• We’ve heard that AMD’s RX 9070 launch has been a storming success
• A advertising supervisor for AMD in Japan has claimed that “Radeon’s gross sales share in Japan has reached 45%”
• Different latest experiences of ‘unprecedented’ demand for RX 9070 GPUs seems to again up this notion, and Crew Crimson appears to be going nice weapons now

AMD’s RDNA 4 launch has been an enormous success by all accounts, and we’ve simply had one other indication of simply how a lot of a victory the brand new RX 9070 graphics playing cards have been for Crew Crimson.

VideoCardz experiences that AMD (and its card-making companions) held a press occasion in Japan, the place a consultant of the corporate noticed that “AMD isn’t used to promoting so many graphics playing cards.”

AMD’s Yoshiaki Sato, who’s advertising supervisor for Japan, additionally shared some eyebrow-raising data, as aired through a report from Ascii (a Japanese website – so keep in mind that is translated from Japanese).

Sato claimed that “[AMD] Radeon’s gross sales share in Japan has reached 45%, and we’re at our peak now.” A consultant from ASRock, Mr Haraguchi, noticed that AMD was nonetheless “beneath the bulk” and added “let’s intention for 70%” of market share.

It’s additionally price remembering that on the tail finish of final week, David McAfee, AMD’s Company VP and Basic Supervisor, defined that the RDNA 4 GPU launch was “actually unprecedented” by way of the demand witnessed for these boards. This was in a prolonged interview with Sizzling {Hardware}.

Evaluation: A golden GPU alternative for AMD

Concerning the talked about statistic from Japan, this can be a little bit of an odd one, as a result of by way of world market share, AMD is approach behind Nvidia, and really a lot the underdog – or not less than this was actually the case earlier than the RX 9070 GPUs have been launched. Sometimes, Nvidia holds 80% or extra of the discrete desktop graphics card market – it truly reached 90% in December 2024 – so the gulf between Crew Inexperienced and Crimson is big.

Except the scenario is sort of completely different in Japan – or one thing has been misplaced in translation right here – evidently maybe the determine of 45% of ‘Radeon gross sales share’ may solely check with the latest gross sales exercise (for the reason that RDNA 4 launch).

Moreover, we’re not informed something concerning the supply of this stat, so we have to deal with it cautiously – the share is simply plucked out of the air, and there are questions on this. For instance: may or not it’s based mostly on the gross sales of a single retailer? We don’t know, but when it actually does replicate the broader image of the Japanese scenario, proudly owning nearly half the marketplace for desktop GPUs feels like a significant turnaround for AMD, frankly – however I’ve my reservations right here.

That stated, there’s little question AMD has accomplished very effectively with its new RX 9070 graphics playing cards – though there’s one sticking level, particularly that demand is effectively outstripping provide for these GPUs. Certainly, it’s nonetheless very exhausting to seek out an RDNA 4 graphics card (try our the place to purchase information for some assistance on that entrance, by the way), which is a irritating scenario for PC players.

Now, launch inventory ranges might have been a lot better for AMD than Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs, however that’s not saying a lot, and what we’re seeing is the inflation of costs even at retailers (moderately than simply scalpers) for each RDNA 4 and RTX 5000 merchandise.

Certainly, on the press occasion over in Japan, AMD’s companions complained about not being equipped with sufficient GPU chips to make RX 9070 boards, and Crew Crimson moderately deflected the problems raised (which is the place the remark about AMD not getting used to promoting graphics playing cards got here in).

What we now have heard elsewhere, from the aforementioned interview with David McAfee, is that AMD is “ramping provide of Navi 48 very aggressively,” with Navi 48 being the chips that energy the RX 9070 graphics playing cards.

AMD’s Frank Azor additionally just lately knowledgeable us that extra provide of RDNA 4 GPUs is coming ‘ASAP’ which sounds promising. What players additionally want, although, is for a few of that stock to reach at MSRP pricing for entry-level graphics playing cards, as a result of in the course of the launch, solely a restricted variety of fashions seemed to be out there at that worth.

This can be a huge alternative for AMD to actually leverage a bonus over Nvidia, and take again turf within the mid-range GPU house, rising its market share to a more healthy proportion than ever earlier than – which is seemingly already occurring in Japan.

There’s plenty of frustration at present being vented at Nvidia – over the shortage of RTX 5000 inventory, pricing, and (uncommon) hardware-level faults with its new Blackwell GPUs (or certainly points round crashing) – so if AMD can safe sufficient provide of RX 9070 fashions, bought at a good worth, this might be the turning of the GPU tide, presumably in an enormous approach within the favor of Crew Crimson.

Right here’s hoping, as a result of that may solely be good for competitors out there, and placing strain on Nvidia to decrease Blackwell GPU pricing (hopefully).

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