*** The AMD RDNA 4 Rumour Mill ***

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Not even the advantage of beating Nvidia in release schedule with the mid-range. How can they be even MORE pathetic than the RDNA 3 release? Sigh.

It's not that I expected them to hustle and do much in the first place but in this way they just gave up entirely on dGPU until at least 2026 (more like 2028). At that point it's still no more than a meagre hope that what they will have prepped for next-gen consoles will be competitive and Nvidia won't slap them even further into irrelevance. Hell, they're even giving Intel space & time to catch up.

I just don't understand how the Radeon division is only ever getting worse and today they don't even have the looming threat of bankruptcy and extremely limited resources to excuse this poor performance. Luckily for them at least that Nvidia can only see this development and think: time to push profit margins to 80% on desktop; just sell them scraps.

Agreed - utterly pathetic. They are so obsessed with clearing out their old cards, they don't even bother to do full releases now. That means OEMs won't bother using AMD cards in their desktops and laptops.

At this point I need an upgrade and I can see Nvidia doing a full release before AMD can be bothered.

So at this point I might end up with another Nvidia card. We all known they will overprice it at launch.

My guess is that RTG is the poorest performing when it comes to profit overall within AMD, and the piece of the pie AMD is allocated in regards to chip production they have to play it smart and give priority to the segments that make the most. Wouldn't surprise me to see AMD just produce mid-range and lower-end dGPU's from now onwards...

They are using TSMC 4N which is an old process by now.Also cheap GDDR6. They won't have a power consumption advantage over Nvidia.

If they keep releasing months after Nvidia no OEM is going to care about their cards.They will need to sell these cards at a deep discount.

This is what happened to the trash RX7600 which launched after the RTX4060. So no OEM bothered.

The same goes with the general market. Launching stuff based on budget nodes and RAM months after the competition, at too high prices mean they have to deep discount their cards.

Devs will care less and less about optimising for their designs on PC.

So what they are doing will only mean Intel will eventually catch up and overtake them.

 

[Gerard]

1 rumour contradicting another rumour, *shocker*.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

1 rumour contradicting another rumour, *shocker*.

It's actually a few now who said it's next year and a CES launch most likely means Q1 to Q2 availability. The person in the latest leak has been very accurate in the past. But knowing AMD,it will probably be summer until you can actually get one in easily. Which means AMD will be releasing RDNA4 nearly 2.5 years later than RDNA3,with a card slower than the RX7900XTX. The RX7800XT released way too late,ie,10 months after the RX7900XTX.

But more importantly they will miss the Christmas season for RDNA4,which is the biggest sales period for dGPUs.

RDNA3 is a sales failure - their repeated delaying of launches,meant RDNA3 didn't gain any traction. They launched months after Nvidia got their lower end cards out,so it was too late. They launched at too high prices too. ATI launched months before Nvidia,despite it's budget restraints and got a lot of OEM sales in systems. Even the HD3870 had ATI at 30% sales share. They typically oscillated around 40% or thereabouts.

AMD sales share is now at 12% and according to their last financial report,they expect it to become worse!

So at this point it is probably going to be below 10% by the end of the year. Their software is underpar too - FSR is now increasingly behind DLSS and XeSS. Sony even has had to go with a custom upscaling method for the PS5 Pro.

Q1~Q2 2024 will mean RDNA4 is walking straight into the rest of the Nvidia Blackwell range. Intel is also going to be releasing it's new cards too. So at this point,unless RDNA4 is something special and priced cheaply it will be too little,too late.They might as well cancel RDNA4 and keep making RDNA3 and push forward a full RDNA5 release.

But even RDNA3,the features are under utilised - it seems to that none of the improvements are being actively used in any meaningful way. They have given up on RDNA3 now.

The sad thing is the only feature keeping AMD relevant now is VRAM. The problem is Nvidia is using GDDR7 next generation so they can use smaller buses and used mix 2GB and 3GB modules. So a 128 bus card can have 12GB VRAM and a 192 bit bus card 18GB.

