Unprecedented demand for memory is playing all kinds of havoc on the consumer market, including graphics cards, and the Radeon RX 9070 could be the latest casualty of these circumstances. While the model isn’t disappearing from store shelves entirely, a new rumour suggests it’ll be very difficult to find relative to its more-powerful sibling, the Radeon RX 9070 XT.
According to outlet Prohardver, AMD is prioritising Radeon RX 9070 XT production at the expense of the Radeon RX 9070. The reasoning behind this shift is to reduce the need for future price corrections following changes in memory costs. As the more-expensive card out the gate, there’s less need to adjust pricing as memory expenses fluctuate.
As a reminder, the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 use the exact same memory configuration, including 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit interface. The two cards differ from one another through their Navi 48 GPUs, with the more-powerful model offering a full-fat die while the other sacrifices 12% of its compute units.
Given how similar the two cards are, AMD theoretically wouldn’t have a hard time shifting production focus in the way that Prohardver describes. Board partners will presumably welcome this move as well, as they’ll maintain greater profit margins through the Radeon RX 9070 XT, than they would the Radeon RX 9070.
Should this rumour prove true, it would mark a shrewd move from AMD in my eyes and evidence of its desire to keep GPU prices down. Frankly, I’d even welcome the discontinuation of the Radeon RX 9070 all together if it meant the Radeon RX 9070 XT was more readily available at its $599 MSRP, or at least closer to that price target.
There’s no word on how the memory crisis is affecting the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB and 8GB, save for long-rumoured price rises which could sadly materialise soon. Here’s hoping AMD adopts the same strategy for these entry-level cards as it has the Radeon RX 9070 XT. However, more realistically, I think we could see production of less-VRAM-heavy model get priority.
AMD isn’t alone in making changes to its graphics card lineup, as rumours also claim Nvidia is similarly prioritising GeForce RTX 5060 production to combat rising memory costs. However, the company is also apparently planning to massively reduce GeForce GPU production throughout 2026.
Despite the difficulties us PC enthusiasts will undoubtedly face this year, there’s still plenty of cool stuff in the works to look forward to. We’ll be reporting on it all, so make sure you’re following Club386 on Google News and have us set up as a Google Preferred Source. If you’re not already setup, just click both buttons below.
