AMD deprioritizing flagship gaming GPUs

[John Elden Ring]

AMD returned to the enthusiast tier with the Radeon RX 6900 and later the 7900 series, both of which offer competitive price-to-performance ratios against NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 and 40 series. Jack was asked by TH’s Paul Alcorn’s about competing in the high-end GPU market with NVIDIA, here’s how he responded:

I’m looking at scale, and AMD is in a different place right now. We have this debate quite a bit at AMD, right? So the question I ask is, the PlayStation 5, do you think that’s hurting us? It’s $499. So, I ask, is it fun to go King of the Hill? Again, I’m looking for scale. Because when we get scale, then I bring developers with us.

So, my number one priority right now is to build scale, to get us to 40 to 50 percent of the market faster. Do I want to go after 10% of the TAM [Total Addressable Market] or 80%? I’m an 80% kind of guy because I don’t want AMD to be the company that only people who can afford Porsches and Ferraris can buy. We want to build gaming systems for millions of users.

Yes, we will have great, great, great products. But we tried that strategy [King of the Hill] — it hasn’t really grown. ATI has tried this King of the Hill strategy, and the market share has kind of been…the market share. I want to build the best products at the right system price point. So, think about price point-wise; we’ll have leadership.

— Jack Hyunh to Tom’s Hardware

 

[Bryank75]

They should just make console APUs and leave Nvidia have a monopoly.

 

[TrishaCat]

AMD GPUs are usually cheaper than NVIDIA and I appreciate that. They offer good quality cards for reasonable prices. They're never as good as NVIDIA but they're close enough that the price point is very desirable. I'm okay with them not trying to compete in terms of high end gpus. Who has the kind of money to buy things like 4090s anyways

 

[Systemshock2023]

Wise choice by AMD, that's where the bulk of the market share is. But they need to apply some real pressure to NVIDIA instead of colluding. Lots of folks with 1050s 470s 580s would surely upgrade if they had a disruptive GPU to buy on the low/mid range segments.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

AMD returned to the enthusiast tier with the Radeon RX 6900 and later the 7900 series, both of which offer competitive price-to-performance ratios against NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 and 40 series. Jack was asked by TH’s Paul Alcorn’s about competing in the high-end GPU market with NVIDIA, here’s how he responded:





— Jack Hyunh to Tom’s Hardware

We've known this for a while. RDNA4 will be a repeat of RDNA1, i.e. there's no high end.

There'll be two chips, Navi 48 and Navi 44.

Navi 48 should have the rasterization performance of the 7900XT and the raytracing performance between the 4070 Super and the 4070 Ti Super.

Navi 44 is a smaller chip optimized for laptops and should be around the 4050-4060.

 

[Killer_Sakoman]

Navi 48 should have the rasterization performance of the 7900XT and the raytracing performance between the 4070 Super and the 4070 Ti Super.

How did you know that? It makes more sense that Navi 48 as mid range next gen card will be equal to 7900XTX and with enhanced RT. So, it will be slower than RTX 5080 and on par or slightly faster than RTX 5070/ti.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

How did you know that? It makes more sense that Navi 48 as mid range next gen card will be equal to 7900XTX and with enhanced RT. So, it will be slower than RTX 5080 and on par or slightly faster than RTX 5070/ti.

Navi 48 is a 64 CU part clocked at an average 3.2GHz, which puts it at ~26.2 TFLOPs / 52.4 TFLOPs dual-issued. The 7900XT has 84 active CUs clocking at around 2.6GHz so it does 28 TFLOPs / 56 TFLOPs dual-issued.

For memory, the top Navi 48 has 64MB Infinity Cache and a 256bit bus using 20Gbps GDDR6 whereas the 7900XT has 80MB cache and a 320bit bus with the same GDDR6.

Save for bandwidth demanding scenarios because the 7900XT does have more memory channels and more Infinity Cache, they should be close in rasterization.


However, it's expected that Navi 48 will have much higher raytracing performance and cost below $600. Considering AMD's current statements, I'm actually expecting it to cost $500.

 

[anonpuffs]

They basically just said "fuck you gamers, servers are where the money's at"

Sucks but that's how the world works.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

They basically just said "fuck you gamers, servers are where the money's at"

Sucks but that's how the world works.

I really don't see it that way.
Them saying they're focusing on value means they want to sell a lot of gaming GPUs this time, and try to increase their marketshare over Nvidia's.

If they didn't care about gamers they'd be making big GPUs for big ASP and big margins, since they'd already be counting with low volume anyways.