 

[JediFragger]

So what they are doing will only mean Intel will eventually catch up and overtake them.

Problem is to do this successfully they'll have to throw tens of billions of dollars at it and do they really have that to invest atm?

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Problem is to do this successfully they'll have to throw tens of billions of dollars at it and do they really have that to invest atm?

Intel dGPUs were held back by drivers and game support. The next generation will have less of this issue.

The big problem is AMD looks like it is regressing in performance. Middle of 2025 for RDNA4 is way too late. The 7800XT was delayed to 10 months after the 7900XTX.

Do we seriously think RDNA5 will be out in 2026? I doubt it.

 

[Phixsator]

All of this really doesn't matter much to me personally. Only thing that matters is price/performance vs what is available from the competition and vs what came before it while offering a relevant feature set IMHO. So if RDNA4 is a RDNA1 like release, so what? The offerings either suits your needs or it doesn't and if the offerings are poor then let your money talk and the company feel it. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if someone at AMD f's it up and managed to charge 20-30% too much at release. Seems to be their MO. But again, it really doesn't affect me personally, I'll wait until someone(Radeon/Nvidia/Intel) decides that I'm a costumer worth trying to grap.

RDNA1 was good.
RDNA2 was even better. Only prices were horrible due to mining boom and scalpers.
RDNA3 while fine left something to be desired, didn't help that they moved the model numbers around. The 7900XT should have been the 7800XT IMHO and the 7900XTX should have been 800 at launch. Yes call me an unrealistic dreamer. AMD seems to think that the average uplift in performance was worth semi-nvidia money. Absolutely silly but at least they are beholden to pressure from the community unlike their main competition who don't give a rats furry behind about the gaming community.
RDNA4 Going with the idea that it will be a midrange launch only, this is what I would expect from it in order to be satisfied: Top of the midrange should be roughly equal to the 7900XTX for around 550, 600 at the most. Do I think I will be satisfied? nope but again I haven't been with any of the big launches from any of the vendors in a looooong time. Last time I was happy as a clam was when I bought my 1080ti for 620, ca. 1 month after launch. Those days are obviously over.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ever since AMD started the rubbish we are premium brand nonsense for RTG it's been a downward spiral in terms of sales.

RDNA3 clearly has some issues. Yet, Nvidia gave them a huge chance by overpricing the RTX4000 series. AMD responded by overpricing their cards. RDNA3 only became better with big price cuts.

So RDNA4 despite apparently having its own problems will be again delayed. So outside some extra VRAM, what is AMD bringing to the table? What happens if Nvidia fixes the VRAM situation?

I expect the RX8000 series to be another overpriced mess. Hence if Nvidia launches their new cards first there is little reason to wait for RDNA4, unless it is really special.

You also saw the same with Zen4. Massively overpriced at launch and that was reflected in sales being poor and AMD had to cut prices. They copied all the worst aspects of Intel - the rubbish chipset feature segmentation and even cost cutting on their great stock coolers.

Even with Zen5, they could go for a knockout blow and launch all the chipsets this year. But it looks like most of the new chipsets will be also delayed until next year,because they think Intel is in a weak situation and want to sell old stock first. Now we have the A620 rebranded as the B840.

They still think selling a Ryzen 5 as a six core is a good idea at well over £200 at launch. What is the likelihood the Ryzen 5 9600 will be well over £200 at launch? Just look at the hilariously poor price of the Ryzen 7 7700/7700x.

Yet Intel will fix their issues and whilst AMD is trying to save pennies, their competition won't be down and out for ever. They always do this and end up with a surprised Panda face when the competition gets gud again.

 

[Phixsator]

Ever since AMD started the rubbish we are premium brand nonsense for RTG it's been a downward spiral in terms of sales.

RDNA3 clearly has some issues. Yet, Nvidia gave them a huge chance by overpricing the RTX4000 series. AMD responded by overpricing their cards. RDNA3 only became better with big price cuts.

