AMD denies 9070 XT leaked prices — '$899 USD starting price point was never part of the plan'

RX 9070 Series Graphics Cards at CES 2025
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

A Bulgarian retailer previously stated that AMD delayed the launch of the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT, and that the latter was priced at 500 Bulgarian Levs more than the 7900 XT. VideoCardz calculated that this meant the RX 9070 XT would retail at around $899, while the vanilla RX 9070 would be $749. Moreover, the original launch date of the first RX 9000 cards was claimed to be January 23. However, AMD Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions and Gaming Marketing Frank Azor has now clarified that an $899 starting price for the RX 9070 XT “was never part of the plan.”

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AMD has yet to release official pricing for its upcoming RDNA 4 graphics cards, which are supposed to deliver performance on par with the RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti. The first batch of Radeon 9000 graphics cards was conspicuous by the absence of details during AMD’s keynote, with the company saying it ran out of time to show them off on-stage at the event.

Rumors suggest that Team Red was caught off guard by the aggressive pricing that Intel and Nvidia introduced in the mid-range market, especially as the Intel Arc B580 launched at $249, while Team Green priced the RTX 5070 Ti and 5070 'MSRP cards' at $749 and $549, respectively. These rumors were quickly dispelled by AMD, though, through its posts on social media. Though we are still waiting for the actual pricing of its latest GPUs.

Nevertheless, it seems that there’s already a ready stock of AMD’s latest GPUs in various retailers and that they’re just waiting on the company to give the go signal and put them on the front-of-store shelves. This delay means that reviewers haven’t been able to release the details of these new GPUs, and that we can only rely on leaked specs to estimate how much these graphics cards will perform.

AMD hasn’t released any official statement about why they delayed the release of these graphics cards, but we hope it will allow retailers to stock up on RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 GPUs from the get-go and prevent shortages. That way, we don’t have to worry about finding a new GPU and dealing with scalpers selling these hard-to-find PC components at more than triple the MSRP.

Still, if you’re looking to upgrade your GPU, you should wait until the release of the Nvidia 5070 and 5070 Ti, which is rumored to be on February 20, and these AMD GPUs in March, before spending your hard-earned money. That way, you can check out multiple independent reviews of these cards and ensure that you’re getting the best hardware for your needs and budget.

Jowi Morales
Contributing Writer

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

  • DS426
    This is why rumors can be a waste of everyone's time.
    1) $899 is only $100 less than the launch MSRP of the 7900 XTX. That was a high-end-marketed card whereas AMD said long ago that this generation (RDNA4) wouldn't have a high-end card. They fail at marketing all the time but c'mon, they know that $899 isn't mid-range pricing, even if NVIDIA had decided to raise prices again on the 50 series.
    2) $899 got a MCM and a fair bit of more die area last gen... and 9070 is still on GDDR6, not 6X or 7
    3) AMD specifically renamed this generation to more easily compare to NVIDIA's models; designed to compete with the 5070 means we're not talking about an $899 USD GPU.

    That said, the best way for AMD to squash this rumor is to just release official pricing and the market availability date. It really is hard to tell what the wait is for at this point.
    Reply
  • KyaraM
    DS426 said:
    This is why rumors can be a waste of everyone's time.
    1) $899 is only $100 less than the launch MSRP of the 7900 XTX. That was a high-end-marketed card whereas AMD said long ago that this generation (RDNA4) wouldn't have a high-end card. They fail at marketing all the time but c'mon, they know that $899 isn't mid-range pricing, even if NVIDIA had decided to raise prices again on the 50 series.
    2) $899 got a MCM and a fair bit of more die area last gen... and 9070 is still on GDDR6, not 6X or 7
    3) AMD specifically renamed this generation to more easily compare to NVIDIA's models; designed to compete with the 5070 means we're not talking about an $899 USD GPU.

    That said, the best way for AMD to squash this rumor is to just release official pricing and the market availability date. It really is hard to tell what the wait is for at this point.
    Nvidia didn't raise prices on the midrange. They actually slightly lowered them. It would be in AMD's best interest to announce their MSRPs, though. It's a bit weird they didn't already, but then, they are extremely quiet about their cards this time around.
    Reply
  • dipique
    KyaraM said:
    Nvidia didn't raise prices on the midrange. They actually slightly lowered them. It would be in AMD's best interest to announce their MSRPs, though. It's a bit weird they didn't already, but then, they are extremely quiet about their cards this time around.
    I think they still want to wait for Nvidia's embargo dates.
    Reply
  • KyaraM
    dipique said:
    I think they still want to wait for Nvidia's embargo dates.
    But why? We know Nvidia's prices already. It makes little sense to wait..
    Reply
  • Jabberwocky79
    Yeah, suuuuure it wasn't the plan.

    So, let's see. We've got: An announcement/not announcement at CES, a presumed release date of January 23rd that was then postponed by 3 months, and an adamant refusal to release pricing figures, which, if they were reasonable, would make all of this go away immediately.

