AMD's least expensive RDNA 3 graphics card is already below MSRP, even though it was only released in December 22, a sign that GPU price declines are only going to get bigger" No, probably not. There are many other pricing determinants (open in new tab) involved in this. However, it is most likely the result of constant competition between AMD and Nvidia.

It's been a while since we've seen such a price cut this early in a graphics card's life, but wow, Newegg has two RX 7900 XTs listed for under $899 MSRP, although there was previously a third model, an even cheaper BioStar reference card, After being spotted by Videocardz (opens in new tab), the price rose again.

Still, the ASRock-branded reference (open in new tab) RX 7900 XT and the third-party designed XFX Merc 310 (open in new tab) are currently available for $880. Both are marked down from their MSRPs, albeit slightly.

And what could be the cause of these price drops? If retailers have graphics cards in stock and are not selling out quickly, the price cuts will surely help.

Although the elephant in the room is Nvidia's RTX 4070 Ti (opens in new tab).

Nvidia launched the RTX 4070 Ti last month with an MSRP of $799, which is $100 less than the RX 7900 XT (opens in new tab). The two cards were evenly matched in our tests at 4K, with the Radeon occasionally winning by a nose in regular rasterized gaming. The RTX 4070 Ti, however, performs faster in some games. The RTX 4070 Ti also benefits from Nvidia's DLSS 3 upscaling and DLSS Frame Generation, which can significantly increase frame rates in supported games.

Today, the RTX 4070 Ti is not always sold at its MSRP, but sometimes the price drops in sales; for example, this Asus TUF RTX 4070 Ti is $800 (opens in new tab). Importantly, GeForce is regularly cheaper than the RX 7900 XT by some margin, and we are not convinced that Radeon cards will win the battle for customers' cash so often.

What is certain is that both AMD and Nvidia's least expensive current generation graphics cards are still too expensive today. I would like to see both cards tumble into the realm of reasonable prices. I would also like to think that AMD is taking these price wars into account when determining the price tags of their more mainstream RDNA 3 graphics cards. But pricing is getting tighter at the lower end of the market, and so far my personal dreams and hopes have yet to have a significant impact on the graphics card market. Damn.