Shots fired as AMD cut price of Navi GPUs just before launch to combat Nvidia's RTX Super cards

The launch of two Big Navi cards is just over 24 hours away right now, but after having been gazumped by Nvidia's RTX Super graphics cards earlier in the week, AMD have just announced a little gazumping of their own in the form of an unexpected price cut for both the RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT. How about that for a nice bit of friendly competition, eh?

The new AMD Navi prices are as follows:

• AMD Radeon RX 5700: Originally $379, now $349
• AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT: Originally $449, now $399
• AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary Edition: Originally $499, now $449

That's a $50 cut for both RX 5700 XT cards (the 50th Anniversary edition is ever so slightly faster than the standard version), and a $30 saving on the non-XT model. UK pricing is still TBC at time of writing, but all three price drops are pretty significant, especially when you consider where they sit among Nvidia's RTX cards.

While I can't say what their actual performance is like until Sunday, you may remember that throughout the run-up to Navi's arrival, AMD have maintained that the RX 5700 is set to be a little bit faster than Nvidia's RTX 2060, while the RX 5700 XT is supposedly a little bit quicker than the RTX 2070. Now that the RTX Super cards have arrived on the scene, however, I reckon a more appropriate pair of competitors for them are, you guessed it, Nvidia's RTX 2060 Super and RTX 2070 Super.

Take a look at Nvidia's respective US RRP prices, however, and you'll find they're now quite a bit more expensive:

• Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060: $349
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super: $399
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070: $499
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super: $499

If AMD's comparisons hold true, then that's quite the saving indeed - and a very loud shot fired against Nvidia's pack of RTX Super cards. I should point out, of course, that Nvidia's cards also let you take advantage of real-time ray tracing and their upscaling performance boosting DLSS tech, neither of which are present on the Radeon RX 5000 cards, and that you get two free games (Control and Wolfenstein: YoungBlood) when you opt for an RTX Super card. Regular RTX cards, meanwhile, just come with a free copy of Wolfenstein.

That adds a little bit of extra value to Nvidia's proposition, but AMD have their own bundle deal as well: a three-month subscription to Xbox Game Pass for PC, which gives you access to over 100 games for absolutely nadda. It's also worth noting that the same deal applies to more or less any new AMD graphics card bought between July 1st 2019 and March 10th 2020, starting from the RX 560 all the way up to the Radeon 7, as well as any new Ryzen 3000 CPU or one of AMD's existing Ryzen 2nd Gen CPUs.

The proof, of course, will be in the benchmark-flavoured pudding as to whether it's really worth jumping ship to AMD or not, but if you're in the market for a 1440p graphics card, then the competition has just got a heck of a lot hotter. Will this price cut help AMD's Navi cards win the fight for best graphics card? All will be revealed on Sunday.