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 $549 price point, with potentially equal or higher raster, ray tracing, and AI capabilities across the board. For AMD to make the value case, the company would need to undercut NVIDIA's pricing. Until that is resolved, retailers aren't allowed to place RDNA 4 GPUs in general sale yet.
175 Comments on AMD's Radeon RX 9070 Launch Faces Pricing Hurdles
The 4070 launched for 600$ - but 6 months before the 7800xt launched. By the time the 7800xt was out and in stock, prices were actually similar, could find both for 550$. It was only recently that the 7800xt was in fact cheaper than the 4070.
- the US has dubious shareholder laws, and they would not be happy at all to hear about subsidizing products
- we have all seen what is happening with Intel and subsidizing products; it does not look good in quarterly revenue calls; at all
- AMD has a luxury of selling diverse silicon portfolio, whereby they can earn more money in other branches of the business
- which is exactly what they do; smaller market share in discrete GPUs is well compensated in other branches and the company is healthy
- RDNA4 is just a transitional generation until they re-develop the top die for UDNA release next year
- besides, there will be good cards from all three vendors for everyone under the Sun to choose from
Was cheaper than anything from AMD at the time by hundreds.
Btw don't expect DLSS4 to run well on Ada Lovelace and Ampere GPUs at transformer model demands 4 times the compute power of DLSS3,
that's why Nvidia will offer DLSS4 as an additional option:
Any ideas?
They need to get their product out into peoples hands. This product needs to do everything that the people are used to.
This product has to be priced at a loss to get the numbers out the door. You have to tempt people into buying one. 50 bucks is nothing, you need to raise eyebrows, as I feel that is how dire the situation has become for them. Intel will gladly take number 2 spot next round. That would make the situation even worse.
"There are no bad products, only bad prices" is as true as it has ever been in a capitalist society.
"Market share is key" - Lisa Su, according to Google
The first port of call when you have a product that is not selling for whatever reason is to discount it. And if that doesn't work, discount it harder. You aren't making money if people don't buy your product, and the longer that unsold product sits there the more it costs you via depreciation - which is especially true in the tech world, where components depreciate at staggering speed.
I appreciate that telling AMD to eat s**t on perfectly good products is unpalatable to all involved. I'm not suggesting this direction because I want them to fail, but because I literally don't see any other option for them to regain the marketshare they're continuing to bleed. I as much as anyone else would love to see the 9000-series be a resounding success, and the absolute best way to guarantee that is take a financial hit to pull that marketshare up out of the danger zone. Once they get the traction they need, once consumers have remembered that there is a non-NVIDIA GPU option, then AMD can push prices back up to a level where they're making profit again.
While they need to get cards to people and provide reasons to do so, selling at a loss is not something they have to do, and I doubt they will. Unless they wise up this time around it’ll slot in below similar Nvidia cards and not much will change. Everyone wants better price but it’s not going to happen.
If I had to guess its going to be:
9070 < 5070 < 9070XT < 5070ti
And if thats the case 9070xt will end up around $649.
5070 is gonna look pretty poor next to the out going 4070 super outside of FG. With negligible shader increases throughout the lineup, same node, potentially no frequency increases, higher TDPs, 5000 series won’t be anything special. 5080/5090 msrp prices will be a load of bs and go for $1200/$2500 respectively outside of the first few weeks.
Everyone is about to lose again.
Afaik, AMD isn’t complaining, consumers are.
With the exception of recent low end/entry level cards when hasn’t this happened? Obvious much.
Enjoy your card like everyone else? Great..
Also, I paid a fraction of the price of what a 4070/4070S would've cost me, with more vram.