AMD RX 9070 gets a rumored March 23 release date, but Im not buying it (the date, that is, not the graphics card)

Date:
Fri, 24 Jan 2025 16:25:23 +0000

Description:
AMDs RDNA 4 latest misfires: Ad campaign appears to suggest RX 9070 GPUs should be on sale now, and another purported release date is aired, but looks wrong.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Pre-orde rs should go live for AMDs RX 9070 GPUs on March 23, according to one US retailer There are a couple of reasons why this is likely wrong, though Weve also seen more strangeness around the previously rumored January 23 launch
for RDNA 4, as an ad campaign appears to have misfired

As if enough weirdness hasnt already surrounded AMDs RDNA 4 GPU launch its been an odd affair indeed something at Team Red appears to have misfired on the marketing side again, and weve also caught a mention of a possible new release date for the RX 9070 graphics cards.

However, I think the date shared by a US retailer is off the mark, and just a placeholder, so lets deal with that first.

The story here is that B&H Photo previously posted what it believed to be the date that gamers would be able to pre-order RX 9070 models, namely January 23
but of course that didnt happen.

Instead, AMD made an announcement to let us know that the RX 9070 graphics cards wont arrive until March (still within the official Q1 2025 timeframe that was previously promised, its worth noting).

Following that, VideoCardz spotted that B&H Photo now has a date of March 23 for pre-orders on RDNA 4 graphics cards and the retailer still has this date on its site (it hasnt been taken down yet).

Whats strange about this is that March 23 is a Sunday, so it seems highly unlikely that a sales milestone (pre-orders, or indeed the actual on-sale date) would be on a weekend. Surely, AMD would wait until the Monday (March 24) if this was the plan.

Also, bearing in mind that the previous date B&H posted was January 23, it feels like what might have happened here is that a staff member working on
the product listings just replaced the name of the month in the date, and
left the day the same (though why an update was posted at all to the RDNA 4 listings, when nothings official, is a good question).

Hence my conclusion that this looks very much like a placeholder date, given the way this has happened, and the additional fact that its a Sunday. (Image credit: Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock) Reddit campaign wasnt canceled?

The second oddity that backs up some previous rumors and the initial January date B&H attached to RX 9070 pre-orders is that some AMD ads have popped up, going by reports, claiming that you can play now with the new RDNA 4 GPUs.

This was again noticed by VideoCardz , and it happened yesterday, on January 23, so one theory is that this was a date AMD had indeed planned for
something big to happen, either a launch or reveal. (If you can play now though, then the GPUs would surely be on sale). Team Red had a bunch of marketing stuff scheduled for Reddit ( as flagged up here ) around this,
which accidentally still went ahead somehow (with these ads appearing in a
few different countries in Europe, seemingly being published in German, Italian, and Polish).

The not-unreasonable conclusion folks are reaching is that AMD did have something planned for January 23, especially as there were a lot of rumors this was the case (albeit some mentioned January 24, though it was all in the same ballpark of the week we find ourselves in now). But all this has now
been put off to March , although officially, as mentioned, AMD has never said anything concrete for the RX 9070 launch outside of it being Q1 2025 .

The rumors around RDNA 4 have taken some very strange turns indeed, then, but the good news is that it seems these next-gen graphics cards will be worth waiting for . Even if we do have to hang on until later in March, rather than seeing the RX 9070 GPUs emerge earlier in the month and really, I wouldnt be swayed at all by the new B&H pre-order date for all the reasons mentioned.
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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/gpu/amd-rx-9070-gets-a-rumored-march-23-re lease-date-but-im-not-buying-it-the-date-that-is-not-the-graphics-card


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