AMD's RDNA 4 GPUs Could Stick with 18 Gbps GDDR6 Memory

[ZoneDymo]

I agree for the most part.

But the long term outlook is grim if AMD does not continue to compete in high end. Todays high end is tomorrow's midrange, and the day after, its entry level. After that? You're dead in the water. Also, the halo product perception matters. Nvidia sells its brand on 'the fastest GPU ever' every gen. Not because they're having such a fantastic midrange; ironically, for Ada, the midrange is the poorest part of the line up. Ampere was no different.

Look how much time Intel needs to gain performance parity, they're not even remotely close yet, and their target keeps moving away from them over time too. The reason Nvidia captured 80% was exactly because of the lack of AMD's focus. It wasn't until RDNA2 that they had somewhat competitive product again ever since Polaris. Even in the midrange. Vega was a shitshow, Fury X got beaten handsomely and supported poorly, etc. Also, their GPU developments are double dipping in PC and in console chips, so there is every reason to keep pushing.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. It'll turn stale and eventually crumble.

maybe it will, its not like anybody truly cares.
Then AMD can just focus purely on cpu's and maybe apu's, those are the biggest markets anyway, and if not, they will go away entirely, again its not like anyone cares.

AMD as a whole indeed "is doing fine", but this doesn't warm me up in the slightest when I put the Radeon in my PC case. The only thing I get is a disappointment and embarrassment, because of the low performance.

fine then join the 99% of the people and dont buy AMD gpu's anymore, again, everybody is doing that so might as well join them right?

 

[ARF]

fine then join the 99% of the people and dont buy AMD gpu's anymore, again, everybody is doing that so might as well join them right?

Right.

 

[kapone32]

Wow, what a read. As someone that owns RDNA3 can I ask exactly what the issue is? Is the 6800XT as fast as the 7900XT at 4K? Is the 6900XT faster than the 7900XT at 4K? Now people are talking about 99% of users don't buy AMD. I guess the fact that the 6600 is the best selling GPU on Newegg.ca does not matter.

When I play Helldivers2 and loving the performance at 4K am I thinking about Nvidia.

None of these products are here and just about everything I have read is conjecture and projection of opinions.

This explains why the last launch of Radeon was in Germany. Nvidia has strong mind share when people lament that it can't do DLSS to do 4K when the secret is that it does not need any upscaling to play 4K just fine at 144Hz.

The biggest issue for RDNA3 users is not performance but low computing power draw like Video playback.

 

[theouto]

RDNA5 will be the Zen moment for AMD.

Or something like that, Idk. I don't think that AMD will abandon radeon, if they wanted to, they would've done so long ago. They'll walk it off, there's a reason as to why they're looking to target the most popular market segment, instead of the halo marketing crown.

Not that halo products are pure marketing, but most consumers will be looking at the mid-low price range, let's be real here.

 

[Vayra86]

maybe it will, its not like anybody truly cares.
Then AMD can just focus purely on cpu's and maybe apu's, those are the biggest markets anyway, and if not, they will go away entirely, again its not like anyone cares.



fine then join the 99% of the people and dont buy AMD gpu's anymore, again, everybody is doing that so might as well join them right?

People do care, but the company doesn't deliver.

I was on Nvidia for over 10 years, moved to AMD now and I can't say I'm looking at a better product. Its not worse either. But certainly not better. It does lack features the competitor does have. So maybe it is worse, but I've told myself I don't need that featureset. Might be some cognitive dissonance there... There are a tiny handful of things I like about my 7900XT as well, but there is no killer feature that makes me never go back to green. And for the rest of it... its a GPU that does GPU things fine.

Its really that simple in the end. If you're not making products people want, people won't buy them.

 

[kapone32]

The thing is even today AMD does not have even half the money for R&D for both sectors they are in. I feel people are looking at the Glass half empty argument without looking at the positives.

