Over 50% Performance Increase, Increased Radeon RX 7000 Pricing & Launch In 2H 2022
A series of brand new rumors regarding the AMD RDNA 3 and RDNA 4 GPUs that will power next-gen Radeon RX graphics cards have been leaked by Moore’s Law Is Dead. The insider talks mainly about the RDNA 3 GPUs but also give a slight update on RDNA 4 GPUs, both of which will feature MCM chip designs.
AMD RDNA 3 & RDNA 4 GPU Rumors For Next-Gen Radeon RX Series Graphics Cards: Higher Prices, Higher Performance, 2H 2022 Launch
MLID starts straight off by talking about the performance estimates and we have had several of those for a while now. We have seen previous rumors claiming a performance increase of up to 2.5x for RDNA 3 over RDNA 2 and MLID states that AMD was always targetting greater than 50% performance increase over the Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card with its RDNA 3 architecture.
AMD Radeon RX 7000 (RDNA 3) GPU rumors state higher performance & higher-pricing per tier. (Image Source: MLID)
He states that he is confident that AMD will be able to achieve a performance improvement of 60% at a minimum but also states that theoretical top performance and real-world performance aren’t the same things. This is MLID basically talking about that 2.5x improvement figure from earlier and that it could be based on a certain simulation or workload. The average performance improvement may change in the final silicon though several leakers are still confident about RDNA 3 hitting that 2-2.5x performance increase over RDNA 2.
It is also mentioned that like RDNA 2, the top RDNA 3 SKU has changed a lot over the last few years. This means that the product has seen several variations but the development and mass production of V-Cache chiplet stacking technology has improved the confidence of the team building the next-gen GPU in regards to its performance. Another interesting thing listed in the rumor is that RDNA 3 is expected to bring a big efficiency & ray-tracing performance increase while also simultaneously upping the power demand on the high-end models.
AMD RDNA 3 Navi 3X GPU Configurations (Preliminary)
| GPU Name | Navi 21 | Navi 33 | Navi 32 | Navi 31 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Process | 7nm | 6nm | 5nm/6nm | 5nm/6nm |
| GPU Package | Monolithic | Monolithic | MCM | MCM |
| Shader Engines | 4 | 2 | 4 (2 per GCD) | 6 (3 per GCD) |
| GPU WGPs | 40 | 20 | 40 (20 per GCD) | 60 (30 per GCD) |
| SPs Per WGP | 128 | 256 | 256 | 256 |
| Compute Units (Per Die) | 80 | 40 | 80 160 (Total) | 120 240 (Total) |
| Cores (Per Die) | 5120 | 5120 | 5120 | 7689 |
| Cores (Total) | 5120 | 5120 | 10240 | 15360 |
| Memory Bus | 256-bit | 128-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR6 | GDDR6 | GDDR6 |
| Infinity Cache | 128 MB | 256 MB | 384 MB | 512 MB |
| Flagship SKU | Radeon RX 6900 XTX | Radeon RX 7600 XT? | Radeon RX 7700 XT? | Radeon RX 7900 XT? |
| TBP | 330W | ~200W | ~300W | ~400W |
| Launch | Q4 2020 | Q4 2021? | Q4 2021? | Q4 2021? |
Do remember that AMD’s high-end RDNA 3 chips such as the Navi 31 and Navi 32 GPUs are the ones that are expected to rock an MCM design while the Navi 33 GPU is said to be a monolithic & RDNA 3 enhanced Navi 21 variant. The rest of the lower-end chips are expected to be refreshes of the RDNA 2 lineup on the TSMC 6nm process node. More on that here.
AMD RDNA Generational GPU Lineup
| Radeon Lineup | Radeon RX 5000 | Radeon RX 6000 | Radeon RX 7000 | Radeon RX 8000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Architecture | RDNA 1 | RDNA 2 | RDNA 3 / RDNA 2 | RDNA 4 |
| Process Node | 7nm | 7nm | 5nm/6nm? | 5nm/3nm? |
| GPU Family | Navi 1X | Navi 2X | Navi 3X | Navi 4X |
| Flagship GPU | N/A | Navi 21 (5120 SPs) | Navi 31 (15360 SPs) | Navi 41 |
| High-End GPU | Navi 10 (2560 SPs) | Navi 22 (2560 SPs) | Navi 32 (10240 SPs) | Navi 42 |
| Mid-Tier GPU | Navi 12 (2560 SPs) | Navi 23 (2048 SPs) | Navi 33 (5120 SPs) | Navi 43 |
| Entry-Tier GPU | Navi 14 (1536 SPs) | Navi 24 (1024 SPs) | Navi 34 (2560 SPs) | Navi 44 |
AMD RDNA 3 Powered Radeon RX 7000 To Raise Prices Per Segment
It is too early to talk about prices but MLID states that the Radeon RX 7000 series based on the AMD RDNA 3 GPUs will increase pricing by ‘almost an entire tier’. Such a drastic shift in pricing was last seen in the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 ‘Turing’ series cards which raised prices for each segment up an entire tier and continued it with GeForce RTX 30 ‘Ampere’ series cards. This is primarily due to the performance of each graphics card also going up several tiers.
