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
Question is what they sold it to the retailers at and whether they have to mark it up or down, both of which have issues but nothing that can't be solved.
1. What do you mean similar to 7800XT?
2. What is the 32GB for?
That is to say to $499 MSRP of the 3070 would mean the 5070 should cost 1.03^5 = 578.48....which is actually $549. Given the 4070 was $599 that seems like a win...until you look at the feature set and see that most of your performance boost is heavily focused on interpolated frames...or for the spicier take, generating guesses at what should be there. It's almost like I'm simping for Nvidia, but in this case if you're honest you have to acknowledge that it's not actually a silly high cost.
Likewise, the 9070 is theoretically an 8800...which should compete with the 7900. That was an $899 card...and the 7800 was $500...so one generation of the AMD product would be about 2 years old, and $530.45. Is the new 9070 going to be there...who knows? We have to wait. I've seen rumors range all across the 500-600 range...and it wouldn't be unreasonable if they plugged in 549 to compete with Nvidia. That said, they had this generation intentionally limited. If that's the case...then what exactly is the reason to purchase AMD if priced exactly at Nvidia values? More RAM is nice, but not better. That means we'll need a real technical breakdown to decide if this is a purchase or it's something that needs discounted. Fingers crossed that it's something ready to move day one on its own merits.
(My personal opinion is that AMD is shooting for over the 5070 in raw performance, which is not going to show in Nvidia's frame interpolation numbers. They priced this to move based on slightly better raster and way better future proofing with the additional RAM...but that's a personal amalgamation of multiple leaks. I won't touch any of this until we get good numbers and a price from something like a competent W1z review...because there's an infinite gap between them telling me the card is a generational improvement and seeing a competent and impartial takedown of real performance. Consider me too burned from the 4070 being a lot closer to the 3080, and the 5700xt to 6700xt being a larger leap than it should have been due to some wonky stuff behind the scenes.)
Because of AMD we now have absolute bottom SKUs like RX 7600 (7500 in reality) for $250 MSRP.
Then this nVidia is not the choice. It's better to buy the rival product... wait, it's priced the same way!
nVidia got away, because ignorant people, and scammy miners, went and bought their cards in rows/pallets. They made the image, that scammy gouging price is "normal", due to this and due to that.
Now AMD, instead of use the situation, and show themselves, as a fair company and competitive market player, have joined the nVidia's game (The way it meant to be played), and have set these scalping prices in concrette, forever. Because the market price depends on all participants. If major players inflate their prices, this becomes a sign for the resellers/distributors that they can do whatever they can.
Why this article exists at all? Because AMD, distributors and sellers went loose. They've get used to scalping prices, and will never allow anyone to lower them with the death grip. The, distributors and sellers have became the scalpers themselves. They are another reason, why the cards for sane prices.
My look at the situation is this (if this article is true ofc): AMD thought that nVidia is going to price 5070 $650, or at least $600. They've sold overpriced stock to the channels. Then, the last have become angry, because they cannot get the usual inflated profits, and went rogue. The possible outcome is, either the distributors/sellers give up, and accept the AMD's proposal, or they will discard it, and will go all-in for nVidia. Because with the later, there's no (over)pricing limits, and consumers will buy them for whatever price.
You blame people for blaming AMD for their own faults. The worst offender is not the one, that made the bad, but the one that seen that, and did the same or worse. This doesn't remove the fault of nVidia, but makes AMD even worse, in the eyes of people/buyers. The problem of AMD is that they've seen all the cr*p that is happening, and still joined the nVidia and their scammy garbage. AMD shown that their attitude towards their buyers, and that their don't care about their customers at all.
Now look, how at intel. They have somewhat inferior product. But they still are good competitive products overall. And their entire stock of B580 already sold out, because they've priced realistically.
Could Intel price their products the nVidia way? Absolutely! Would they do it in future, when they get the fame and the mindshare? Most likely. This is intel after all. They've been overpricing their CPUs for more than a decade. But for now, props for Intel for doing realistic moves. They see, that their drivers are still raw, and their Arc brand is still not well known enough.
Current AMD on the other hand, in this "Battlemage" situation, would just price their cards the same as nVidia, without thinking twice. And then, they would look with amazement, why their stuff doesn't sell. This is entire AMD, and their useless PR and marketing team.
Best regards!
I know there's rumors of stocks growing in warehouses and stores. But no one has any official launch news yet.
January 24: NDA for RTX 5090 lifted, reviews and teardowns allowed
January 30: NDA for RTX 5080 lifted, both 5090 and 5080 will go on sale
AMD has kept graveyard silence over their products so far, but it's no longer a secret that RX 9070 series are warehoused at almost all retailers worldwide right now, just awaiting a green light which should come soon
AMD confirms Radeon RX 9070 series launching in March
And this is most likely due to driver issues. This is from the now "Software" company. Good start, I guess.... So much recognition! Well done AMD!
Anyway! As it's been told many times before, RDNA4 should have been released and sold as late as Q4 2024. By the time it will go on sale, the RTX5000 will be already sold out worldwide. This is unfathomable fail.
A launch delayed to march is unforturnate to the say the least, though I doubt it would've mattered when AMD decided to launch these cards, reviewers will no doubt hype up the even more fake frames from team green while analyzing FSR4 down the the individual pxiels saying it sucks.
My RX580, and my older 4870 and Radeon 9000 have a right laugh about that, too.
Ah, forgot the 6870. Actually, out of 7 desktop graphics cards I've owned, starting with a RivaTnT, 4 were Radeons. But I don't like how AMD is milking the consumer and consistently underwhelming, so for the fanboys, I've got to be an nvdia shill.
It's a sad, sad, state of affairs when nvidia is releasing iterative product lines at inflated prices and intel and AMD can't catch up (or, for amd, don't want to, in the matter of pricing).
As I've jokingly said before, seeing how they're incompetent on different areas, a cross-licensing agreement between amd graphics and intel might actually produce product lines capable of challenging nvidia. intel is mediocre at rasterization and amd is useless at raytracing and upscaling. They've traded technology before (x86, AMD64).
But AMD would rather you buy a 7900XTX (24GB) on the consumer side or a W7800 (32GB) which means more profit for them.
Other than that, I had to buy Radeon simply because of the pricing over here.
People are generalizing by suggesting that their market is the only one that matters.
www.pichau.com.br/placa-de-video-xfx-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-mercury-24gb-gddr6-384-bit-rx-79xmairb9
Exact same price I paid on my ROG Strix OC White RTX 4080 18 months ago. I just sold it for 8k. Can you find 7900 XTXs for less? Yes. Not the fancy magnetic fan one from XFX, no, but you can also find cheaper GeForce RTX cards. Or at least could, if there was any stock left...