1. For the life of the PS5/PS5 Pro and Xbox 1 games will be created on Ryzen/Radeon platform. As they age, programming on those will improve that will mean an advantage for console ports using AMD PCs. It is already happening.

2. AMD are making crazy money on their APUs. The Steam Deck is in the top 10 in Global sales on the Steam platform consistently. The release of the MSI Claw (even if it is for future proofing) is evidence of how far AMD has come in the APU space. This will also mean more programming for Ryzen/Radeon as Games start to get ported (likely from Mobile) onto these platforms. In fact I am confident that someday soon on Amazon you will be able to buy a Ryzen based handheld with those retro Roms like PS/PS2/Dreamcast and Arcade. I have already built one with my 5600G (desktop).

3. Outside of the US, AMD Radeon is actually doing pretty good in terms of sales

4. Where I think people are right about AMD leaving the high end is pricing. The funny thing about the 6500XT was after it was used to compare the 86/8700G in reviews the sales increased to the point where the card has increased by $70 where I live in price. In fact AMD is already the complete stack of current GPUs vs Nvidia. As an example even the lowly 6500XT supports HDMI 2.1 and DP 1.4 for nice support for your 4K 120Hz TV. So even from the 6400 (I think) those kinds of features are more compelling (to me) than other features that GPUs come with.

5. The China/AI effect has coloured the market. People are quick to qoute market share with out rememebering that in the 3rd quarter Nvidia pumped their Asian Partners with 4090s to sell as many to China before the Embargo date. Even today I am sure I saw a headline on TPU about this topic. Those cards are considered GPUs and applied to GPU sales. AI is the new buzz word in tech and the narrative from Nvidia is they are not only the best but the only kid in town.

 

[ZoneDymo]

People do care, but the company doesn't deliver.

I was on Nvidia for over 10 years, moved to AMD now and I can't say I'm looking at a better product. Its not worse either. But certainly not better. It does lack features the competitor does have. So maybe it is worse, but I've told myself I don't need that featureset. Might be some cognitive dissonance there... There are a tiny handful of things I like about my 7900XT as well, but there is no killer feature that makes me never go back to green. And for the rest of it... its a GPU that does GPU things fine.

Its really that simple in the end. If you're not making products people want, people won't buy them.

I mean true, but is kinda the way marketing works right? telling you what you want and then selling you that.
Because Nvidia is the master at that as well as loyal fanboys spreading rumors that AMD drivers suck, constantly sneeringly mentioning products that were failures (Fury X) and the independent media not even acknowledging Radeon's existence.....well that group of people which potentially would be happy with AMD gpu's gets slimmer and slimmer and slimmer.

To the point that investing in that is not even something worth doing.
Has FSR, that works for everyone, including abandoned Nvidia owners (GTX1080 etc) done anything to change that perception and give them more sales? nope.avi.

So why continue to invest?, they wont win that battle, the market/people have decided on that already.

 

[Vayra86]

I mean true, but is kinda the way marketing works right? telling you what you want and then selling you that.
Because Nvidia is the master at that as well as loyal fanboys spreading rumors that AMD drivers suck, constantly sneeringly mentioning products that were failures (Fury X) and the independent media not even acknowledging Radeon's existence.....well that group of people which potentially would be happy with AMD gpu's gets slimmer and slimmer and slimmer.

To the point that investing in that is not even something worth doing.
Has FSR, that works for everyone, including abandoned Nvidia owners (GTX1080 etc) done anything to change that perception and give them more sales? nope.avi.

So why continue to invest?, they wont win that battle, the market/people have decided on that already.

Its not just marketing, that isn't what I said. Its about delivery of products.

AMD usually has: a rocky launch, a feature isn't quite ready, selling points are delivered somewhere down the line. Features aren't available sometimes. Products are late to market. Etc.

None of that is marketing. Its company performance.

Recent example:
FSR hasn't made waves because its not quite on the level of DLSS and it mostly serves, ironically, Nvidia users on Pascal. FSR3 is too late for RDNA3. Those are strategic blunders.

