Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
When AMD announced its next-gen Navi-based Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT graphics cards last month, the news was just slightly underwhelming because the prices didn’t necessarily make them the obvious alternative to Nvidia’s rival chips.
But just two days before their July 7th launch date, AMD has taken the drastic step of dropping the prices on these new GPUs.
The Radeon 5700 XT, previously listed at $450, will now cost $400, and the Radeon 5700, previously $380, will be priced at $350. (There’s also a $500 Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary Edition that’ll retail for $450.)
It’s not clear what this means for customers who already preordered the cards, and it’s also not clear whether this will be enough to head off Nvidia. Earlier this week, Nvidia announced new “Super” versions of its GeForce RTX graphics cards with even slightly more performance than the regular ones that AMD seemed like it was set to match. That’s what really forced AMD’s hand.
Here’s where things stand now:
2019 GPU throwdown
| Price | AMD | Nvidia |
|---|---|---|
| Price | AMD | Nvidia |
| $350 | Radeon 5700 | RTX 2060 |
| $400 | Radeon 5700 XT | RTX 2060 Super |
| $450 | 5700 XT Anniversary | |
| $500 | RTX 2070, 2070 Super | |
| $700 | Radeon VII | RTX 2080, 2080 Super |
It’s quite possible that Nvidia’s old, non-Super cards will automatically see supply and demand price cuts of their own, seeing how Nvidia isn’t asking for any more money for the new Super version of the 2070, which competes most directly with the 5700 XT. It doesn’t seem likely that retailers will keep selling the regular RTX 2070 for $500 now that the same $500 can buy you the “Super” version.
That said, the lower-power RTX 2060 Super will cost $400, compared to $350 for the RTX 2060, so the $350 Radeon 5700 may compete on more even footing.