Retailers confirm AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 will cost at least $599

KitGuru got in touch with Andrew Gibson from British e-tailer Overclockers UK to get the full breakdown about the pricing of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64. Gibson told the site the $499 launch price of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 was a very limited edition offer that is unlikely to return:

“Launch price was $499 with NO games for the Black card, as outlined to us by AMD as a launch only price. AMD allowed us to sell a set amount at this price, which was several hundred, clearly not enough as they were sold out in approximately 15 minutes. After this the regular price was $599 with FREE games for both the black and silver cards, $699 for the aqua card plus taxes.”

The site heard the same story from Norwegian e-commerce group Komplett, they reveal they received just 275 video cards at a purchase price that allowed them to hit the launch pricing:

“Komplett.no today confirms to Tek.no that the price of just over 5,000 kroner was limited to a limited edition of 275 graphics cards, as the company – as one of AMD’s “selected” online stores – was allowed to sell at a favourable price at launch. The RX Vega 64 version we had for sale was in a limited edition of this price and will unfortunately not be put up for sale again. When these were sold out, we had to remove this product from our pages”.

The $499 launch price will not return unless AMD significantly lowers its pricing. In this case it doesn't appear to be retailer price gouging that's driving up the cost of the RX Vega 64, it's because AMD didn't clearly communicate that the $499 launch pricing was a very limited offer.

OCUK is one of the largest e-tailers in the UK. Gibson explains OCUK buys the cards directly from AMD's board partners and that webshop's purchase price as "a large chunk of cash" above $499:

“£449 is not possible, $499 is below what they cost us direct from the board partners by a large chunk of cash, AMD rebated us to hit $499 on a set amount of units. As such $599 is now the minimum”.

“Unfortunately AMD did not make the launch pricing plan clear at all to the press or the consumer, which has caused a lot of confusion, if we could sell cards at £449 and make money, they’d be at that price. If that was the case we probably would have sold around 5,000 units now at OcUK, whereas the reality is we’ve sold a little over 1000”.

AMD reportedly refuses to comment and replies they'll provide a statement "within a couple of days".