So RDNA4 despite apparently having its own problems will be again delayed. So outside some extra VRAM, what is AMD bringing to the table? What happens if Nvidia fixes the VRAM situation?

I expect the RX8000 series to be another overpriced mess. Hence if Nvidia launches their new cards first there is little reason to wait for RDNA4, unless it is really special.

You also saw the same with Zen4. Massively overpriced at launch and that was reflected in sales being poor and AMD had to cut prices. They copied all the worst aspects of Intel - the rubbish chipset feature segmentation and even cost cutting on their great stock coolers.

Even with Zen5, they could go for a knockout blow and launch all the chipsets this year. But it looks like most of the new chipsets will be also delayed until next year,because they think Intel is in a weak situation and want to sell old stock first. Now we have the A620 rebranded as the B840.

They still think selling a Ryzen 5 as a six core is a good idea at well over £200 at launch. What is the likelihood the Ryzen 5 9600 will be well over £200 at launch? Just look at the hilariously poor price of the Ryzen 7 7700/7700x.

Yet Intel will fix their issues and whilst AMD is trying to save pennies, their competition won't be down and out for ever. They always do this and end up with a surprised Panda face when the competition gets gud again.

I don't think the right path forth is to just go buy nvidia then, unless by some miracle they actually offer proper performance/price products. Instead keep the money in your wallet and the tell entire market to go pound sand. If enough of us did that it would be a clear marketing statistic to "help" them steer the ship in the consumers best interest. I've preferred AMD/RTG hardware since the RX 580/VEGA(spite its flaws) and AM4 but have also noticed the increase in "boldness" or stupidity as I would really call it in regards to pricing. It's slowly but surely destroying the good will that RDNA1 and AM4 has helped them get and they should get to feel the disappointment on their bottom line as a result. I would say the same should be the case for Nvidia but that is a lost cause as Jensen has reached some sort of god status and people will buy from him without a second thought.

 

[TNA]

Honestly, it feels like they are trying to see what price gauging they can get away with.

£50 or so below what Nvidia are charging. In the end it may work out 7900 XTX performance for £699

They should be coming own swinging for god sakes. Bring 7900 XTX performance for £499! Oh well, market share can drindle down to a handful percentage

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I don't think the right path forth is to just go buy nvidia then, unless by some miracle they actually offer proper performance/price products. Instead keep the money in your wallet and the tell entire market to go pound sand. If enough of us did that it would be a clear marketing statistic to "help" them steer the ship in the consumers best interest. I've preferred AMD/RTG hardware since the RX 580/VEGA(spite its flaws) and AM4 but have also noticed the increase in "boldness" or stupidity as I would really call it in regards to pricing. It's slowly but surely destroying the good will that RDNA1 and AM4 has helped them get and they should get to feel the disappointment on their bottom line as a result. I would say the same should be the case for Nvidia but that is a lost cause as Jensen has reached some sort of god status and people will buy from him without a second thought.

The problem is at some point many of us have to upgrade and you can't keep putting it off and putting it off. In the end there used to be a case to actually try and wait a bit of extra time to see what AMD might have but there is increasingly no point. All AMD has is extra VRAM. Even now with Nvidia price cutting Ada Lovelace cards,the only RDNA3 models AMD have a clear advantage in are the RX7700XT(after a huge price cut) and the RX7900XT when its about £600(another huge price cut).

Price cuts on the RTX4070 and RTX4070 Super make the RX7800XT and RX7900GRE harder sells now.

Just look at the last few times in my case. Could have gotten an RTX3060TI FE at launch in December 2020. Decided to wait for the RX6700XT. I waited four months for it. When it releases its RRP is £50 more than an RTX3060TI,but in the UK you could never get an RRP RX6700XT because their store does not ship to the UK. The cheapest was £460 to £470. So I just stuck with my old card. Then in July 2021 managed to get an RTX3060TI FE at RRP without even trying. So I wasted 8 months for no reason and no saving. AMD was not better value.

