Nvidia RTX 5070 Founders Edition won't be available on launch day, coming 'later in March'

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Buyers interested in the RTX 5070 Founders Edition will need to wait until later this month.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5070 will launch on March 5; however, the Founders Edition model will not be available for purchase until later this month. The development has been confirmed by Andreas Schilling at Hardwareluxx, who shared that Nvidia informed him of the delay just hours before the scheduled reviews were published.

Despite the delay in the availability of the Founders Edition, it is expected that third-party versions from board partners such as Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI will be available on launch day. However, it is likely that the launch will not be a smooth sailing as stock levels may be limited, with some retailers not receiving any inventory initially.

As a quick refresher, the RTX 5070 is currently the most affordable GPU option under the latest RTX 50 series with a $549 price tag. It features 6,144 CUDA cores, 192 Tensor Cores (5th Gen), and 48 Ray Tracing Cores (4th Gen). The card operates at a boost clock speed of 2,512 MHz and comes equipped with 12GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit interface, providing a memory bandwidth of 672 GB/sec.

Per our testing, the RTX 5070 outperforms its predecessor, the RTX 4070, by 19% at 1440p, with its advantage growing to 22% at 4K. However, its lead narrows to 16% at 1080p ultra and 14% at 1080p medium, likely due to CPU bottlenecks. Compared to the RTX 5070 Ti, the 5070 is 20% slower at 1440p and 24% slower at 4K. The RTX 5070 is approximately 11–13% slower than Radeon RX 7900 XT but outperforms the 7800 XT by around 17%.

Consumers interested in the RTX 5070 Founders Edition will need to await further updates from Nvidia regarding its availability later this month. In the meantime, those eager to upgrade may consider third-party RTX 5070 models or explore AMD's forthcoming Radeon RX 9070 offerings, which are scheduled to launch a day later on March 6. AMD has reportedly ensured better stock availability for its upcoming release, potentially giving it an advantage in the current market scenario.

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Kunal Khullar
Kunal Khullar
News Contributor

Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware.  He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC.

11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Jabberwocky79
    I almost wonder if Nvidia is doing exactly what AMD did - waiting to see what the competition does and adjust accordingly. Right now, on paper, the 5070 seems like a terrible value compared to the 9070. But that remains to be seen.
    Reply
  • Neilbob
    ... oh no. that's a shocker. say it ain't so.
    Reply
  • jlake3
    Jabberwocky79 said:
    I almost wonder if Nvidia is doing exactly what AMD did - waiting to see what the competition does and adjust accordingly. Right now, on paper, the 5070 seems like a terrible value compared to the 9070. But that remains to be seen.
    But how exactly would they adjust? Reviews for the 5070 FE are out, reviews for the 9070/XT will be out, partner cards will have already gone on sale at MSRP or higher, and murmuring is that the inventory situation is looking bad for a 70-class card and is gonna leave a lot of people frustrated.

    If AMD has a wildly successful launch and Nvidia comes out and declares the 5070 FE will actually be $450 (or something) when it launches later in March and they're totally gonna get the inventory fixed soon(tm), I think they may still move a lot of cards (whenever they do actually arrive in volume) by virtue of being Nvidia, but the reputational damage among early adopters, retailers, board partners, and tech media will already be done.
    Reply
  • Jabberwocky79
    jlake3 said:
    But how exactly would they adjust? Reviews for the 5070 FE are out, reviews for the 9070/XT will be out, partner cards will have already gone on sale at MSRP or higher, and murmuring is that the inventory situation is looking bad for a 70-class card and is gonna leave a lot of people frustrated.

    If AMD has a wildly successful launch and Nvidia comes out and declares the 5070 FE will actually be $450 (or something) when it launches later in March and they're totally gonna get the inventory fixed soon(tm), I think they may still move a lot of cards (whenever they do actually arrive in volume) by virtue of being Nvidia, but the reputational damage among early adopters, retailers, board partners, and tech media will already be done.
    Well, exactly. I could see them holding back the 5070 to wait for the 90-series hype to die down and for them to all be sold out, then release the 5070 for all the people who are too hungry for a new GPU to wait for a good deal.
    Reply
  • ekio
    If it's not available on launch day, it's not launch day then.... "-__-
    Reply
  • Mr Majestyk
    Oh no, how will I cope?
    Reply
  • drivinfast247
    Trying to avoid ROPgate I'm guessing.
    Reply
  • Notton
    Not sure what nvidia was planning here.
    Launch 5070 for $550 just before RX 9070 drops so that the mindless masses of gamers would snap it up?
    But they have no stock so they're gonna see the RX 9070 reviews anyways.
    Reply
  • Jabberwocky79
    baboma said:
    10% guy needs to watch 90% guy. 90% guy doesn't need to watch 10% guy.
    That's true. However if the 90% guy wants to stay the 90% guy, then he still has to strategize. I think Nvidia knows they botched this launch so far. How much they care remains to be seen. But no empire, political or economic, lasts without deliberate action. Nvidia would do better to remember that.
    Reply
  • LolaGT
    It isn't even April 1st.

    When is a debut not? Answer, when they don't have any stock to sell, I'm guessing.
    Reply