AMD is joining the battle against some of Nvidia’s best graphics cards. The RX 9070 XT and its non-XT counterpart should now (hopefully) start flooding the shelves, and gamers are hoping to see them at their recommended list price (MSRP). Unfortunately, some models may cost up to $250 more from the get-go, which is similar to all of Nvidia’s recent RTX 50-series releases where the GPUs cost much more than they should.
Although the cards aren’t technically up for sale just yet, Best Buy seems to have plenty of RX 9070 XT and non-XT models listed — they’re just marked as “coming soon.”
The good news is that there are several models listed at MSRP, which means $599 for the 9070 XT and $549 for the RX 9070. The bad news? Some cards are really pushing the price up by a whole lot.
Take the XFX Mercury AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT OC, for example. This is an overclocked card, and it comes in white, which often adds a bit of a premium to the price tag. Still, the GPU is listed at $849, which adds a whopping $250 to the MSRP.
Meanwhile, the RX 9070 non-XT has some pretty pricey models up for grabs, too. The most expensive one I could find costs $669, which is less of an increase, but still a huge markup.
AMD hasn’t made its own versions of these cards (known as Made By AMD, or MBA), but it promised that it’d work with its partners to ensure wide availability. Let’s hope that this availability extends to not just expensive overclocked models but also their more affordable counterparts sold at MSRP.
Getting the pricing right is going to be key in AMD’s competition against rival Nvidia. At $600, the RX 9070 XT is affordable — after all, it can reportedly rival Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Ti, which starts at $750. However, bring that price up to $850 and it’s a whole different ball game.