Fast forward to the RX7800XT which I wanted to get. Released 5 months later than the RTX4070. Stock levels were terrible - lots of large retailers had no stock including one I had store credit for. By then the RTX4070 street price had dropped from the same store, and there were chances to get it for £500ish with a free game BEFORE the RX7800XT launched. So in the end I didn't bother, as the game promo ended by the time I saw stock at the place I wanted to use. So again didn't save any money waiting for AMD.

This will be more of the same - Nvidia will probably get their competing card out before AMD. Then by the time AMD gets off their arse,the streetprice of the Nvidia card will be similar. Then realworld stock levels will be rubbish for months.

At this point waiting for AMD is a fool's errand. I am not going to bother waiting months and months extra for AMD - if they are more obsessed with selling off old cards,with incomplete software support then they can keep delaying all their new cards. To get that 5% more margin on selling their older cards for a bit more - then they can go to 5% market share and Intel will match them.

Everyone dunked on Raja,but Polaris had much higher market share and RDNA1 was under his watch. So where are the excuses now?

If Nvidia then starts using the 3GB GDDR7 modules,the RTX5060 can have 12GB on a 128 bit bus and RTX5070 18GB on a 192 bit bus. AMD won't even have a VRAM advantage anymore and it's most likely power consumption will be worse.

 

[TNA]

Ever since AMD started the rubbish we are premium brand nonsense for RTG it's been a downward spiral in terms of sales.

RDNA3 clearly has some issues. Yet, Nvidia gave them a huge chance by overpricing the RTX4000 series. AMD responded by overpricing their cards. RDNA3 only became better with big price cuts.

So RDNA4 despite apparently having its own problems will be again delayed. So outside some extra VRAM, what is AMD bringing to the table? What happens if Nvidia fixes the VRAM situation?

I expect the RX8000 series to be another overpriced mess. Hence if Nvidia launches their new cards first there is little reason to wait for RDNA4, unless it is really special.

You also saw the same with Zen4. Massively overpriced at launch and that was reflected in sales being poor and AMD had to cut prices. They copied all the worst aspects of Intel - the rubbish chipset feature segmentation and even cost cutting on their great stock coolers.

Even with Zen5, they could go for a knockout blow and launch all the chipsets this year. But it looks like most of the new chipsets will be also delayed until next year,because they think Intel is in a weak situation and want to sell old stock first. Now we have the A620 rebranded as the B840.

They still think selling a Ryzen 5 as a six core is a good idea at well over £200 at launch. What is the likelihood the Ryzen 5 9600 will be well over £200 at launch? Just look at the hilariously poor price of the Ryzen 7 7700/7700x.

Yet Intel will fix their issues and whilst AMD is trying to save pennies, their competition won't be down and out for ever. They always do this and end up with a surprised Panda face when the competition gets gud again.

Well said sir. AMD really do need to get the finger out.

 

[KompuKare]

My guess is that RTG is the poorest performing when it comes to profit overall within AMD, and the piece of the pie AMD is allocated in regards to chip production they have to play it smart and give priority to the segments that make the most. Wouldn't surprise me to see AMD just produce mid-range and lower-end dGPU's from now onwards...

They have NOW probably allocated 80% of RTG's resources to their AI and DC chips, but that doesn't explain RDNA3 way back THEN.

Like CAT keeps saying, the real rot seems to have started when they started talking "we are no longer a budget brand" nonsense.

And RDNA3 launch prices showed that (yet again).
Then their penny pinching and their "strategic" decision were so questionable.

I know us arm chair strategists, but why chiplet with cards as low as the 7700/7800? Those should have remained monoliths. Chiplets make sense at the higher end so going all in chiplet crazy and stopping at 7900 XTX with a 305mm² die?

It really looks like their "strategy" is to fail.

And don't even get me started on their high margin, no volume strategy! Since fixed costs are, well, fixed then this strategy is basically the low or no OVERALL profit strategy.

Intel dGPUs were held back by drivers and game support. The next generation will have less of this issue.