 

[kapone32]

Its not just marketing, that isn't what I said. Its about delivery of products.

AMD usually has: a rocky launch, a feature isn't quite ready, selling points are delivered somewhere down the line. Features aren't available sometimes. Products are late to market. Etc.

None of that is marketing. Its company performance.

You are still comparing though. The points you raise are a part of the marketing.

Nvidia is still suffering woe from the 12VHPWR adoption. AMD had high idle power draw at launch.

I did not ask for (but appreciate) Freesync, Crossfire or FSR

Late to market as compared to what exactly? There are only 2.5 now.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Its not just marketing, that isn't what I said. Its about delivery of products.

AMD usually has: a rocky launch, a feature isn't quite ready, selling points are delivered somewhere down the line. Features aren't available sometimes. Products are late to market. Etc.

None of that is marketing. Its company performance.

Recent example:
FSR hasn't made waves because its not quite on the level of DLSS and it mostly serves, ironically, Nvidia users on Pascal. FSR3 is too late for RDNA3. Those are strategic blunders.

RTX was the same when it launched, still sold the idea of that gamers need it.
DLSS 1.0 remember that stuff? still sold the idea of that gamers need it.

Nvidia being late to market is hard when they decide the market...

And yes FSR serves Nvidia users on Pascal, the idea being to create some goodwill with people who currently use Nvidia to maybe go for AMD in the future, as I said, has it made waves? has that effort paid off? nope, just a bunch of negativity (again look at Digital Foundry).

But whatever, nothing changes the fact that over 80% of the market is in Nvidia's hands, you might say its AMD's fault its like that, but that does not change the fact that it is like that and so only more and more logical for AMD to dip out of that segment entirely, maybe keeping the midrange which sells a teeny tiny bit.
I certainly wont fault them for it, the market has spoken for a while now.

 

[Vayra86]

You are still comparing though. The points you raise are a part of the marketing.

Nvidia is still suffering woe from the 12VHPWR adoption. AMD had high idle power draw at launch.

I did not ask for (but appreciate) Freesync, Crossfire or FSR

Late to market as compared to what exactly? There are only 2.5 now.

Nvidia isn't immune to issues either, but they are always first out with a gen (time to market), they're generally more present and frequent wrt game specific optimization, and their featureset is better.

RTX was the same when it launched, still sold the idea of that gamers need it.
DLSS 1.0 remember that stuff? still sold the idea of that gamers need it.

Nvidia being late to market is hard when they decide the market...

And yes FSR serves Nvidia users on Pascal, the idea being to create some goodwill with people who currently use Nvidia to maybe go for AMD in the future, as I said, has it made waves? has that effort paid off? nope, just a bunch of negativity (again look at Digital Foundry).

But whatever, nothing changes the fact that over 80% of the market is in Nvidia's hands, you might say its AMD's fault its like that, but that does not change the fact that it is like that and so only more and more logical for AMD to dip out of that segment entirely, maybe keeping the midrange which sells a teeny tiny bit.
I certainly wont fault them for it, the market has spoken for a while now.

AMD sold me a 7900XT because of FSR on my Pascal card. In part. The goodwill thing doesn't go unseen.

And yeah I remember DLSS1.0. When did AMD start on FSR? They've had their sweet time.

But there are bigger sausages on the green end.

 

[Kn0xxPT]

I find really odd for AMD still choosing GDDR6, when in fact it struggles to be on par of Nvidia's perfomance.
Probably they will saturate the market with 16GB VRAM GPU's more efficient powerdraw at better prices (since everyone wants mooooree VRAM ), and leaving High-End performance ( for the time being) to Nvidia.
and launch after a revised SKU with GDDR7 ?

Something is going on at AMD strategy...

 

[Makaveli]

Well it does underline they might not move the bar up after all, which is a horrible business decision.

