnight shipping. FUCKING A

Not sure if I’ll ever forgive ATI for this shit of a launch. But I don’t hate them enough yet to move to nvid… Not yet…

It's like: They've got us. Paying half a grand for a vid card right? Not like,
the highest end vid card either....granted the speed leap from the
9800 to the x800 is large but so was the 9700 from the 8500...andi could be wrong but the
9700 never cost $500....

 

[joecartoon22]

i think you should definately tak this up with the BBB. they will definately sort this out. you can not let gateway get away with this crap. they are just taking advantage of you. definately call the BBB. get in contact with them. do not let this thing just slip

 

[TimothyB]

The 9700pro was $399 retail, as I bought it without preorder on release for $360 then. The suddent change to $499 for the top of the line card was the introduction of the first 256mb video card, which was a 9800pro, making $100 more than the regular top of the line Pro at that $399 price point, plus there was no performance difference.

And of course when the 9800XT came out, the price stayed at $499 instead of going back to $399. Makes me wonder if we'll see $599 cards one the first 512mb card is released.

 

[ForeverUnknown]

wow i am so happy i cancelled my order with gateway.

 

[maxxo]

The suddent change to $499 for the top of the line card was the introduction of the first 256mb video card, which was a 9800pro, making $100 more than the regular top of the line Pro at that $399 price point, plus there was no performance difference.

Makes me wonder if we'll see $599 cards one the first 512mb card is released.

i was thinking the same thing

 

[yevaud]

Looks like Gateway is still at it. I bought a P3-600 rig from them back in '99 (Still a compuNoob) and ordered it with the TNT2Ultra video card. Rig was delayed twice- once for a processor shortage, then when it was supposed to ship, again for a vid card shortage. Took almost a month to get it. When I finally did- first thing I checked was to make sure I got the right vid card. Wrong card- sent the non-ultra. Packing slip showed that they shipped the Ultra. I guess I wasn't supposed to notice.
At the end of the day, I wound up with a POS gateway OEM version of the ultra, that didn't even have a fan!.
Well, sorry about the long rant down memory lane. Where was I? oh yeah.. Sucks to be you!, but hey, I've been there too.

 

[CraftyOtter]

Speaking of memory lane, I was first exposed to Gayway computers back in the early 1990's during my college days. The cluster of i386's crashed like a bunch of drunken taxis drivers on payday, this was a daily occurance. Tech support was non-existant. All I know is our other computers (Dell i386) running the same exact software applications rarely crashed. Not much has changed over the years with Gayway. I not a huge fan of Dell but I respect them alot more than Gayway.

My humble advise to anyone waiting for anything from Gayway: cancel your order.

I know it's not Gayway's fault the x800 XT's are delayed ...... but Gayway simply sucks like a 30 amp voltage-modified shop vacuum.

 

[TimothyB]

Several months back I heard about Gateway wanting to buy emachines. I hope that is not true or hasn't already happened as Emachines is actually a pretty good company now and I wouldn't want Gateway to ruin that.

 

[joobjoob]

gateway has already bought and scrapped emachines

in fact gateway is already replacing its best buy emachine line with its own line

 

[TimothyB]

The only place I've seen a gateway machine is at Costco, which sometimes even has Dells.

Well that sucks if emachines will be phased out, my 6805 laptop is awesome and was hoping to buy more great stuff from them in the future.

When you say replace the emachines lineup, do you mean with their built machines but still under the emachine name, or under their actual lineup?

 

[archevilangel]

downgraded the order, wth that's like adding salt to the wound. They shoulda been upfront from the start about their inability to supply the card that they advertised.

 

[haroldmeyer]

I saw the Gateway add right after I pre-ordered from Bestbuy(5/30),boy I was pissed.I came so close to cancelling with BB and going with Gateway, but then I looked at that price $434.00 w/10% discount, that looked to good to be true,too good.There had to be something wrong, and there was.

 

[dwayne001]

yah,talk about too good to be true.

And yevaud, I haev a Creative Labs 3d Blaster TNT2 U...the first 'high end' video card...which cost $185 when it just came out and was def at the top of its game. I'm not sure it had a fan though....

That was back when Q3 came out...and nVid was toppling gfx leaders Conan style...3dFX, S3..all would lie at nVid's feet.....perhaps I should abandoned this X series and head back home...then again, you look at the web, and everything everyone thought would happen w/ this ATi OGL fiasco seems to be true:

http://theinquirer.net/?article=17495

 

[Okatha]

Well, just got an e-mail from Gateway. They've delayed the delivery on the XT until 8/27, but at least they didn't turn it into a Pro. By the time they have any and are ready to ship I imagine HL 2 will be out and we'll find out if the XT is worth having, heh.