Older AMD Radeon flagship GPU gets price cut just as Nvidia RTX 4070 arrives

[midian182]

What just happened? AMD's campaign to push people into buying one of its graphics cards rather than the RTX 4070 has moved into the discount stage. After essentially mocking Nvidia's cards for not having as much VRAM as team red's equivalent offerings, an AMD AIB partner has dropped the prices of the Radeon RX 6950 XT and RX 6800 XT last-gen products.

Now that the RTX 4070 is finally here, AMD has started a dissuasion campaign. It began with a lengthy post yesterday outlining the benefits of more VRAM, which most of its cards have, at a time when the industry has embraced movie-quality textures, complex shaders, and higher-resolution outputs.

Now, some AMD cards are suddenly cheaper than they were a few days ago. Videocardz spotted the Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6950 XT from Asrock has dropped from $679 to $629 on Newegg. But thanks to an included $20-off promo code, buyers can get it for $609 - just $10 more than the RTX 4070's MSRP. If that's not enough, it also comes with a free gift: a code for The Last of Us Part 1, worth $60.

According to our recent look at the game and how well it runs on various GPUs, the RX 6950 XT pushes out an average of 75 fps at 1440p with the settings at Ultra Quality.

Another Asrock card, the Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 6800 XT, is available for a low price of $539. It also comes with a free copy of The Last of Us. This less powerful AMD GPU still manages 63 fps in TLOU with the same settings.

Whether the discounts persuade people to go with team red instead of team green remains to be seen. In our review of the RTX 4070, it was found to have an average of 175 fps across 13 games at 1080p, putting it slightly ahead of the cheaper RX 6800 XT and 16 fps slower than the RX 6950 XT. However, Nvidia's card does come with DLSS 3.0 and frame generation, as well as better ray tracing performance.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98302-flagship-amd-rdna-2-radeon-card-gets-price.html

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Where were these prices 2 years ago when I needed a new GPU? I would have dropped $530 on a 6800XT in a heartbeat.

Sadly we all know about the prices back then, even when the availability of the cards was there.....no way in hel| I was walking into MicroCenter and dropping around $1400 for a 6800XT back then. Only cards available back then at the $530 price range, if you were lucky, was the 3060.

 

[yannus]

"However, Nvidia's card does come with DLSS 3.0 and frame generation, as well as better ray tracing performance."

Nvidia marketing done by the press in the very last sentence.

 

[punctualturn]

"However, Nvidia's card does come with DLSS 3.0 and frame generation, as well as better ray tracing performance."

As usual, the message here is the same: "Buy Nvidia".

We get it and thanks for the unbiased conclusion.

 

[Asuka]

Ok and what about europe? or is usa the only market that matters for AMD?
also what happened to the rest of RDNA3 lineup? is AMD even going to bother to release mode budget offerings or did they just give up? such a weird company man I really hope Intel steps up because we really some decent budget cards

 

[hazphan]

If both AMD and Nvidia just produced a generational product in the $400-$500 price range that offered a 20%~ increase in performance generation after generation, they would be tapping such a massive range of consumers. Not to mention create a reliable leap frog effect for those of us that hold onto GPUs for 3-5 years at a time.

I have a 2070 Super and still can't justify moving to the 4070 quite yet (at the current price point). I should be blown away by the improvement from a 2070S to a 4070, enough to entice me to consider spending $600+.

I'm happy to see AMD dropping prices, and will sit back to see if that trends over the rest of 2023. I hope these companies realize that gigantic profit margins aren't the only way to run a business. How about quantity of sales at a lesser margin?

 

[Lew Zealand]

Ok and what about europe? or is usa the only market that matters for AMD?
also what happened to the rest of RDNA3 lineup? is AMD even going to bother to release mode budget offerings or did they just give up? such a weird company man I really hope Intel steps up because we really some decent budget cards

Look at that chart up there.

7900XT 80fps
6950XT 75
6900XT 70
6800XT 63
6800 57

Where do you think a 7800XT would fit in there? What price would it be and what would it offer you that you can't get with AMD's current cards?

AMD has their price and performance points covered and doesn't have to spend any 5 and 6nm wafer space on anything below the 7900XT so they can sell more CPUs and a few 7900s here 'n there.

It's just business.

 

[EdmondRC]

You can get the 6950 XT for $610 right now on Newegg. Also, 4070 did not sell out immediately. It's still available as of noon EST on Best Buy, even the founder's edition. Two AIB $599.99 options are available on Newegg.

 

[Asuka]

Look at that chart up there.

7900XT 80fps
6950XT 75
6900XT 70
6800XT 63
6800 57

Where do you think a 7800XT would fit in there? What price would it be and what would it offer you that you can't get with AMD's current cards?

AMD has their price and performance points covered and doesn't have to spend any 5 and 6nm wafer space on anything below the 7900XT so they can sell more CPUs and a few 7900s here 'n there.

It's just business.

Easy a 7700 xt that performs similar to an rx 6800XT/4070 for 400 or less would sell like hot cakes, they have the tech and they could do it if they wanted to It's just that AMD doesn't care enough to make one apparently, anyways once Nvidia launches the 4060/4060 ti next month it's game over for AMD

 

[psycros]

The day I pay more than $300 for ANY computer component will never come. Whatever I have at the time I will die with.