They're gonna do another Polaris and then wonder why they can't catch up. Seems like my time on AMD is gonna be a one off occasion then.

View attachment 344940

I think they are throwing everything and the kitchen sink at RDNA 5. There are more midrange buyers than highend so it makes sense to me if High RDNA 4 wasn't going to be good enough.

 

[Nordic]

Something went badly wrong and that's why they will only release mid range imo it was the same with RDNA 1, no company will abandon a product stack if there is even a remote chance they can get it out the door AKA RDNA 3. It will give them more time to get RDNA 5 working. They were brave being first out the gate with chiplet retail GPUs and current gen shows they didn't get it right but only have so many resources to spend on development which in hindsight was wrong because they are also missing out on AI now but I can understand the choices because CPU's are the cash cow but doesn't mean I agree.

AMD has a stated plan of RDNA4 being low cost and energy efficient. AMD is putting minimal resources into RDNA4 so they can put more resources into RDNA5 in an attempt to catch up to Nvidia.

There have been rumors of top end RDNA4 having 7900xtx performance with far less power used for $400. That sounds too good to be true but it won't be long before we find out.

RDNA5 will be the Zen moment for AMD

That is certainly the goal. AMD has a steeper hill to climb to catch up with Nvidia than they did to catch up to Intel. RDNA4 will be 2 generations behind Nvidia 5000.

 

[Makaveli]

AMD has a stated plan of RDNA4 being low cost and energy efficient. AMD is putting minimal resources into RDNA4 so they can put more resources into RDNA5 in an attempt to catch up to Nvidia.

There have been rumors of top end RDNA4 having 7900xtx performance with far less power used for $400. That sounds too good to be true but it won't be long before we find out.

I think top end RDNA 4 will equal 7900XT raster performance but with better RT performance than both XT and XTX at $500-$600 range and better power consumption than both.

$400 sounds abit unrealistic

 

[jpvalverde85]

Both NV and AMD are slowing down to improve their margins and lower costs in gaming GPUs because now its a niche market, big bucks are with the enterprise stuff and a bit more with bulk consumer products (aka consoles) but thinner margins. RDNA4 will be probably another Polaris, good enough for a good time, just hope to be fair in pricing like Polaris was, the BoM is aligning with this, no flamboyant specs, an Rx 8000 series with a single 8 pin power connector and a couple of 92mm fans on a vapor chamber heatsink at 2 slot tops of spacing.

 

[overclockedamd]

Memory bandwidth is always an issue with AMD. More is better. GDDR7 is preferred. AMD is two generations behind. GDDR7 and GDDR6X are being used and considered by the competition.



If they price is at 149-199$, it will be fine. Else, it will stay untouched on the shelves.

You want 7900xt-xtx performance for 150 bucks from one generation to the next to call this a good GPU? I want some of what your smoking. This will be just like Makaveli said above and it will fly off the shelves because it will be priced in the budget of more gamers.

 

[ARF]

RDNA5 will be the Zen moment for AMD.
Or something like that, Idk. I don't think that AMD will abandon radeon, if they wanted to, they would've done so long ago.

They acquired ATi Technologies because of the Fusion (CPU + GPU for heterogenous accelerated computing) initiative. To drop the Radeon will be like shooting themselves not in the feet, but in the heads.

You want 7900xt-xtx performance for 150 bucks from one generation to the next to call this a good GPU? I want some of what your smoking. This will be just like Makaveli said above and it will fly off the shelves because it will be priced in the budget of more gamers.

Keep on dreaming. You will be lucky for RX 7700 - RX 7800 level of performance

Both NV and AMD are slowing down to improve their margins and lower costs in gaming GPUs because now its a niche market

It's a "niche" market according to you, but in fact the only 7000 series Radeon which has already appeared on the Steam Hardware Survey is the RX 7900 XTX, which ultimately means that the gamers do tend to invest in exactly that area which AMD wants to abandon.

