AMD Plans Aggressive Price Competition with Radeon RX 9000 Series

[AusWolf]

I already covered this noise earlier. The market went KERCHUNK and AMD stopped production on enthusiast 7000 series cards way earlier than expected.

What enthusiast cards? As far as I know, only the 7800 XT is going out of production.

By the time 9000 series finally drops, that's all that's going to be available along with maybe some 5000/6000 series stragglers and the usual 580 CN choppers.
AMD is contributing to the market problem. Unlike some of you I'm not afraid to call this out.

What else do you want? Navi 44 is still in development, and the market has proven that people want Nvidia in the enthusiast segment time and time again.

 

[DaemonForce]

What enthusiast cards? As far as I know, only the 7800 XT is going out of production.

The 7900* finally started to disappear with massive price hikes mitigating a completely sold out situation.
The 7800 series got cut way earlier and the price hikes caught up with the 7900 stuff way sooner than expected.
This was planned for late Q3 of this year but the rug got pulled in early January. Figure it out.

 

[AusWolf]

The 7900* finally started to disappear with massive price hikes mitigating a completely sold out situation.
The 7800 series got cut way earlier and the price hikes caught up with the 7900 stuff way sooner than expected.
This was planned for late Q3 of this year but the rug got pulled in early January. Figure it out.

Do you expect anyone to buy a 7900 series card if you can get 5-10% worse performance for $599?

 

[DaemonForce]

Depends on the kind of extra resolution needed. I'm a guy that needs shitloads of FP64, which means 7900 series was probably my card.
I was pulling the trigger on that at $768 so if there were a matching 9000 card with 20GB I wouldn't give a damn about spending $600.
Can't do that anymore and the 9000 series is already a few encroachments with no news on features. I can expect great gaming performance, sure.
Am I going to have less jitter, better calculation on shaders, lightmaps, vertices, physics, 0.1% lows and so on? Your guess is as good as mine.
I don't buy these cards purely for gaming. I buy them for their raster capabilities and creator features. I get them because they're all-in-one.

 

[Dawora]

+ VAT in prices

 

[AusWolf]

+ VAT in prices
View attachment 384587

Where do these numbers come from?

 

[Zach_01]

Where do these numbers come from?

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT & 9070 Prices Leaked by Canadian Retailer

AMD will be launching its new generation of "RDNA 4" Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics cards next month, but we will likely hear more about technical details and price points from official sources around late February. Team Red had scheduled a special "launch event," but Radeon RX 9070...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[AusWolf]

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT & 9070 Prices Leaked by Canadian Retailer

AMD will be launching its new generation of "RDNA 4" Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics cards next month, but we will likely hear more about technical details and price points from official sources around late February. Team Red had scheduled a special "launch event," but Radeon RX 9070...

www.techpowerup.com

Ah, so it's a Canadian retailer! That explains why supposedly MSRP cards are 10-20% more expensive than MSRP.

 

[Rover4444]

$599 AHAHAHA

INTEL GPU DIVISION MY HEART IS YOURS

This is sarcasm right? I mean it has to be, otherwise you might as well be an Nvidia bot that posts the same BS on every tech forums as propaganda.

Nah, I'm gonna have to agree with him. Better VRAM, better and more numerous encoders, better software support, better resale value. If something better comes along in a decade and I don't want to resell it, I'm willing to take a gamble on long-term CUDA support and use it for compute, whereas Radeon can't even maintain mainline ROCm support for three-year-old GPUs, let alone provide support for their new GPUs for NEARLY A YEAR.

And honestly, it's really just the principle of the thing - I'm not paying $100 more for a GPU that costs the same as what the 7800 XT did to make.

 

[olymind1]

Don't ignore the roughly 25% higher clock speed.


Wasn't it faster as well?

Of course it was faster, after GCN4 came Vega, RDNA1 then RDNA2, 3 new gen, but the 6700 barely got price-performance / value increase compared to the RX 480 which was a 2016 card while the Rx 6700 is a 2021 card and 5 years past between them, it was faster but at the same time almost was that much more expensive as well what performance benefit it gave.

Don't ignore the roughly 25% higher clock speed.

True, it avoided my attention. Will see how high it will clock.

 

[AusWolf]

Of course it was faster, after GCN4 came Vega, RDNA1 then RDNA2, 3 new gen, but the 6700 barely got price-performance / value increase compared to the RX 480 which was a 2016 card while the Rx 6700 is a 2021 card and 5 years past between them, it was faster but at the same time almost was that much more expensive as well what performance benefit it gave.

Your math is wrong - the RX 480 launched at $229 in 2016. That's $254 in 2021's money (when the 6700 XT released for $479). The 6700 XT is 2.53x faster by TPU's database. 2.53 times $254 is $642, not $479.

