Well, AMD's Radeon RX 9070 series launch isn't going as smoothly as we thought - and it's because retailers have inflated prices

• AMD's Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT GPU prices have been inflated at some retailers
• This stems from board partners increasing prices after suggested 'limited-time MSRP'
• It comes after AMD 'encouraged' board partners to stick to MSRP

While AMD's Radeon RX 9070 series GPU launch has certainly fared much better than Nvidia's RTX 5000 series, that doesn't mean it's completely avoided any problems - and in Team Red's case, it's not missing ROPs or scalpers.

As reported by Wccftech, AMD's board partners have quietly increased the prices of Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs, reportedly up to $130 higher than MSRP. This is the kind of behavior we’d expect from scalpers - and it's similar to what we see with Nvidia's GPUs, which always seem to have inflated retailer prices even when there's a good amount of stock.

It comes after AMD stated it would 'encourage’ AIB partners to stick to MSRP for the RDNA 4 GPUs, but that hasn't exactly happened. Retailers implied that MSRP would be timed, meaning prices for the GPUs after the first batch of sales would hike—and that has unfortunately come to pass, as Wccftech highlights the Sapphire Pulse 9070 XT selling for an egregious $729.99, which is indeed $130.99 above the $599 retail price.

While the price shifts may not be coming from Team Red directly, they could still impact the goodwill AMD has built amongst PC gamers during this new GPU lineup - it may now end up short-lived, especially if current inflated prices remain for the foreseeable future. Its fierce rival Nvidia, may still have bigger issues with stock and other hardware problems, but that doesn't mean price issues with RDNA 4 GPUs should be ignored.

This is probably the worst GPU market situation I've ever seen

I've lived through a fair amount of GPU generations where prices were reasonable across the board, and without issues as significant as the one’s we’re seeing at the moment. So, I can say without a doubt, this is the worst GPU market I've seen.

It's already difficult enough to convince console gamers to move over to PC due to pricing, but the price inflation of Team Green and Team Red's GPUs has taken this to a ridiculous level. While the price hike on the Radeon RX 9070 series is still absurd, the inflation on RTX 5000 series GPUs is the worst I've come across.

If you even manage to find an RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 at MSRP (let alone one available at all), then you'd need to be ready to dig deep into your pockets - and the same goes for the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti cards.

You might be thinking about opting for an RTX 4000 series GPU instead, but the same issue is present there. Most of the Ada Lovelace GPUs are either out of stock since they've been discontinued, but the remaining ones in stock are selling for above MSRP as well. Ultimately, gamers have no choice but to pay up, especially as we seem to be seeing an increasing number of poorly optimized PC games that require high-end GPUs for an acceptable level of performance.

If this pattern continues, it will add to the list of reasons why PC gaming is seen as implausible for those looking to move from consoles to PC.

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