Steam Hardware & Software Survey

Nvidia isn't immune to issues either

Two come to my mind:
1. 16-pin 12VHPWR which melts.
2. DP 1.4 which brings only 25.92 Gbit/s signal throughput from the card to the displays. Good enough for 8K@30 8-bit colour, or 4K@120 8-bit colour.

 

[theouto]

It's a "niche" market according to you, but in fact the only 7000 series Radeon which has already appeared on the Steam Hardware Survey is the RX 7900 XTX, which ultimately means that the gamers do tend to invest in exactly that area which AMD wants to abandon.

View attachment 344963

But if you look at it proper, look at that, the most popular cards are all found within the mid-low range.
Though it may be influenced by OEMs, it is still undeniably the most popular segment.

 

[AusWolf]

They were 6-12 months away from declaring bankruptcy dude. If Zen had big issues and needed another year in the oven, they would have gone under. That's how close to the wall they got.

We're also talking about a process that took 10 years. With Radeon, we're talking about one, or maybe two generations that aren't even half as bad as their CPUs were back then. The scale and severity of the issue is nothing in comparison.

And as far as this latest problem, we are not talking about the entirety of AMD, just the rapidly becoming useless Radeon division. RDNA4 needs a very short shelf life, and RDNA5 to be amazing for them to recover. Intel will take Radeon to town by the end of this year if AMD perform the same or lower.

How is it becoming useless? Not competing with Nvidia's x90 cards is hardly an issue, imo. Even if the price and performance matched, people would still buy Nvidia because the mindshare (I hate this word) is so much bigger. It's pointless trying to compete where you admittedly can't.

As for Intel, their ray tracing engine is great, but otherwise, I don't have any fears of them catching up within the next 2-3 generations. I hope they prove me wrong, though, as we desperately need a price war.

 

[ARF]

But if you look at it proper, look at that, the most popular cards are all found within the mid-low range.
Though it may be influenced by OEMs, it is still undeniably the most popular segment.

Those are mobile GPUs, found in the notebooks. I guess the virtual AMD absence in the notebooks' market pushes the figures so high for nvidia.

Not competing with Nvidia's x90 cards is hardly an issue, imo. Even if the price and performance matched, people would still buy Nvidia because the mindshare (I hate this word) is so much bigger. It's pointless trying to compete where you admittedly can't.

This is wrong. In Germany, Radeon RX 7900 XTX sells unexpectedly well.

https://www.mindfactory.de/Hardware/Grafikkarten+(VGA)/Radeon+RX+Serie/RX+7900+XTX.html

 

[Tomorrow]

I disagree. High-end RDNA 4 (Navi 48) is rumoured to be around 7900 XT level in performance at best. GDDR6 is more than enough there. GDDR7 would only increase manufacturing costs with probably no performance advantage.

Exactly. Why put expensive, first gen 28Gbps GDDR7 on a product that is projected to cost between 399-450 at most? (N48, RX8800).
I very much doubt Nvidia will use GDDR7 for ALL their RTX 5000 series cards either...

AMD really don't seem to be firing on all cylinders lately. If RDNA4 is as bad as what's being rumored, then Radeon will be over.

One bad product is not enough to sink a company this big. AMD made dogshit CPU's for tears and it took nearly a decade for thing to get so bad that they were on the verge of closing. One product in a two year life cycle is hardly meaningful. Also you assume RDNA4 is bad because the lack of GDDR7? That's bizarre reasoning.

they are also missing out on AI

I what way? Because by this metric everyone is "missing out on AI" aside from Nvidia.
Also most people dont want better AI in their GPU's. They want better performance at same or lower prices.

Intel keeps catching break after break after break, let's just hope they don't waste this one as well.

Oh you can count on Intel to mess something up. Besides from what i've seen from the leaks Battlemage is also targeting the same performance tier as RDNA4.

Memory bandwidth is always an issue with AMD. More is better. GDDR7 is preferred. AMD is two generations behind. GDDR7 and GDDR6X are being used and considered by the competition.

