Monday, January 20th 2025
AMD's Radeon RX 9070 Launch Faces Pricing Hurdles
AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 9070 series graphics cards have hit an unexpected roadblock, according to recent reports from PC Games Hardware. Despite physical units already reaching select retailers, the launch appears to be delayed due to ongoing pricing negotiations. Industry insider and forum moderator "pokerclock," known for accurate predictions about NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series, reveals that AMD's initial pricing strategy has created tension with retail partners. While boxes bearing the RX 9070 branding have been spotted in retail channels, disagreements over costs have prevented an official release. The core issue stems from AMD's aggressive pricing approach for both the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT models. Retailers have pushed back against what they consider excessive wholesale costs, forcing AMD to reconsider its strategy.
The company now faces the complex task of potentially reducing prices while compensating retailers who have already purchased inventory at higher rates. Sources suggest AMD may offer marketing funds or cashback incentives to bridge the price gap, though negotiations have reportedly stalled. For example, we recently reported on the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT AIB model costing around $549. However, NVIDIA has announced its GeForce RTX 5070 at the same $549 price point, with potentially equal or higher raster, ray tracing, and AI capabilities across the board. For AMD to make the value case, the company would need to undercut NVIDIA's pricing. Until that is resolved, retailers aren't allowed to place RDNA 4 GPUs in general sale yet.
Sources:
PC Games Hardware, PCGH Forum, via VideoCardz
The company now faces the complex task of potentially reducing prices while compensating retailers who have already purchased inventory at higher rates. Sources suggest AMD may offer marketing funds or cashback incentives to bridge the price gap, though negotiations have reportedly stalled. For example, we recently reported on the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT AIB model costing around $549. However, NVIDIA has announced its GeForce RTX 5070 at the same $549 price point, with potentially equal or higher raster, ray tracing, and AI capabilities across the board. For AMD to make the value case, the company would need to undercut NVIDIA's pricing. Until that is resolved, retailers aren't allowed to place RDNA 4 GPUs in general sale yet.
175 Comments on AMD's Radeon RX 9070 Launch Faces Pricing Hurdles
you bought a 4060ti, you were never going to buy a Radeon to begin with and you want them to sell GPU at a loss?
The rx 5700xt - 252mm^2 die size, was a low-end GPU that was 400$ MSRP from 2019.
W H A T E V E R
M A K E S
Y O U
H A P P Y
. :)
If I gave you a hammer and sent you into the woods, how long until you can send me an email?
What does the fact that I bought NVIDIA, have to do with my suggestion that AMD learn basic sales and marketing and subsidise their product, to prevent their GPU division from failing?
Nothing, that's what. So take your idiotic not-arguments somewhere else.
If you really must know, I spent half a year waiting for AMD to launch a decent midrange GPU at a decent price, then a pricing error allowed me to snap up a 4060 Ti for the same price as a plain 4060. I guess taking advantage of pricing errors makes me an evil NVIDIA fanboy shill.Provide evidence for this claim, or I will assume that - as usual - you are making shit up because you lack the capability to actually argue the point being made.
I won't hold my breath.Careful, you'll break their brains. Which would honestly be a massive improvement to overall forum discourse.
Did my acute observation tickle your fancy? The 4060 and ti are garbage. You probably even bought the 8gb version. But it was a pricing error, so it was ok. lol.
I think it's funny how you are wanting AMD to sell their GPUs at a loss because they are greedy but you are sitting on a 4060ti that is $420 for the 8gb version and nearly $500 for the 16gb. The 4060 line is Nvidia flexing its brand name on sheep because those cards are garbage. But you are ok, you got it because there was a glitch in the system on the price tag.
Specially living in a 3rd world country.
I see nothing wrong in buying a 4060 Ti for a third cheaper. I see nothing wrong in being unhappy about the state of affairs in AMD dGPU division. It's horrible, their production falls more and more behind every year. RDNA2 had almost enough edge to do Ampere, RDNA3 didn't even try to beat 4090 and RDNA4 is to not even attempt anything on a 5080... Their everawkward marketing campaigns don't help either. AMD, seemingly intentionally, make people invest in the Team Green GPUs. Either that or they need to lay everyone on their PR department off and hire someone who has some sense.Not everyone lives in Americas. 06:16 pm for me, for example.
Apply that anecdote to AMD. They design the GPU core, and help to define a standardized layout. As such they know that each GPU costs some amount, and thus work with the intermediary manufacturer and sellers to establish a fair pricing scheme. If this was true, then the pushback here is like having the sellers state that the $125 tank was too expensive, and the problem is that the $50 they spent on it was the problem. Can you even imagine that?
Let me then point gently in the direction of software development...specifically video games. Publishers are doing exactly the same thing, and killing video games. There, it's a travesty...but it's also a comedy since you don't actually own your games anymore.
That divine comedy is reaching for our GPUs. They don't have huge node gains, so they are charging astronomical prices for what is functionally software interpolation. Cool, paying for guess work that's mostly good enough...instead of the much tougher finding new ways to improve performance genuinely. That's not going to bite us in the backside at all...
All of this is to say AMD and Nvidia are only as greedy as we allow. The AI boom has allowed Nvidia to get lazy, AMD has decided to functionally focus on high margin business, and the real loss is consumers. If the 5070 and 9070 compete at exactly the same price, the market will have AMD reduce prices, because they aren't competing at the same performance. I...have seen rumors of everything between 4080 raster, and 7900 performance. I've seem rumors of $500 pricing, and $600 pricing. It's all a huge amalgam of nothing. AMD needs to compete with cost for performance, or value. If their value is lower than Nvidia, then this generation will be a bloodbath. Their raw performance figures don't matter...which is why pricing is so critical. Just tying Nvidia is unlikely to move the needle here....and moaning about "knowing business" is stupid. People who "know the market" and still sell to move units are the people who sell at a loss per unit.
Let me frame this in the simplest way. What is the most successful video game company? It's not Sony, despite having the arguably best hardware. It's not MS, despite having the most resources and largest parent company. It's not Valve, because they have nothing that is their own. The most successful game company is Nintendo, who make money on every sold console. Nintendo, who is in 1920x1080 land when everyone else aims for 4k. Nintendo, whose IP means they never need to release a new game and could continue to resell 20 year old games at full modern prices. AMD just needs to price themselves into a good value proposition, that Nvidia doesn't care about, and they can have their success in volume. Intel has that figured out in the B570 and B580...because those things suck when placed against a 3070, but still sold like mad in 2024 because they were a good value.
I say all of this while looking at eBay...where 3060 cards are going for about $300 regularly...which is what you can buy them for new. This just screams that the value market is being overlooked, and AMD/Intel can take that away from Nvidia. But what do I know? I'm just a consumer, who has spent 4 years waiting for a real upgraded card. Heck, the 1050ti is still plenty enough for video transcode... But, that's just me observing that a $550 card used to be top of the stack, not middle of the range. Transistors have gotten smaller, 1080p is still the most common target, but prices have outpaced inflation to a silly degree. I hope the 9070 bucks that...but we'll see. Rumors are only as good as the truth they conceal at best...and with the current expected 23rd launch, I can wait for the haze of FUD to disappear.
I'm assuming, since you bought AMD, you'll go back and delete all your comments talking about Nvidias prices, since you were never going to buy Nvidia in the first place, right? It's only fair, right? You'll never comment on the prices of Blackwell again, right?
I understand TPU has to make money but spreading these FUD rumors is pointless nonsense.