 

[Beerfloat]

Yesterday's GPUs, very competitive in yesterday's games - now available at heavy discount!

When you've got lemons, make lemonade.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Easy a 7700 xt that performs similar to an rx 6800XT/4070 for 400 or less would sell like hot cakes, they have the tech and they could do it if they wanted to It's just that AMD doesn't care enough to make one apparently, anyways once Nvidia launches the 4060/4060 ti next month it's game over for AMD

Sure, at $300 or less it would be even better but that's unrealistic. Look at the numbers again with AMD's original 6000 pricing in mind.

Maybe a 7800XT matches the 6900xt at 70fps. Based on AMD's recent pricing that might be a $600-650 card. They already have that on 7nm and it doesn't compete with their other offerings using the newer 5&6nm nodes.

So a 7700XT might match a 6800/XT at 60fps and likely be a $500-550 card. Already on 7nm, doesn't take up 5/6nm space.

I'd like lower end 7000 series GPUs but I don't see AMD's economic motivation to push them out. I hope they prove me wrong.

 

[Asuka]

Sure, at $300 or less it would be even better but that's unrealistic. Look at the numbers again with AMD's original 6000 pricing in mind.

Maybe a 7800XT matches the 6900xt at 70fps. Based on AMD's recent pricing that might be a $600-650 card. They already have that on 7nm and it doesn't compete with their other offerings using the newer 5&6nm nodes.

So a 7700XT might match a 6800/XT at 60fps and likely be a $500-550 card. Already on 7nm, doesn't take up 5/6nm space.

I'd like lower end 7000 series GPUs but I don't see AMD's economic motivation to push them out. I hope they prove me wrong.

400$ is a realistic price tag idk why would anyone be surprise by that tbh, the reason AMD moved to a chiplet design in the first place is to save cost, a 400$ 7700 xt is possible but like I said AMD just don't care to compete with Nvidia anymore, they're fine with ceding all market share to Nvidia as long as they get to sell few overpriced cards to AMD diehards

 

[scavengerspc]

However, Nvidia's card does come with DLSS 3.0 and frame generation, as well as better ray tracing performance.

Oh! So nothing important. Good to know.

 

[waclark]

If both AMD and Nvidia just produced a generational product in the $400-$500 price range that offered a 20%~ increase in performance generation after generation, they would be tapping such a massive range of consumers. Not to mention create a reliable leap frog effect for those of us that hold onto GPUs for 3-5 years at a time.

I have a 2070 Super and still can't justify moving to the 4070 quite yet (at the current price point). I should be blown away by the improvement from a 2070S to a 4070, enough to entice me to consider spending $600+.

I'm happy to see AMD dropping prices, and will sit back to see if that trends over the rest of 2023. I hope these companies realize that gigantic profit margins aren't the only way to run a business. How about quantity of sales at a lesser margin?

The thing is, a $500 card from 2020 would cost $583 in 2023 dollars. So, in a way, Nvidia is giving you just that. A card that performs much like a 2 yr old card at the inflation adjusted price. Sooner or later, and I suspect we are closer to sooner rather than later, you're not going to be able to continue to get more performance at a lower price. The 4070 does offer lower power consumption and that should count for something.

 

[daffy duck]

AMD is said to only be releasing N32 in July at the earliest and as suspected the 7800XT will be a 6700XT replacement and 7700XT the 6600XT replacement. 7700XT is only targeting 4060 Ti which uses a low end AD106 die. 7800XT is said to be only a bit faster than 4070.

So one can see how AMD stuffed up the naming so they could charge one tier higher prices. Not saying Nvidia isn't as bad, because it's worse, but AMD needs to be far more aggressive on pricing if they want to have any chance of flipping Nvidia buyers. Just a bit cheaper isn't enough incentive given your RT is weaker and you don't have DLSS3 and FSR2 is worse than DLSSS2 unless run in quality mode and at 1440p or higher.

So expect to pay $699 for the 7800XT imo for 4070+ levels of performance.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Ok and what about europe? or is usa the only market that matters for AMD?

Have you not yet realized that only the US matters and the rest of the world is but extras in their movie?

 

[dangh]

As usual, the message here is the same: "Buy Nvidia".

We get it and thanks for the unbiased conclusion.

As big fan of amd buying exclusively their cards, there is no doubts nvidia rt tech works much better. If someone buys card with rt in mind on Windows os nvidia is simply better. My needs are bit different and I dislike nvidia market decisions so amd is better choice for me, but I'd love to have better performance in 4k or rt. That's why I'm staying with 6900 and skipping 7k family, hoping this year we will see some significant improvement. Amd stabilised their CPU offering, so now should have more capacity and resources to do same with GPU.