For us consumers, sure.
For Intel the big failure was hanging to use a massive 400mm² part to compete with parts almost half that size on similar or worse nodes.

Battlemage looks a lot more competitive in its iGPU guise but we know little about it's performance per transistor.

@Phixsator's advice is sound: don't buy anything!
Problem is far too many need new shiny all the time, plus the "because I'm worth it" crowd already ruining any chance of sane, or even saner, prices a long time ago when they started buying Titans.

 

[Nexus18]

It's reassuring to see people finally pointing the blame at amd now rather than always blaming "mindshare" of nvidia customers for amds situation. Like some of us have said all along, no company is your friend, you buy what is best for your needs and price point, simple as that, for me that was amd right from the 3850 up to vega 56 but since getting the 3080 and looking at the current situation of the overall package and the forseeable future, that will now be nvidia gpus, however, only when/if I can get a proper upgrade over my 3080 for <£1k.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

And don't even get me started on their high margin, no volume strategy! Since fixed costs are, well, fixed then this strategy is basically the low or no OVERALL profit strategy.

This - what is the point of spending all that money taping out stuff and then not even releasing it in a timely manner,not pricing it well,having limited launch volumes AND not investing properly in the software side.

Don't they get with Nvidia investing more in CPUs and Intel in dGPUs,their console monopoly is under threat too?

@Phixsator's advice is sound: don't buy anything!
Problem is far too many need new shiny all the time, plus the "because I'm worth it" crowd already ruining any chance of sane, or even saner, prices a long time ago when they started buying Titans.

But the issue is how long are we supposed to wait? I have currently waited three years. OK,I wait another year and what is the likelihood AMD will price RDNA4 close to Blackwell,and hope a bit of extra VRAM will be enough,months after Nvidia finish their whole stack? It will 5% faster in rasterised,be slower in RT and probably FSR is not even fixed.

I could even understand if AMD was using 3NM and GDDR7,but all rumours indicate 4NM or maybe even 4N and GDDR6. So if Nvidia uses 3NM and GDDR7 with 3GB modules they won't even have a VRAM advantage.

ATI launched months before Nvidia. This meant even OEMs were prepared to use ATI cards. How many OEMs will bother with using AMD dGPUs in laptops,ect if AMD is eternally releasing AFTER Nvidia?

How can they miss the Christmas period if the rumours are true?

 

[uscool]

I've skipped current gen next generation releases I'll go to whoever offers me the best deal around £500 mark doesn't matter if it's AMD, Nvidia or intel and the uplift from the 3080 is worth it

 

[JediFragger]

I've skipped current gen next generation releases I'll go to whoever offers me the best deal around £500 mark doesn't matter if it's AMD, Nvidia or intel and the uplift from the 3080 is worth it

Might even get a 2GB vRam bump if it's Nvidia

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Might even get a 2GB vRam bump if it's Nvidia

If its 3GB GDDR7 modules on a 192 bit then you will get 18GB.

 

[ooStevo]

What if RDNA 4 is just going to be a tock? Like the HD6000 series. The only reasonable upgrade was a 6970. If I recall if you had a 5850 or 5870 their just wasn't any point. It was only when the HD7000 series came their was a big performance boost. Maybe that's what's happening now.

 

[Raelgun]

£50 or so below what Nvidia are charging. In the end it may work out 7900 XTX performance for £699

They should be coming own swinging for god sakes. Bring 7900 XTX performance for £499! Oh well, market share can drindle down to a handful percentage

yep, its all I ask for really, just back to sensible prices.

Honestly, we still are missing strong performance in the £200 - £300 range, this price point in reality has been omitted entirely.

The 4060 and 7600 are just super poor showing.

 

[TNA]

yep, its all I ask for really, just back to sensible prices.

Honestly, we still are missing strong performance in the £200 - £300 range, this price point in reality has been omitted entirely.

The 4060 and 7600 are just super poor showing.

I have been asking for this for so long I gave up in the end. Not going to happen. Not in a meaningful way anyway.