Why AMD ceasing sales of the Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT does not matter

AMD is apparently already terminating the sales of its Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT reference cards. The speculation traces back to French website cowcotland, with its editor in chief Aurélien Lagny claiming sources informed him that AMD planned to end-of-life (EOL) the two GPUs along with the RX 5700 XT Anniversary Edition.

In isolation, this may seem like a strange decision, with AMD having unveiled its Navi cards less than two months ago and the company's apparent "double jebait" of NVIDIA as claimed by Vice President of Radeon Scott Herkelman. However, this does not bring an abrupt end to the RX 5700 series, as there are plenty of add-in-board (AIB) partner cards on the horizon that should be arriving before the end of the month.

Speculatively, the decision to EOL reference cards makes business sense, as complete GPUs are probably more expensive to build than selling the GPU to AIBs. Hence, it allows AMD to improve its margins without having to offer warranty and support coverage, with the slack being picked up by its partners. Moreover, the move should appease AIBs, with AMD not competing against its partners for sales.

Finally, while cowcotland claims that AMD stopped deliveries of RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT reference cards around two weeks ago, you can still order the GPUs directly from AMD at the time of writing. In short, if you have been putting off buying an RX 5700 series reference card but would prefer one over an AIB version, then the time to act is now.