AMD says the $549 RX 9070 is real but doesn’t deny reports of possible bait and switch
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Summary
This morning, AMD launched its new budget GPUs, the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT, at 549and599.
Almost immediately, it became apparent that only a few cards at those prices had actually arrived in retail channels.
Now, several European and US retailers have confirmed that while those are the official recommended prices (MSRPs), they only apply to the first few cards as a sort of introductory offer.
After that, the prices will rise.
Those retailers include Overclockers UK, Alternate, and Inet.se.
When The Verge checked with US retailers Best Buy and Newegg, only a single card at each MSRP was available, and only for a few minutes.
All other cards were being sold for 100−120 over the MSRP.
AMD has not commented on this story but has made a statement indicating that prices at launch are consistent with their longer-term pricing strategy.
This strategy appears to assume that the relatively few cards launched at MSRP will serve as a loss leader to entice more profitable future sales.