AMD will not compete with AIB partners with RX 9070 series reference designs

As the official launch and review embargo date for the AMD Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs approaches, leaks and rumours about the upcoming mid-range graphics cards are heating up. Just recently, we reported on a benchmark leak that purports to reveal performance for the RX 9070 XT.

This time, however, an official announcement, straight from AMD itself in a post on X, confirms that AMD will not make its reference designs for the RX 9070 and 9070 XT GPUs available to the public to buy. This comes after AMD apparently accidentally leaked its own GPU shroud design in a Reddit advertisement weeks ahead of the official launch. 

This isn't an unprecedented move on AMD's part, but it's a departure from the RX 7000 series, which did have reference cards available, at least for a little while. This doesn't mean there will be no reference board designs on the market, since AMD's add-in board partners have regularly produced graphics cards based on AMD's reference designs. The decision to avoid selling reference boards, however, might mean that the overall RX 9070 series market might be slightly more expensive, since AMD won't be there to sell GPUs at MSRP. 

Reference designs are generally also one of the only ways to get slightly slimmer cards, although it seems as though a couple of AMD AIBs will release dual-slot RX 9070 and 9070 XT graphics cards. AMD Also confirmed on X that the RX 9070 series will launch on February 28, as we previously reported. 

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