AMD Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards pricing is expected to be much higher than RDNA 2 GPUs. (Image Source: MLID)
In a speculative performance/pricing chart, it can be seen that the RX 7700 XT being as fast as the GeForce RTX 3090 for $599 US. Do remember that the RX 7700 XT is basically going to feature an enhanced RDNA 3 version of the Navi 21 GPU and considering the RDNA 2 based Navi 21 already trades blows with NVIDIA’s flagship, the claim doesn’t seem far fetched. Also, Navi 21 currently is priced at $579 to $999 US. The RX 6800 XT costs $649 (MSRP) so it should be sandwiched between the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT in terms of pricing while offering the premium performance of a 6900 XT. Also, the price increase makes it $120 US expensive compared to the RX 6700 XT which already hiked the tier prices by $80 US over the RX 5700 XT.
AMD Radeon GPU Segment/Tier Prices
| Graphics Segment | 2014-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2020-2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ultra Enthusiast Tier | Radeon R9 295X2 | Radeon Pro Duo | N/A | N/A | Radeon RX 6900 XT |
| Price | $1499 US | $1499 US | N/A | N/A | $999 US |
| Enthusiast Tier | Radeon R9 290X | Radeon R9 Fury X Radeon R9 Fury | Radeon RX Vega 64 | Radeon VII | Radeon RX 6800 XT Radeon RX 6800 |
| Price | $549 US | $649 US $549 US | $499 US | $699 US | $649 US $579 US |
| High-End Tier | Radeon R9 290 | Radeon R9 390X | Radeon RX Vega 56 | Radeon RX 5700 XT | Radeon RX 6700 XT |
| Price | $399 US | $399 US | $399 US | $399 US | $479 US |
| Mainstream Tier | Radeon R9 280X Radeon R9 280 | Radeon R9 390 Radeon R9 380 | Radeon RX 480 | Radeon RX 5700 Radeon RX 5600 XT | Radeon RX 6600 XT |
| Price | $299 US $279 US | $329 US $229 US | $229 US | $349 US $299 US | $379 US |
| Mid-Tier Performance | Radeon R9 270X Radeon R9 270 | Radeon R9 370X Radeon R9 370 | Radeon RX 470 | Radeon RX 5500 XT | Radeon RX 6500 XT? |
| Price | $199 US $179 US | $199 US $179 US | $179 US | $169 US | $279 US? |
| Entry-Tier | Radeon R7 260X Radeon R7 260 | Radeon R7 360 | Radeon RX 460 | N/A | N/A |
| Price | $139 US $109 US | $109 US | $99 US | N/A | N/A |
MLID also believes that the pricing of the Navi 32 based RX 7800 XT might end up at around $999 US (+$350 US over RX 6800 XT) and the flagship RX 7900 XT / RX 7950 XT might end up at $1999 US (+1000 US over RX 6900 XT). There are also speculative prices for RDNA 4 based Radeon RX 8000 series graphics cards mentioned which get even pricier but the interesting takeaway from the RDNA 4 generation is that all sub $300 US cards will be replaced entirely by APUs. So it seems like we are heading to the point where we won’t get any low-end cards as APUs will offer better GPU performance. That’s already happened this generation where we have yet to get any sub-$300 US card from either NVIDIA or AMD so far.
Intel on the other hand might introduce entry-tier cards in the sub-$300 US segment which has always been Raja Koduri’s strategy to target the mass consumer market as seen with his Polaris lineup though Intel may also follow AMD’s route by offering better-integrated graphics on the low-end and focus on high-end parts for the desktop discrete graphics card market. The following chart shows speculative pricing for both AMD Radeon RX 7000 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series cards (Image Source: @Dragonetti0311)
As for the launch, the RDNA 3 based AMD Radeon RX 7000 series is expected within the second half of 2022. For RDNA 4, the launch is positioned at late 2023 or early 2024 and performance estimates position it as ‘at least as big as Ampere over Turing’. So a 50% improvement in performance at the very least.
The AMD RDNA 3 ‘Navi 3X’ GPU-powered Radeon RX graphics card lineup is expected to offer up to 3x performance improvement over existing RDNA 2 offerings. It would mark a major leap forward for graphics evolution and now that AMD is already onboard with next-gen technologies such as FSR and Raytracing, expect a very heated next-gen competition between the red and green teams.