 

[Luminescent]

Considering it's easier to win at the lottery than getting an Nvidia card, AMD might have a chance here.

 

[AlexKataev91]

Considering it's easier to win at the lottery than getting an Nvidia card, AMD might have a chance here.

Just checked 2 biggest retailers in my "heavily sanctioned" country - both have 5080 and 5090 in stock, several models from different AIB partners. For example 5080s go for 1500-1750 USD.

 

[olymind1]

Your math is wrong - the RX 480 launched at $229 in 2016. That's $254 in 2021's money (when the 6700 XT released for $479). The 6700 XT is 2.53x faster by TPU's database. 2.53 times $254 is $642, not $479.

I was talking about 6700 10GB 160bit (not XT 12GB 192bit), which has the same amount core count 2304 as the RX 480 though it has more 2GB faster vram (with more bandwidth, but not much more after 5 years), but performance wise that is 2x only. Roughly that much performance increase i got, but had to pay much more for the card than the RX480, but that was the cheapest pcie x16 card which didn't get gimped my pcie3.0 slot.

If you calculate that way, sure. I always see people starts to calculate inflation, but progress also must be made, otherwise what is the point. AMD barely made price performance increase in 5 years.

2002 - Radeon 9700 128MB - 200-250.
2016 - Radeon RX480 8 GB - 200-250.

We got 64x more vram in that 14 year period and pricing remained the same.

Now it's already 2025. 9 years past. What we get now for 250 from AMD? The same 8 GB.

However i want to justify AMDs and Nvidias continuous price increace, i just can't, infation always was, always will be. They just want bigger and bigger margins. Though i don't deny that manufacturing chips got more expensive, but i don't believe they got that much more expensive.

Well it is what it is, i will probably just upgrade much rarely and ignore one more generation.

 

[AusWolf]

I was talking about 6700 10GB 160bit (not XT 12GB 192bit), which has the same amount core count 2304 as the RX 480 though it has more 2GB faster vram (with more bandwidth, but not much more after 5 years), but performance wise that is 2x only. Roughly that much performance increase i got, but had to pay much more for the card than the RX480, but that was the cheapest pcie x16 card which didn't get gimped my pcie3.0 slot.

Ah, so I have to pick your example (of a generally unavailable card nonetheless), otherwise the whole theory collapses. Gotcha.

If you calculate that way, sure. I always see people starts to calculate inflation, but progress also must be made, otherwise what is the point. AMD barely made price performance increase in 5 years.

Why would you not calculate with inflation? Do you think the 250 bucks you paid for your Radeon 9700 was the same 250 bucks that you paid for the RX 480? It's not - it's 338 bucks in 2016's money.

Now it's already 2025. 9 years past. What we get now for 250 from AMD? The same 8 GB.

250 in 2016 is 336 in today's money (hmm, what a coincidence). The 12 GB Powercolor Fighter 7700 XT is currently £359 at Overclockers UK (1 USD MSRP is usually 1 GBP retail due to import tariffs).

However i want to justify AMDs and Nvidias continuous price increace, i just can't, infation always was, always will be. They just want bigger and bigger margins. Though i don't deny that manufacturing chips got more expensive, but i don't believe they got that much more expensive.

Looking at the $1000 4080 Super and $1000 5080, I agree. I just don't think the 9070 XT appears to be as bad value as you might think. We'll see more from benchmarks, though - it's early to judge.

Well it is what it is, i will probably just upgrade much rarely and ignore one more generation.

What's to complain about, then?

 

[Darkholm]

If it's 599 USD in US, that is 699 EUR in EU. Plus retailers' greed, we go to 900 EUR easily. My bet 9070XT Red Devil or Nitro+ (or any other top models) will be over 1000 in EU.
7900XTX was 1200+ EUR weakest models when launched.

 

[Rungar]

I guess by aggressive they meant aggressive on your wallet. why would i buy this?

 

[Rover4444]

250 in 2016 is 336 in today's money (hmm, what a coincidence). The 12 GB Powercolor Fighter 7700 XT is currently £359 at Overclockers UK (1 USD MSRP is usually 1 GBP retail due to import tariffs).

That card is also currently OOS, released in 2023, and has an MSRP of $449. $229 in 2017 money is $285 in 2023 money, which gets you... an RX 7600 on release, with $16 to spare.

It's a good thing technology evolves economies of scale improves and higher end parts come down in price, otherwise we'd be stuck at 8GB VRAM and 1080p gaming as the standard forev- UH OH

Yeah okay let's not play pretend here, cards need to have more hardware for the price. Shelling out 2 extra GB of VRAM isn't a big ask after six years four generations and two architecture changes especially when the chips they put on the 7000 series are twice as dense as when the 580 released.

 

[QuietBob]

7900XTX was 1200+ EUR weakest models when launched.

