After the way Nvidia’s RTX 50-series ended up being called a “paper launch,” many breathed a sigh of relief when AMD’s RX 9000 series appeared on the shelves in much larger quantities. However, once this initial shipment is sold, AMD could face the same problem as the rest of the best graphics cards: Price hikes, price hikes everywhere.
The cards officially hit the shelves yesterday, and many were spotted far above the recommended list price (MSRP), with some overclocked models priced at up to $250 more than the $600 starting price. However, AMD spoke several times about working with its partners to ensure wide availability at MSRP, and indeed, many retailers had some models up for sale. Those MSRP cards were only around for a short time, though, and they might never come back, according to retailers.
As spotted by VideoCardz, two popular European retailers both say that the price of AMD’s latest GPUs will go up once the MSRP models all sell out. Inet.se, a Swedish retail chain, says that only the first shipment of cards will be sold at MSRP.
There appears to be some difference between different manufacturers, as the retailer only received one shipment of Asus and Sapphire GPUs, and customers can buy those cards until they’re all sold out. The retailer already has a second shipment of PowerColor waiting, though, and those cards will already be sold at a markup once the initial batch is all gone.
Meanwhile, Overclockers UK reveals that it has thousands of various RX 9070 XT cards in stock, but at some point, the prices will increase. “MSRP is capped in quantity of a few hundred, so prices will jump once those are sold through,” said the retailer. “Re-stocks and pricing are unknown going forward; nobody really knows what April will bring.”
While frustrating, this isn’t unusual. If this is true for all retailers — which we don’t know for a fact — it simply means that AMD went out of its way to ensure availability at MSRP, but not forever. The GPU market is in a rough state right now, with most new GPUs constantly sold out, so price increases are, unfortunately, not unexpected.
As of right now, checking some of the most popular U.S. retailers reveals that this launch had been largely successful for AMD. The RX 9000 series is sold out at Newegg and Amazon.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.