The Dent is Intentional!
Introduction
AMD spilled the beans on its GPU plans at COMPUTEX and then detailed the specs and pricing at E3. We wrote-up a re-cap and analysis editorial for both announcements (in the previous links), and there was plenty of information to be had. This launch has been coming for quite a while. We’ve been hearing about the new Navi GPUs for several years now, dating back to the release of Polaris GPUs in 2016 when this slide was shown. You can see Navi has been on the roadmap since back in 2016.
At that point in time of 2016 it was scheduled to be released in 2018, so it’s a little late from the original predictions, but at least it is now finally here. Back in 2016, everyone thought Navi was going to be AMD’s attempt at the high-end GPU again. However, as now know, the current release of Navi is more of an AMD Vega replacement, but at a much more appetizing price point. Keywords with Navi were Scalability and Next Gen Memory, technically that is still correct with what Navi is today.
Before you begin this review, you can check out our unboxing and showcase first look video of the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 video cards on our official YouTube Channel, then come back here for the full review. This is a long and lengthy review, we have 10 games tested, as well as many other things, and a very long three-part conclusion on pages 19, 20 and 21, so don’t miss it.
Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 Pricing
Well this topic is interesting isn’t it? AMD officially announced pricing on the AMD Radeon 5700 series in early June at E3. The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT was going to be $449 and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 was going to be $379. There would be a 50th Anniversary Edition for $499.
Everyone and their grandmother has been betting on those prices being true, and as reviewers we have all been basing our reviews around those prices. That is until only two days from the launch date, on July 5th, AMD announced it was officially dropping the prices of all three of these video cards. The new pricing structure has the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT at $399, and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 at $349. The 50th Anniversary Edition will now be $449. Those are some massive cuts.
Technically it’s not a price drop since the video cards had not officially launched. However, they were announced and AMD sold everyone on the previous pricing structure as being true. Either one of two things happened, either AMD saw the performance of the NVIDIA RTX SUPER cards and this preempted AMD to restructure its pricing. Or, AMD had this planned all along and duped NVIDIA and everyone else so they could undercut NVIDIA.
Whatever the case, this price change does affect our conclusion. We were pretty dead set on our conclusion prior to the price change based on the performance we have experienced. However, after July 5th, our opinions and conclusions have changed. The pricing has made a positive impact, and now aligns better with the performance we have experienced. The price to performance now makes sense.
In the above comparison table you can see the official pricing on the AMD Radeon RX 5700 series against the original NVIDIA RTX video card releases and the new RTX SUPER video cards. The AMD Radeon RX 5700 is now the same price as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 original release video card. At $399 the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is exactly the same price as the new GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER video card. At $449 the 50th Anniversary Edition is cheaper than the original release RTX 2070.
This means the Radeon RX 5700 XT is $100 cheaper than the RTX 2070 SUPER video card and $200 cheaper than the GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition. We are happy AMD dropped prices to be competitive. It’s an exciting time for anyone buying a video card.