 

[ApolloHelios]

Who has the kind of money to buy things like 4090s anyways

Is this a rhetorical generalization? Cause I do have a 4090 mainly for 5K multi camera editing. For gaming I double dip on extreme RT games but still prefer to play them first on my PS5 as I find console gaming experience much better. I love first party games and have to play them immediately when they release and I don't buy those on PC later down the line as to not encourage Sony to release all of them there.

 

[anonpuffs]

Navi 48 is a 64 CU part clocked at an average 3.2GHz, which puts it at ~26.2 TFLOPs / 52.4 TFLOPs dual-issued. The 7900XT has 84 active CUs clocking at around 2.6GHz so it does 28 TFLOPs / 56 TFLOPs dual-issued.

For memory, the top Navi 48 has 64MB Infinity Cache and a 256bit bus using 20Gbps GDDR6 whereas the 7900XT has 80MB cache and a 320bit bus with the same GDDR6.

Save for bandwidth demanding scenarios because the 7900XT does have more memory channels and more Infinity Cache, they should be close in rasterization.


However, it's expected that Navi 48 will have much higher raytracing performance and cost below $600. Considering AMD's current statements, I'm actually expecting it to cost $500.

rdna3 had a lot of problems with power efficiency, if they fix that and the 8800xt is a 7900gre with like... let's say 4070 super level raytracing comes out, i'd maybe willing to swap my 6800xt for it. I really wish they made an 80 CU part though, I want 4080 level performance

 

[TrishaCat]

Is this a rhetorical generalization?

It was, yes
Congrats to having that kind of money

 

[anonpuffs]

It was, yes
Congrats to having that kind of money

4090s are too expensive but people need to learn how to save money, even with a modest job saving up for a decent PC (even one with a 4090) shouldn't be an impossible task

people just are shit at budgeting or take on responsibilities they aren't ready for because they feel entitled to it

 

[Dr. E99]

One of my PCs has an AMD iGPU and it performs admirably. I can play most games at low settings (some even at 1080p) and all I had to buy was ~$100 processor.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

4090s are too expensive but people need to learn how to save money, even with a modest job saving up for a decent PC (even one with a 4090) shouldn't be an impossible task

people just are shit at budgeting or take on responsibilities they aren't ready for because they feel entitled to it

Above everything, people need to stop wishing for AMD to get competitive GPUs out there just so that they can buy cheaper Nvidia cards.

There's this strangely insane Stockholm syndrome-esque thing happening between Nvidia and Nvidia GPU users who keep complaining about Nvidia's practices but can't help buying Nvidia cards over and over again.

 

[quest4441]

Nice strategy, Let the PC master race get price gouged by nvidia

 

[anonpuffs]

Above everything, people need to stop wishing for AMD to get competitive GPUs out there just so that they can buy cheaper Nvidia cards.

There's this strangely insane Stockholm syndrome-esque thing happening between Nvidia and Nvidia GPU users who keep complaining about Nvidia's practices but can't help buying Nvidia cards over and over again.

I'm glad I picked an AMD card with my current rig, it's been really solid. Every once in a while I still get fomo though and get the urge to buy a 4090 but then I remember I only have a 750w PSU and I don't wanna replace it lol

 

[TrishaCat]

I have a 3070 gpu and still play brand new games at 4k 60fps max settings on it...

 

[quest4441]

I'm glad I picked an AMD card with my current rig, it's been really solid. Every once in a while I still get fomo though and get the urge to buy a 4090 but then I remember I only have a 750w PSU and I don't wanna replace it lol

DLSS is the only thing that has kept me with nvidia but even then I refuse to pay launch prices for their cards, my 3070 chugging along just fine. I completely switched over to amd cpus hopefully they improve FSR so ditching nvidia will be easier, btw how does the 6800xt stack up against a 4080?

 

[anonpuffs]

DLSS is the only thing that has kept me with nvidia but even then I refuse to pay launch prices for their cards, my 3070 chugging along just fine. I completely switched over to amd cpus hopefully they improve FSR so ditching nvidia will be easier, btw how does the 6800xt stack up against a 4080?

4080 is around 40-45% faster in pure raster iirc, but with DLSS it's more like 80ish? If FSR is usable in a game it evens out but I prefer native because I hate pixel shimmering so much. I have mine at +15% power limit and some undervolting to help with thermal throttling, gains about 10% over stock. I'd say in most games it performs around 3080Ti level with no RT, if there's RT it runs like dogshit