AMD addresses Radeon RX 9070 XT starting price rumor

Earlier this week, a report from WccfTech suggested that AMD was contemplating price points of $899 and $749 for their Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 GPUs. In reaction to this article, AMD’s Frank Azor, their Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions and Gaming Marketing, stated that these pricing estimates were “never part of the plan.” Essentially, AMD dismissed these rumors.

AMD aims to unveil their new RDNA 4 GPUs in March. According to leaked specifications, AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 will showcase more compute units (CUs) compared to AMD’s Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT, respectively, while having fewer compute units than AMD’s RX 7900 XT/XTX series GPUs. This positions the new graphics cards in the mid-range segment of the GPU market based on hardware specifications. Nonetheless, it is important to highlight that RDNA 4 incorporates numerous architectural enhancements over RDNA 3.

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5070, despite having only 12GB of VRAM, benefits from the newer GDDR7 type. With a price tag of $549, it also increases the competitive pressure on AMD to deliver a strong rival. Moving up the lineup, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti raises the VRAM to 16GB, along with the cost to $749. These two GPUs are likely the market range that the Radeon RX 9070 XT will aim for, as anything beyond that approaches the $999 GeForce RTX 5080 price point.

During their CES Preview for RDNA 4, AMD affirmed that its new GPU architecture boasts several advancements over RDNA 3. To begin with, AMD states that it has “optimized compute units” and “enhanced ray tracing per CU.” Furthermore, AMD claims to have “supercharged” its AI capabilities. In summary, AMD is extracting significantly more performance from each GPU compute unit. This is excellent news for gamers, as AMD has enhanced the performance and efficiency of their GPUs. Rather than simply increasing the size of their GPUs for performance boosts, AMD focused on optimization.

And as always, while waiting for more exciting news, remember to use our comparison tool to find the best deal for your next favorite game.