If they price is at 149-199$, it will be fine. Else, it will stay untouched on the shelves.

More is better, but not if the cost is double, but the gain is not. GDDR6X is Nvidia exclusive just as GDDR5X was. Both mode by Micron. Also there are no GDDR7 cards released yet so at the moment it's strange to say that AMD is somehow two generations behind.
Also first gen GDDR7 will only run at 28Gbps speeds. Not that big of an improvement over standard 18-20Gbps GDDR6 or up to 22Gbps GDDR6X.
And at least the top N48 based die will certainly not cost 199 for 7900XT like performance. 399-450 is expected.

Seems only logical to me for the company to drop investment in high end gaming gpu's, at least for now, and focus on stuff that actually sells.

Indeed. Most people want better performance at same or lower prices. Not ultra expensive $2000 GPU's that need DLSS FG to barely run 60fps at 4K.

They were 6-12 months away from declaring bankruptcy dude.

RDNA4 needs a very short shelf life, and RDNA5 to be amazing for them to recover. Intel will take Radeon to town by the end of this year if AMD perform the same or lower.

And it took 10 years to get to that 6-12 months point. And RDNA will only have roughly 12 months on the market before RDNA5. It's stopgap solution to have something out there. Intel will take Radeon to town? The same Intel who missed their Initial Arch launch by a country mile. The same Intel who plans to target the same performance/price as RDNA4 later this year? And the same Intel who has not even managed half or Radeon's market share thus far?

I find really odd for AMD still choosing GDDR6, when in fact it struggles to be on par of Nvidia's perfomance.

Well if you call struggling by losing only to 4090 outright (in both raster and RT), then id say AMD is not doing so bad at 4080 performance.

 

[AusWolf]

Right, you might wanna double check those statements for a moment.

Its not like Polaris suddenly made AMD bank either... AMD has a permanent problem of low margins on their products, and its pretty clear why. They're inconsistent which damages trust. In the meantime Nvidia can sell a tiny sliver of a chip at 50-60% margin. So much margin in fact, that even the somewhat bigger slivers can remain monolithic for much longer.

But I suppose Lisa knows best, better than Raja at least. Perhaps there's a greater plan. I'm not holding my breath tho.

I kind of agree with the inconsistency part, although I don't think it necessarily means bad. Just that some product generations are less impactful than others. Unfortunately, the media gives crap to everything that is 1% behind the competitor because they need the views, then we have people who think that 1% means something because the media said so, that's where Nvidia's mindshare comes from. This is the main reason Radeon is not selling, imo.

AMD as a whole indeed "is doing fine", but this doesn't warm me up in the slightest when I put the Radeon in my PC case. The only thing I get is a disappointment and embarrassment, because of the low performance.

What low performance? With the 7800 XT, I got 4070 level performance and +4 GB VRAM for £50 less.

This is wrong. In Germany, Radeon RX 7900 XTX sells unexpectedly well.

View attachment 344967

https://www.mindfactory.de/Hardware/Grafikkarten+(VGA)/Radeon+RX+Serie/RX+7900+XTX.html

No, that is exactly my point: not competing with Nvidia's x90 cards is hardly a problem.

 

[overclockedamd]

Well if you call struggling by losing only to 4090 outright (in both raster and RT), then id say AMD is not doing so bad at 4080 performance.

Considering nVidia had to push a whole new power connector and 600w at a GPU connectors to attain this I say AMD is doing ok where they are.

 

[ARF]

What low performance?

Ray-tracing.

Counter-Strike 2.

No, that is exactly my point: not competing with Nvidia's x90 cards is hardly a problem.

It is a problem. Because the halo product sells all the other siblings.
I would prefer to buy Radeon RX 9900 XT when it appears with RDNA 5, than the low-end-mid-range RX 8800 XT which succeeds RX 5700 XT - RX 6600 XT - RX 7600 XT.