New AMD RDNA4 Performance Rumors

[Zarathustra[H]]

Daniel Owen breaks down the latest RDNA4 performance rumors.

While AMD is not attempting to challenge, the long standing rumors of improvement in RT performance appears to be true.

What is being called the "8800xt" (though the name is not confirmed) reportedly has 45% better RT performance than the 7900xtx, while being on par with an RTX 4080 in raster performance.

No word on pricing.


View: https://youtu.be/5R0eIhxsuYI&t=189

It almost sounds as if what they are calling an "8800xt" is a 7900xtx level chip, but with better raytracing, intended to be sold as a lower end part number.

Maybe AMD's "giving up on the high end" just means they are making that same high end silicon, but marketing it as mid-tier so it sells better.

This could be good for mid-tier consumers, but I bet this means way less margin for AMD on these chips in the short term. Maybe a price they are willing to pay in order to build market share.

 

[THUMPer]

Less margin? Idk. They have like 150 skus for zen4 that are still selling. The arch is so mature, they can make bank from it. Maybe they are doing the same for video cards. Fking genius.

 

[noko]

From past history, AMD rumors have fallen short when the actual GPU hit the street. Price to performance and what feature set will determine value for me. Even if 45% better in RT, when my 7900XTX is getting 10FPS in path trace games 14.5fps with the 8800XT is no upgrade if same or slightly less raster performance. AMD is not really compelling an upgrade to current AMD users on the 7000 series with these rumors.

AMD competition may also have a 45% increase in RT performance as well. I will wait and see all that has been cooking before I bite.

 

[Bigbacon]

Amd should really work one making the onboard GPUs amazing. Kind of an untapped place for GPU performance.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

From past history, AMD rumors have fallen short when the actual GPU hit the street. Price to performance and what feature set will determine value for me. Even if 45% better in RT, when my 7900XTX is getting 10FPS in path trace games 14.5fps with the 8800XT is no upgrade if same or slightly less raster performance. AMD is not really compelling an upgrade to current AMD users on the 7000 series with these rumors.

AMD competition may also have a 45% increase in RT performance as well. I will wait and see all that has been cooking before I bite.

I think it depends on price.

Of course it depends on your resolution, but even a RTX 4080 doesn't do that great in a title with high end path tracing.

If Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty is any indication you need a 4090 just to get 60fps at 1080p. That's not necessarily a realistic performance goal for AMD or really most sane people.

No one buys a 4090 to play at 1080p, path tracing or not.

Path Tracing is best viewed as a "concept" at this point, as no hardware anyone is realistically going to buy is suitable for the purpose right now.
Maybe in the next generation or two this will change?

AMD has let it be known that they are not intending to compete in that territory until they have first built up market share.

 

[ChadD]

Amd should really work one making the onboard GPUs amazing. Kind of an untapped place for GPU performance.

They are planning to do just that. Halo Strix is supposed to launch at CES along side everything else. Rumored top end Halo is 16 Zen 5 cores and 40 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units. If that comes to pass I could see the lower end 8 core Halo parts being great gaming laptops... and full Halo 16/40 shipping into low end PCs capable of decent low-mid tier gaming. Rumors are 7600xt like gaming performance in a APU... with RT cores.

It seems AMD isn't kidding. They are planning to push OEM gaming laptop/mini desktop type markets... and if the 8800xt is 80% as good as they are saying and is honestly priced mid tier, or 100% of the leaks and hits tops mid upper tier pricing. Then AMD might actually be able to get some market share. Assuming Nvidia doesn't have mid tier 5000 cards on deck anyway. We all know 5090 5080 is just a no go for the mass market. Times are so good that I see huge numbers upgrading 4000 cards for $1500 5080s.

 

[LukeTbk]

The leak says +45% of a 7900xtx with RE4 remake RT on, that would be much faster than a 4090, not RTX 4080 level, could be a translation error, chatgpt give me this:

In mid-December, AIB will officially start mass production. Although production is starting, there are still some minor bugs at the moment.

• Power consumption: -25% compared to the 7900XTX
• Resident Evil 4 Remake (with ray tracing): +45% performance compared to the 7900XTX
• Other mainstream games were also tested, and the ray tracing performance has indeed seen an epic improvement—mainly because it was so bad before.

In summary, it's said that in terms of rasterization and ray tracing, it basically matches the 4080/4080S.

