It looks like the 'real' /affordable RDNA3 + next gen NV desktop launch won't launch until September. Thoughts?

[g67575]

Nvidia and AMD are busy launching profitable new GPUs for laptops /lower power devices at the moment.

If you're an enthusiast with lots of £££ to spend at the moment, no doubt you will have looked at buying one of the high tier cards announced already.

It looks like cheaper/easier to produce GPUs from both companies won't appear until early or late March.

I doubt there will be much fanfare prior to these launches.

One thing that seems quite positive about these launches so far, is that it looks like AMD isn't increasing prices from RDNA2>RDNA3

The 6900 XT MSRP was 999 dollars:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-6900-xt.c3481

The 7900 XT MSRP is 899 dollars:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-7900-xt.c3912

The 6950 XT MSRP was 1,099 dollars:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-6950-xt.c3875

The 7900 XTX MSRP is 999 dollars:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-7900-xtx.c3941

 

[g67575]

Not really. The RX 7900 series cards use the top teir Navi31 dies, so I'd say the naming scheme makes sense.

There was never a big distinction between x800 and x900 series cards anyway. It's all just marketing.

 

[g67575]

I'm more liable to hold out hoping for a Super refresh and consequently a pricing re-adjustment, overall besides the 4090 the other cards aren't that tempting due to prices. Tbh tho there's so much GPU power available, it's much more a case of CPUs needing to catch up rather than being desperate for more TF (at least for me being capped at 120hz). Unfortunately even the 7800X3D doesn't look like it will quench that thirst, and Intel is away on vacation for another 2 years or thereabouts, so not sure when exactly we'll get much more powerful gaming CPUs.

I think you will only need a v-cache CPU for high framerates (over 60). I guess you are more likely to benefit from a faster CPU in games that support frame generation.

Loads of gamers only have monitors that can do 60-70 herts (especially true for high resolution monitors). So, v-cache and CPU clock speeds over 5ghz aren't going to matter to them very much.

 

[g67575]

the problem is even a 4060 non Ti is going to be quite pricey and im not sure the 7800 xt / 7700 XT will be anything to rave about

This generation of desktop GPUs is all about frame gen. For some this just won't appeal to them, they will only be interested in higher framerates at native resolution.

But it's also the direction of console games as well (as this is pretty much the only way they will manage 60 FPS at 4K, or close). I think any games that are ports from console games will support frame gen, probably through FSR 3. It's pretty likely that Unreal Engine 5 games will support it also.

From what I've seen so far, the results seem better than upscaling techs like DLSS 2 and FSR 2 (which are still rendering at lower resolutions). It maybe isn't ideal for taking pretty screenshots, but I don't think I am likely to notice it during gameplay.

 

[g67575]

the 7800xt looks like its going to offer pretty much the same performance as the current 6800xt/6900xt. Not good if it ends up costing ~£700

I'm expecting it to be about as fast as a 6800 (non XT) which has 60 Compute Units, but with a higher GPU boost clock (Clocks over 2600mhz would surprise me). Also, there's some other factors to take into account...

The RT will be faster than RDNA2.

EDIT - the TFlop count should be double compared to an RDNA2 GPU with 60 CUs (it seems very similar to what Nvidia did with Ampere). So, that should push it a bit beyond the 6800 XT.

On RDNA 3, it looks like you calculate the FP32 performance by multiplying the GPU boost clock by the number of shading units. Then multiplying that number by 4.
For the 7900 XT, that equals 51.48 TFlops.

For a 60 CU Navi32 GPU clocked at 2600 Mhz, with 3840 shader units, it would be 9.984 x 4 = 39.9 TFlops.

Or if it was clocked at 2500 Mhz, it would be 38.4 TFlops.

Basically, nearly double the FP32 processing power of the 6800 XT (20.74 TFlops).

Looking at the specs of the 7900 XTX, it has double the FP16 performance (122.8 TFlops) compared to FP32 performance, which notably puts it ahead of the RTX 4090 in this particular area.
Specs here:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-7900-xtx.c3941

 

[g67575]

The other interesting thing about the '7800 XT' is that it will probably have a 256bit memory bus, not a 192bit bus as speculated by techpowerup.

