Tomorrow marks the official unveiling of the new GPU, but don’t get your hopes up too soon if you’re eyeing the Founders Edition. That won’t hit the shelves until late March.
It seems NVIDIA is hitting the brakes on the retail rollout of the GeForce RTX 5070 FE, pushing it back a bit later in the month. Though this news isn’t straight from the horse’s mouth, Andreas Schilling has mentioned receiving an email from NVIDIA about the change. Just as the reviews embargo was lifting, the GPU’s retail launch was anticipated to be tomorrow.
However, according to the Hardware Luxx editor, NVIDIA slid in this update just a few hours before the reviews went live. So, if the Founders Edition of the GeForce RTX 5070 was on your shopping list, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. It’s still unclear if this delay will spill over to the AIB editions, but with all the buzz around potential availability issues, widespread availability seems unlikely.
Schilling even posted a tweet highlighting the situation: “You think you can buy a GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition tomorrow? No, NVIDIA told us 2 1/2 hours before review drop: ‘The RTX 5070 Founders Edition will be available later in March.'”
We might be on the verge of experiencing another paper launch, much like what happened with the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5070 Ti. The recent wave of GeForce RTX 5070 reviews paint a picture of performance on par with the RTX 4070 Super. Even though it’s not a landmark upgrade from its predecessors, considering its price of $549 and its slight edge over the RTX 4070 Super, it’s still a decent deal.
If you’re struggling to find one at the MSRP, think about waiting for the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 GPUs instead. These are set to land on March 6th, with reviews popping up a day earlier. Priced at $599 for the XT and $549 for the regular version, the RX 9070 could give the RTX 5070 a run for its money.
The reasons for the RTX 5070’s elusive presence aren’t crystal clear yet. There have been whispers about performance bugs and chip supply hiccups plaguing the GPU, but NVIDIA hasn’t confirmed any of this publicly.
While the delay affects the Founders Edition, fingers crossed that the custom AIB editions will still make it to various markets around the globe. Just yesterday, we noticed the GPU listed at retailers like B&H Photo Video, with both base and OC models pegged at an MSRP of $549. If prices for the AIB variants tip over $600, it might be wise to hold off unless you’re out of other similarly powered options.
