AMD undercuts Nvidia ahead of GTX 1050 release with RX 460 and 470 price drops

With the impending release of Nvidia’s midrange Pascal graphics processor (GPU), the GTX 1050Ti, AMD has preemptively dropped the price of both its RX 470 and RX 460 graphics cards by 10 dollars.

The RX 460 has seen its price drop to $99, for the original MSRP of $109. In the case of the RX 470, it’s dropped $10 to $169, from the original MSRP of $179.

Perhaps the more important comparison though is to the GTX 1050 and 1050Ti, which are priced at $109 and $139respectively. While these cards can’t be directly compared on every aspect, they are close enough in price and performance that these numbers matter, and it’s likely why AMD dropped a few dollars off the RX cards’ price tags.

These pricing revelations came to light as part of a leak of a number of AMD slides (thanks TechPowerUp), which show its cards performing well in a number of different scenarios. One highlights RX 470 frame rates against Nvidia GTX 1050Ti and 960 OC cards, easily beating them in games like Dota 2, Overwatch, Total War: Warhammer, and Doom.

Another slide went on to highlight the RX 470’s ability to offer Freesync and multi-GPU functionality, while another showed off the RX 460’s ability to beat the GTX 1050 in a few select games.

Any comparisons from either party must always be taken with a pinch of salt, it’s good to see AMD remaining so competitive this generation. It has us cautiously excited for the coming months’ releases of Vega and Zen hardware.

While these price drops sound great, it’s worth noting that AMD cards have had trouble meeting their MSRP as of late. Our recent look into the reason why graphics card prices rarely match the prices manufacturers set tells us that it’s not the fault of AMD or Nvidia when their cards are priced higher than expected, but that doesn’t make it easier to swallow as a consumer.

Luckily, it does appear that at least a few models of each card are available near MSRP, with the RX 460 more commonly available at MSRP. Neither currently is selling at the new, lower prices, so if you’re thinking of picking up an RX 460 or RX 470, it’s best to wait a couple weeks.