 

[dalpilot]

I wanted to go back and find out when $600 video cards became a good value. It started after the Nvidia GTX 1070 launched and listed for $379. Then the 1060 6 GB edition was a budget card with mid range performance for $249. It is laughable that anyone actually purchases cards in that price range (and don't blame it on inflation). That was also a time when many web sites would have a budget Gaming build for $500. That was a time when you didn't need 16 GB RAM just to run Windows 10 and a game. You didn't need 12 GB of GDDR5x RAM just to run a game. And, don't tell me about the great resolution of the new games and all the great lighting effects.

The companies blame the "Crypto Craze" for the insane pricing. Thank God I don't game much anymore as my venerable AMD 3600 and RX 570 won't run much of anything. It does surf the web and do all the video editing of TV shows and movies quite capably. I may need to let Handbrake run by itself for an hour or two. Fact is, when I look at newer generations of CPUs (I'm still running a B450 board so limited to 5000 series CPUs) they don't show much increase over what I have so I'll get along until some day I move up to a sub $100 B550 (or even an A520) and a sub $200 CPU and reuse my old NVME 1.3x4 SSD and my venerable SATA 6 secondary SSD because there is no need for NVME X.X or PCI-Ex16 (on whatever version new GPUs are running). And, to tell you the truth most games run just fine on my XBox Series S @ 1080 upscaled to 4K on mid range 65" HDR/Dolby Vision TV.

 

[Q Wales]

The day I pay more than $300 for ANY computer component will never come. Whatever I have at the time I will die with.

I couldn't agree more, the prices are an absolute joke. All these guys are doing is making Pc's less attractive as a gaming platform and pushing more and more people over to the likes of Playstation and Xbox, from which they may never return. Or at least not until we hit the point where we can't actually physically notice improvements any longer, a bit like cameras on mobiles and GPU's are no longer a stand out component

 

[BSim500]

The day I pay more than $300 for ANY computer component will never come. Whatever I have at the time I will die with.

I still have my GTX 1660 (bought new from Amazon for £157). The "replacement" was either the RTX 3050 (+10% faster for +100% the price) or The RTX 3060 (+50% faster for +200% the price). LOL, no... The good news is, personally losing a lot of interest in modern AAA's and playing mostly older games / Indies = what I've got still runs everything I want and even stretches upwards to 1440p for older games. Looking back, I've saved an absolute sh*t-ton of money stepping out of this mindless rat-race completely.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. When buying a video card, you're buying HARDWARE, not software. Things like DLSS 3.0 and RT are just FRILLS which can (and most likely will) be features that get added in a few months (which really isn't that long). However, the VRAM a card is born with is the VRAM that it dies with.

It wasn't that long ago that Steve said VRAM is starting to make a HUGE impact and yet, here he is with another short-sighted article. Well, anyone stuck with an 8GB card already knows the answer, even if they don't want to admit it, they know that they royally screwed up. Why is he now trying to downplay it even though he dedicated a crap-tonne of time exposing it? This is starting to look like Jekyll and Hyde here.

The RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, RX 6900 XT and RX 6950 XT are what I like to call "Keith Richards cards" because no matter what, they'll just keep on going, out-living ALL GeForce cards that don't end in "90".

That's what VRAM brings to the table and even though my objections to the 8GB and 10GB cards were largely ignored back in 2020, time has shown that I was 100% correct. Just look at the GTX 1080 Ti, do you really think that card is still viable at 1440p just because of its (RX 5700 XT - level) GPU rendering prowess? Hell no, it's because it has 11GB of VRAM! The R9 Fury is still viable as a 1080p card because its HBM allows it to handle things that no 4GB card should be able to handle. When it comes to video card longevity, VRAM is life.

It wasn't a surprise to me of course because I had seen it so many times before but not everyone has been around in tech as long as I have. Those that didn't ignore my posts reaped big rewards and those that didn't, well, enjoy your 1080p non-RT card that you paid between $1,000 and $2,000 to buy.

 

[kinetix]

Look at that chart up there.

7900XT 80fps
6950XT 75
6900XT 70
6800XT 63
6800 57

Where do you think a 7800XT would fit in there? What price would it be and what would it offer you that you can't get with AMD's current cards?

AMD has their price and performance points covered and doesn't have to spend any 5 and 6nm wafer space on anything below the 7900XT so they can sell more CPUs and a few 7900s here 'n there.

It's just business.

for 1080p, cheaper, and something better than a 6600/6650, with 12 GB instead of 8, for 1% of around 60fps. the future 7600, I hope

 

[herpaderp]

NV really held on to that 6-8GB range for dear life on mid/high-end cards. Crazy to think that I've had 12GB GPUs since 2015 and that's only now become the midrange standard for them.

 

[b3rdm4n]

"However, Nvidia's card does come with DLSS 3.0 and frame generation, as well as better ray tracing performance."

Nvidia marketing done by the press in the very last sentence.

lol the whole piece puffs up AMD something fierce, then one line includes factual data about what you get in the other side of the fence, legitimate selling points and people cry foul. Far out fanboys are the absolute worst.

---------

Where was the 6800 during the entire shortage? It was easily one of the best picks of the whole generation, and it was nowhere to be found, now all of a sudden AMD is caught with old stock that have VRAM, at this rate they may as well not even both releasing RDNA3 cards under the 7900xt, just keep RDNA2 competitive