Nvidia have hit back in the great bundle wars earlier this week with their own $150 F2P content giveaway. That's around £100 in 'real' money. If the lure of having a brand new performance pixel-pusher chucking polygons around your PC's monitron wasn't enough to entice you to part with your hard-earned cash, Nvidia are hoping that giving you extra pocket-money in three of the top free-to-play games around will sway you their way.
It's a different take on the game bundle compared with rival GPU manufacturer, AMD. They recently launched their Never Settle Reloaded bundle, offering triple-A games with newly-purchased graphics cards in their HD 7800 and HD 7900 series.
Nvidia though is banking on the explosion in the free-to-play market being more of an attraction than a bundle of new titles.
They're supporting Planetside 2, World of Tanks and PhysX poster-child, Hawken, with the purchase of a new GTX card. That means anything from a GTX 650 upwards.
There are though two tiers to this bundle, with the purchase of a GTX 650 or GTX 650 Ti giving you $25 worth of in-game items for the three free titles, and anything from a GTX 660 and above giving you $50 value pack each.
In Planetside 2, for example, the lower tier cards will net you the 'Gear Up' pack, which includes Infantry Camo, Weapon Camo, Exclusive Gun, 7 Day XP Boost and a 7 Day Resource Boost (equivalent to 2500 Station Cash).
When you buy a GTX 660 or above you'll get the 'Premium Gear Up' pack, which includes Infantry Camo, Weapon Camo, Vehicle Camo, Exclusive Gun, 7 Day Squad XP Boost, 7 Day Squad Resource Boost, 7 Day XP Boost, 7 Day Resource Boost, equivalent to 5000 Station Cash.
That way we avoid any awkwardness in exchange rate fluctuations between different territories.
AMD on the flip side are offering free copies of Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite with any purchase of a HD 7900 series card and Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider with a HD 7800 series card.
When those games are released, anyways...
It's going to be interesting to see whether Nvidia's bundle only serves to entice those who are already card-carrying members of the free-to-play frontier, or whether AMD's reliance on good ol' fashioned triple-A titles makes the difference for them.
Our Friday question though is: if you were in the market for a new GPU, all things being equal (and we know they're really not) which of these two latest gaming bundles would sway you towards either the green or red side of the great graphics card divide?
