Initially scheduled for January 23, the launch of the Radeon RX 9070 and its XT variant has been pushed back to March by AMD, the manufacturer justifying this delay by technical and marketing considerations. It was its vice-president David McAfee who announced this new date on the social network X (ex-Twitter), adding that a wide range of graphics card models should be available worldwide for this launch.
A launch delayed at the last moment?
A priori strategic, this delay is nonetheless surprising: many resellers have already filled their stocks of these new generation graphics cards. Evaluation samples are also already in the hands of some media, but it would seem that the lack of optimized drivers is delaying their complete analysis in terms of features and performance.
AMD therefore seems to have chosen the path of caution, perhaps surprised at the last moment by fiercer competition than expected. Expected to be priced around $400 to $600, the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9700 XT must indeed be positioned in the face of the GeForce RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti scheduled for February, and NVIDIA has been particularly aggressive in terms of pricing with prices around $549 to $749.
The arrival of DLSS 4 and the new features promised by NVIDIA could also push consumers to turn to promising GeForce RTX 50 Series; AMD would therefore take its time to ensure that its competing technology FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4) is sufficiently robust and efficient. A simultaneous launch of these new Radeon RX on RDNA 4 architecture and of successful drivers and software is in any case essential to ensure their success. Hopefully, by then, impatient gamers frustrated by this delay will not turn to NVIDIA's solutions.
Source: X (ex-Twitter)
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