The big news in the GPU world is that the eagerly anticipated RTX 5070 Founders Edition from NVIDIA won’t be hitting store shelves as planned. Initially set to launch tomorrow, the release has now been pushed to later in March.
This delay, while not officially announced by NVIDIA, was confirmed by Andreas Schilling, who shared that he received an email directly from the company about the change in schedule. Just as the reviews are allowed to be published, this update means that anyone looking to snap up the Founders Edition first thing won’t have the chance. It’s still up in the air whether this delay will also impact the partner board editions, though given the whispers about availability, it’s not looking great for the broader launch either.
Andreas Schilling took to Twitter to break the news, underlining the sudden nature of the delay—just two and a half hours before reviews could go live:
“You think you can buy a GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition tomorrow? No, NVIDIA told us 2 1/2 hours before review drop: ‘The RTX 5070 Founders Edition will be available later in March.'”
We might be looking at another scenario similar to past releases like the RTX 5090, 5080, and 5070 Ti, which seemed more like “paper launches” due to their limited availability upon release. The current crop of reviews describe the RTX 5070 as delivering performance comparable to the RTX 4070 Super but with only modest improvements. Priced at $549, it’s still a decent offering if it can be found at that price point.
If you’re having trouble finding one at MSRP, you might want to consider waiting for the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 cards, launching on March 6th, with reviews live the day before. Priced at $599 for the XT and $549 for the standard version, these are positioned as direct rivals to the RTX 5070.
The delay of the Founders Edition seems clouded by unresolved issues. Unofficially, there’s talk about performance-affecting bugs and chip supply challenges, but NVIDIA has yet to acknowledge these publicly.
While the Founders Edition faces a delay, there’s hope that the custom AIB editions might still roll out on time in different regions worldwide. Just yesterday, retailers like B&H Photo Video listed the GPU at an MSRP of $549 for both the standard and overclocked variants. If prices start creeping over $600 for custom versions, it might be wise to hold off unless you’re desperate for a new card and have no alternatives.