This is based on the specs posted for Navi32 on Angstonomics:

AMD's RDNA 3 Graphics

3rd time's the charm?

www.angstronomics.com

Thus matters, because that would mean that the total memory bandwidth would almost certainly be higher than the RX 6800 XT (not lower), due to higher clocked GDDR6 memory (that we've seen on other RDNA3 GPUs).

 

[g67575]

I also think there's definitely room for a slightly cut down version of the RX 7900 XT in the RDNA 3 line up, e.g. the 'RX 7900' which will be based on Navi31, and have a 384bit memory bus, and probably the same memory bandwidth as the 7900 XT, with 80MB infinity cache also. It would likely compete directly with the RTX 4070 TI, and probably cost a bit less, hopefully with an MSRP of around $800 or less.

 

[g67575]

Well the 7900XT should have been the 7800XT

Doesn't make sense, because Navi31 is the fastest RDNA3 die that AMD can offer. It's not like they are going to be able to release more GPUs called the 7900 series later, if they'd done as you suggest. But keep dreaming

 

[g67575]

You mean like the RX 6800, 6800XT, 6900XT and 6950XT

vent more please

 

[g67575]

I'm not here to whine, I'm interested in whether or not cards like the 7800 XT are going to perform well or not (and the specs of cards that will be released soon also).

If they do price these cards too high, I'll just settle for a card that can do 1440p, like the RTX 3070 or RX 6700XT - used card prices are likely to keep coming down over time.

 

[g67575]

It makes bugger all difference what you call it, it's still the same product.

Just like the RTX 4080 12GB being renamed to 4070 TI. It doesn't matter to me.

 

[g67575]

I'm thinking about just buying a used RX 6700 XT or similar (from CEX) and just upscaling games with Radeon Super Resolution with the in game resolution set to 1440p.

Some games support FSR2 as well, so there's a couple of options.

It sounds like RSR works well in pretty much all cases performance wise (and is easily configured), unlike FSR2 and DLSS2, which aren't always well optimised (e.g. I found that the Witcher 3 used a lot more VRAM with FSR or DLSS enabled at 1440p).

I suppose the benefit is limited though, for those without a 4K monitor.

 

[g67575]

But it's not even a 4070ti though, naming does matter in so much as people believe they're getting card x when they actually getting a card further down the stack.

The performance is decent, it's the price that sucks. There's a whole other thread with people arguing this daily

 

[g67575]

I've decided to wait for the RX 6800 (used) to drop in price, as the 6700 XT doesn't quite cut the mustard in some games at 1440p:

And I'd like to be able to upscale with Radeon Super Resolution...

 

[g67575]

Well, RX 6700 XTs are going for around £350, and are only a bit lower spec.

 

[g67575]

I think the performance in games like WH3 illustrates the problem with the graphics card market pretty well:



To play demanding games on high settings even at 1440p (1440p or upscaled to 4k) requires a gfx card that can reliably generate about twice as many frames per second as a Vega64 GPU. So, something like an Rx 6800 or RX 6800 XT (basically any card in the top 5 of this chart, out of 30 cards tested).

So we need new generations of GPUs, produced in much greater quantities to fill this gap in the market, and meet the demand.

It seems quite possible that an RTX 4070 would be able to handle 1440p in this title, if its simply a cut down version of it's less than popular sibling.

 

[g67575]

Quite possibly... But almost certainly at a higher cost than a 6800. So why bother?

I think it will perform similarly to a RTX 3080 (10GB) and be priced at a similar MSRP. and have 12GB VRAM.

The issue with pricing is that cards like the RX 6800 and XT are still expensive even used (availability was never good), so it's not like they will price the RTX 4070 below these cards (Which had MSRPs of £500-£590. The RTX 4060 TI is likely to be a more affordable card relatively.

 

[g67575]

I think we will see Navi32 cards roughly 1 month after the launch of the RTX 4070 (which I think will be in March), considering that AMD didn't release the 7900X and XTX until December 2022, about 1 month after the RTX 4080.

So probably a reactive launch strategy, not early /proactive. But competitive on price.

 

[g67575]

Quite a few used rx 6800 cards went for <£400 on an auction site back in October 2022. Fingers crossed that more become available again.

 

[g67575]

And it's not even going to be a 4060 as that's what the 4070ti is, so it's going to be a gimped card from the outset.

Just keep repeating basically the same thing about graphics card naming schemes, I'm sure that will make all the difference.