    There is no argument that can convince me that AMD wasn't going to price these cards at $50 below what Nvidia's 70 series was going to be, which - based on Ngreedia's track record, would have been more than what they announced. But team green pulled a fast one on team red, and now AMD is scrambling to figure out how to either make the cards competitive for that price, or how to slash prices and still make a profit.

    Edit: Another food for thought - If AMD announced prices now and those prices were appealing, they could actually steal some market share from Nvidia because people would be willing to wait 2 months and buy AMD. As it is, they are losing market share because their recent actions are severely undermining confidence.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    DS426 said:
    They fail at marketing all the time but c'mon, they know that $899 isn't mid-range pricin
    AMD's flagship is aiming for 4080 performance.
    the 4080 cost was $1200.
    the 9070 is aiming for 4070 ti performance & that cost $800


    Issue is likely AMD didn't expect NVIDIA to keep prices "low" as they have history of inflating prices. (jensen needs more jackets afetr all...)
    AMD not announcing prices is not normal (i cant recall last time they withheld pricing after revealing)
    Reply
  • Jabberwocky79
    ^^^ Exactly. I can put on my tin foil hat and guess how it went down too... and it's not that tin foil hatty because I'm a presentation designer by trade and know what the environment is like backstage at those kinds of events. Presentation decks are being tweaked practically up to the start of a presentation by designers sitting behind the curtain. I bet that AMD slide deck had a whole lot more info about their new cards, but someone backstage came across the info on Nvidia's presentation that was to be delivered later. AMD realized they had a situation on their hands, and had to suddenly cut a bunch out. When Hyunh got up to give the presentation, he basically didn't have anything to talk about regarding the cards, and had to resort to an unprepared 'They're great, you're gonna love 'em!'
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    Lol rtx 5070 will be so good :)
    Reply
  • edzieba
    Jabberwocky79 said:
    Yeah, suuuuure it wasn't the plan.

    So, let's see. We've got: An announcement/not announcement at CES, a presumed release date of January 23rd that was then postponed by 3 months, and an adamant refusal to release pricing figures, which, if they were reasonable, would make all of this go away immediately.

    There is no argument that can convince me that AMD wasn't going to price these cards at $50 below what Nvidia's 70 series was going to be, which - based on Ngreedia's track record, would have been more than what they announced. But team green pulled a fast one on team red, and now AMD is scrambling to figure out how to either make the cards competitive for that price, or how to slash prices and still make a profit.

    Edit: Another food for thought - If AMD announced prices now and those prices were appealing, they could actually steal some market share from Nvidia because people would be willing to wait 2 months and buy AMD. As it is, they are losing market share because their recent actions are severely undermining confidence.
    AMD: Sometimes the jebaiter, sometimes the jebaited.
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    KyaraM said:
    But why? We know Nvidia's prices already. It makes little sense to wait..
    Because we don't actually have final performance numbers, only Nvidia marketing numbers.
    hotaru251 said:
    AMD's flagship is aiming for 4080 performance. The 4080 cost was $1200.
    the 9070 is aiming for 4070 ti performance & that cost $800
    But the 4080 was overpriced and the 4080 Super cut that to $999. Plus the 5080 was incoming and AMD had to expect 4080 performance would drop to ~5070 / 5070 Ti level. I think Frank is fully accurate and not exaggerating at all when he says $900 was never in consideration. $800? Maybe. $700 or less? Probably. Because even if AMD can match Nvidia on performance, give or take, it knows that Nvidia has more software features and ecosystem stuff.

    RX 7900 GRE was priced at $549, but outside of RT and DLSS it easily keeps up with RTX 4070 Ti, often 4070 Ti Super. Why was it so cheap? Because it had to be.
    hotaru251 said:

    Issue is likely AMD didn't expect NVIDIA to keep prices "low" as they have history of inflating prices. (jensen needs more jackets afetr all...)
    AMD not announcing prices is not normal (i cant recall last time they withheld pricing after revealing)
    Again, this is bunk. AMD has given prices in the past a week or two before launch and then changed them. With the current target release date of March, we're a month away from AMD announcing prices. The pre-brief materials on RDNA4 for CES were super thin. Cards were there, but were they working samples? I didn't see anything outside of AMD's booth running 9070 XT cards. Which to me says, prior to CES, RDNA4 was deemed to be at least a month or two distant.

    I mean, we saw running Vega 64 silicon about six months before launch. But it wasn't ready for retail, obviously.

    I think AMD was probably hoping to do $699 at most for the 9070 XT, and perhaps $599 for the 9070. Now it will probably be $599 and $499, respectively. Unless AMD thinks performance is a lot closer than in the past, which it could be because 5070 isn't exactly a huge bump in performance relative to 4070. Same 12GB, more bandwidth, a few more shaders and SMs, similar die size, and DLSS4 MFG doing all the heavy lifting.
    Reply