Yep, I got my MBA model at launch for EUR 1150 with tax, which works out to exactly $1000 pre-tax.

Now the cheapest models are going for $730.

 

[GrimReaper85]

If it's 599 USD in US, that is 699 EUR in EU. Plus retailers' greed, we go to 900 EUR easily. My bet 9070XT Red Devil or Nitro+ (or any other top models) will be over 1000 in EU.
7900XTX was 1200+ EUR weakest models when launched.

€1000 on a small market like our Slovenia.
Mindfactory Germany worst models should be €750, mid like Hellhound around €800 and top models €900.

 

[Markosz]

If $600 is true for the XT model, then that's a good start, could go lower from there.
( Assuming it's delivering 7900XTX performance with improved RT and other stuff... )

 

[Durvelle27]

The amount of whiners in here is insane; who really believe AMD should be selling at a loss.

$150 Less for Similar if not better performance is a steal. But I guess people nowadays don’t know a good deal if they see one.

But you’ll never please the masses

 

[RandallFlagg]

People in here talking like nvidia MSRP matters at all. Good luck finding 5070 Ti at 749$, might as well look for 5080 for 999$, there are soooo many of them.
And that's coming from someone that bought 5080.

Offering 4080/5070 Ti performance at 599$, with FSR4 being as good as in the CES demo and getting close to nvidia in RT (since they made almost zero progress in that regard with 50 series) and most importantly having GPUs in stock and without price gouging should be enough to get good reviews and sell GPUs.
Thinking that 9070XT will be priced at 399 or 499 is some wishful thinking, they might as well not make GPUs, they are not a charity.

We'd all be very lucky to see a 9070XT at $599.

MSRP is meaningless. 4080s are $1500+ cards right now, and 4070s are $800+.

The two best deals I can find across multiple channels right now is the 7800 XT at $489 (MicroCenter, in store only), and $1079 for a 7900 XTX (Amazon).

Everything else above 4060 is stupid expensive for what you get.

 

[AusWolf]

That card is also currently OOS, released in 2023, and has an MSRP of $449. $229 in 2017 money is $285 in 2023 money, which gets you... an RX 7600 on release, with $16 to spare.

It's a good thing technology evolves economies of scale improves and higher end parts come down in price, otherwise we'd be stuck at 8GB VRAM and 1080p gaming as the standard forev- UH OH

Yeah okay let's not play pretend here, cards need to have more hardware for the price. Shelling out 2 extra GB of VRAM isn't a big ask after six years four generations and two architecture changes especially when the chips they put on the 7000 series are twice as dense as when the 580 released.

1. Are we going on by VRAM alone? The card's performance doesn't matter?

2. Yes, the lower midrange has been abandoned by both AMD and Nvidia for a while. It's bad. The only thing you can do about it is vote with your wallet and skip upgrades that aren't really upgrades.

 

[Dr. Dro]

The amount of whiners in here is insane; who really believe AMD should be selling at a loss.

$150 Less for Similar if not better performance is a steal. But I guess people nowadays don’t know a good deal if they see one.

But you’ll never please the masses

It's only a steal if you can live with the perennial problems and second class treatment by pretty much any swdev out there. Performance isn't everything, I'd say raw performance is barely half the story these days. They may not have had chart topping performance last generation, but what really hurt them wasn't that the 7900 XTX was a "discount 4080" with good raster but crap RT. What hurts AMD and will continue to hurt them for a significant while longer is that a modern GPU is only as good as the software that supports it, and this is an area where Radeon sorely lacks.

AMD needs to foster an ecosystem, provide a highly programmable runtime (just like CUDA), up their driver game tenfold if not a hundredfold by working close to swdev at both open-source and proprietary projects, placing their engineering teams at the disposal of soft houses and game studios alike, tighten their driver release schedule, improve quality assurance, etc. - these are all things that Nvidia has done, it's what enables them. And then there is marketing. They have to make people desire their products... my focus is way too technical as I'm personally not swayed by marketing, but so many people who aren't tech savvy are, and right now? Frank and McAfee would both have trouble selling ice cold Coca-Cola to a billionaire dehydrated man in a scorching desert.

An aggressive pricing strategy might claw back 5% market share over the next quarter or two, until it inevitably begins to dwindle again as buyers start getting remorse (they aren't getting day one game ready drivers, they aren't getting any dibs on the new techs that come up, their GPU doesn't work with emulator X, app Y is horribly broken, program Z requires a compute library their card won't support, their streams look like a VHS, etc.), prices on NVIDIA RTX GPUs begin to stabilize and GeForce brings something new and innovative to the table. And the cycle repeats.

Has no one even stopped to question why we have Apple-esque MSRPs plus scalping factor and they still retain 90%+ market share? This is just perplexing to me. I cannot fathom it.