AMD RX 7900 XTX Reveal Reactions - Die Shrink Telegrams

There's also the 6900 XT Toxic AC or 6950XT OCF that both do 2.45+ GHz all day long on air.

Wasmachineman_NL

I think you just answered your own question. You have a "waterblocked 6900 XT Toxic" that does 2.8 GHz. You are comparing that to a reference card and that I'm sure AMD wants to have a low noise profile. You can bet the Toxic or similar AIB models will have much higher clock speeds.

Craig Wolf

While there is no doubt the 4090 is an impressive GPU, I personally believe AMD is in a better position this gen because who the hell has any money right now?

Deep dish learning pizza

I expected almost that, like 2,8GHz but not 3GHz. I guess the first-gen (for GPU) chiplet tech has its limits. There's 533mm2 of silicon counting the MCDs, very close to the monster of AD102 but with probably extra thermal limits from interposer & packaging. However, considering the surprisingly low launch prices, it's also possible that even the XTX is not yet a particularly well-binned die. As production and yields ramp up we'll certainly have xx50 SKUs that might have a nice extra step up in clocks, plus also faster GDDR6. But these will need more power than 2x8-pin.

Osvaldo Doederlein

Updating this. The XTX will be 2X 6950XT in RT, based on TomsHardware's 4090 review / avg RT at 1080p and the specs we know and some math. Using 1080p data for projections because of the bus width that disadvantages RDNA2 in higher res, absent problem in RDNA3. So, 2X RT is impressive, better than I expected... but the 4080 should still be almost 2X faster than the XTX. Ada is really such a monster in raytracing, more than I estimated yesterday without doing the math. Notice that these benchs are an average that include outliers like Minecraft and Control; most RT games have way lower advantage for RTX. So perhaps the average for "normal RT" (not path-traced) might be some +50%, well that's still significant. Perhaps the 7950XTX will follow up soon and close that gap, but there's also rom for a 4080ti closing the large 60% gap from the 4080 to the 4090. So my conclusions change a little: if RT is important to you, the 4080 will be the better buy at least at MSRPs. For me, it boils down to street prices, and the RTX40 is very likely to stay well above MSRP for quite some time. If the "real price at newegg/microcenter with stock" is >$1,5K for the 4080 but $1K for the XTX, I'm still buying the XTX. Otherwise I'm going with the 4080. And I'm on "love RT" camp, still I'm not paying an absurd price for a GPU for that single feature.

Osvaldo Doederlein

Did any of you expect RDNA 3 to have >3 GHz clock speeds like I did? I have a waterblocked 6900 XT Toxic EE that does 2.8 GHz plus daily. Would have been nice if RDNA3 clocked even higher.

Wasmachineman_NL

My favorite piece of the whole presentation was when they said that Adrenaline was an unlocked experience. No log ins, no tracking. A return to sanity in a world of un-consensual data collection.

SwirlingMist

Hey Dan and Tom. I had two questions for you two. Firstly, what does AV1 encoding and decoding mean? I understand that it's a compression algorithm but will it be a useful feature to have? What exactly will it do? Secondly, Nvidia has been the preferred gpu for streamers for awhile from my understanding. Will AMD put more time and money towards making their platform as good or better than Nvidia for streamers? How exactly do they compare now with the recent driver updates?

yoda king

Hello Tim and Don. Looking at the RDNA3 launch and alleged specs I was fairly impressed, but also slightly dissapointed AMD doesn't appear to be pushing their top 2 cards (for now) all that hard. It makes sense for business reasons of course, but especially with ray tracing I was hoping for a little more. All that said I'm still leaning towards a 7900XTX rather than a 4090. I'm wondering how you think AIB's will fair in possible watercooled configurations and how close we can expect an overclocked 7900XTX to come to the 4090 in raster and raytracing?

SteveBoxTM

Let's first get this out of the way: the 4090 is alone in its class, AMD not trying to touch it (...a 2-GCD config would, but that didn't happen, no surprise, first gen of chiplet GPU). Also NV came with a big jump in RT while AMD had a decent but more incremental RT update. But Tom was right that AMD/chiplet has much lower BOM. Their top XTX is not only much cheaper than the 4090, it's significantly cheaper than the 4080. So here's my scorecard so far: - Raster: XTX will beat 4080 easily. - RT: XTX is +80% over 6950XT (+50% per CU x +20% CUs); I think it won't be much behind the 4080. I'd risk 10-20% better RT than the 3090ti, which btw, is also WAY more expensive than the XTX anywhere that has stock. - VRAM: 24GB vs. 16GB is BIG for longevity & any production work. - Codecs: AMD seems to reach parity. Solid moves in software support. - DP2.1: Huge win if you have any use for this, but a niche for now. - TDP and size: Not even a contest. The XTX fits even in a decent microATX case/PSU. No cable drama, no excess fan noise. - FSR2: Convincing roadmap with continued investment, tons of supported games coming, announced FSR3 (frame interpolation?). DLSS3's first-mover advantage will be small, this stuff will have slow adoption and the SKUs that really need it are entry-level like 4060/7600XT that are not even announced yet; FSR3 will be already available when this matters. - AI engine: ???. I suppose it's good, solid tech from Xilinx & Instinct, but who knows how it compares to RTX's tensor cores. Interesting application in AV1 encoding, will also be useful for RT denoising, FSR3 etc. Needs execution on the software side (support from popular things like Pytorch etc). At minimum we can say it's another "moat" RTX doesn't have anymore. My provisional verdict (before launch & independent reviews): - Price/perf&features way better than the 4080 16GB. Unless you're a single-issue buyer and your issue is RT, and some +20% RT is a deal-breaker even if you lose most other points and even lose price/perf in RT. - Even at same price, would be strong competition to the 4080. I bet NVidia will accelerate plans for a 4080ti, so they win this category at least in terms of raw perf (will never win in price/perf). And now the bad news: Because AMD is not competing in the 4090's lane, forget any hope of NVidia reducing its price. If you really want a 4090, buy it as soon as you can grab one by the current MSRP because you won't see one cent down before 2024. Probably same for the 4080; NVidia has the branding and distribution to overcome a 20-25% handicap in price/perf, so even if you agree with my scorecard, no real pressure to discount the 4080.

Osvaldo Doederlein

Hi Tom, How do you see AMD competing with the 4080 considering the original price for the 4080 was 1200 USD? Do you see Nvidia changing it's strategy for the 4080?

Honestly I'm pretty blown away! I feel the thing some people are missing is that pricing it at 1000$ and 900$, it's not much of a choice for me, even if you get within 10% of the 4090 and most likely beat the 4080 for 600$ or 200$ less in the case of the 4080 that's amazing, I mean raytracing by my math should be somewhere around ampere which was pretty good unless all of the sudden the 3090 is crap? with raster performance stomping the 3090ti it just sounds like a good deal. I'm up for buying nvidia but if the benchmarks pans out and the new improvements on features which also looks good then in my opinion go with amd this round,it's the better deal. I don't understand the negativity I've seen some places?

Hello Tom and Dan, I currently have a 6900xt, and a 2K monitor that has been problematic, but manageable for now. I will likely jump to a 4k monitor in early 2023. Sticking with AMD, would you wait for RDNA4, or grab on one of these when the price is right? Also, what might we expect that exceeds these cards in the RDNA3 generation?

Considering AMD's recent practices of pricing under its competitor's shadows, I fully expected the 7900 XT to be priced anywhere between $999 and $1149, with the XTX variant seeing a $1099 to $1299 price tag. With the $899 and $999 pricetags, respectively, how aggressive could you see the rest of RDNA 3's lineup?

The Immortal Cameraman