133.6*1.45 = 193.72, 140 vs 118 at 4K, it is not an RT heavy title at all, could be an exceptional RDNA 4 title, but it does not match the only a 4080 in raster claim.... that a way faster than a 4090 video card going on here, could just be someone trying to make mental math with number that look much higher without being that close to +45% in reality, like 170 from 125 fps.

 

[LukeTbk]

It almost sounds as if what they are calling an "8800xt" is a 7900xtx level chip, but with better raytracing, intended to be sold as a lower end part number.

Maybe AMD's "giving up on the high end" just means they are making that same high end silicon, but marketing it as mid-tier so it sells better.

Name in the rumours is a place holder, not a bad guess but If they would have release a full skus with a 8800xt-8900xt line, what would have been that 8800xt, surely it would have been at least close to the 7900xtx which this is rumoured to be, it is normal for the new midrange to get close to the previous high end and it is normal for it to cost less to do because they can do it with smaller die and bus.

They cannot say they compete at the highest end and launch 2 years later at the top high end a gpu a bit slower than the 7900xtx (if the 4080 rumours for raster are true)

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

The leak says +45% of a 7900xtx with RE4 remake RT on, that would be much faster than a 4090, not RTX 4080 level, could be a translation error, chatgpt give me this:

In mid-December, AIB will officially start mass production. Although production is starting, there are still some minor bugs at the moment.

• Power consumption: -25% compared to the 7900XTX
• Resident Evil 4 Remake (with ray tracing): +45% performance compared to the 7900XTX
• Other mainstream games were also tested, and the ray tracing performance has indeed seen an epic improvement—mainly because it was so bad before.

In summary, it's said that in terms of rasterization and ray tracing, it basically matches the 4080/4080S.


View attachment 695581

133.6*1.45 = 193.72, 140 vs 118 at 4K, it is not an RT heavy title at all

Hmm. Might be a useless 45% then, because as I recall, RT want heavily implemented in RE4 and doesn't have a huge performance impact.

 

[Marees]

Hmm. Might be a useless 45% then, because as I recall, RT want heavily implemented in RE4 and doesn't have a huge performance impact.

Where does 45% over 7900xtx bring it ?

4070 or 4070 super or 4070 ti or 4070 ti super ?

 

[LukeTbk]

Where does 45% over 7900xtx bring it ?

In the used example, way above an 4090.

Would it be similar on RTX heavy title a la Alan wake 2-cyberpunk, depending what people mean here

47*1.45 = 68, 40.1*1.45 = 58.15, from a 4080 to being in between a 4080 and a 4090, "pathtracing" would be another story,

 

[Marees]

In the used example, way above an 4090.

Would it be similar on RTX heavy title a la Alan wake 2-cyberpunk, depending what people mean here

View attachment 695604View attachment 695605

47*1.45 = 68, 40.1*1.45 = 58.15, from a 4080 to being in between a 4080 and a 4090, "pathtracing" would be another story,

So safe to say based on rumours that performance should comfortably beat 4070 ti super (in both raster & RT)

Prev claim from MLID was that power consumption would be same as 7700xt

So based on above plus chip size, it should cost $600 ??

 

[Lakados]

So safe to say based on rumours that performance should comfortably beat 4070 ti super (in both raster & RT)

Prev claim from MLID was that power consumption would be same as 7700xt

So based on above plus chip size, it should cost $600 ??

With inflation and tariffs I’m guessing $650, I’d be happy to be over the actual MSRP though, but I fear I’m under it.

 

[DanNeely]

They are planning to do just that. Halo Strix is supposed to launch at CES along side everything else. Rumored top end Halo is 16 Zen 5 cores and 40 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units. If that comes to pass I could see the lower end 8 core Halo parts being great gaming laptops... and full Halo 16/40 shipping into low end PCs capable of decent low-mid tier gaming. Rumors are 7600xt like gaming performance in a APU... with RT cores.

It seems AMD isn't kidding. They are planning to push OEM gaming laptop/mini desktop type markets... and if the 8800xt is 80% as good as they are saying and is honestly priced mid tier, or 100% of the leaks and hits tops mid upper tier pricing. Then AMD might actually be able to get some market share. Assuming Nvidia doesn't have mid tier 5000 cards on deck anyway. We all know 5090 5080 is just a no go for the mass market. Times are so good that I see huge numbers upgrading 4000 cards for $1500 5080s.

I predict profound disappointment when the product launches. All the theoretical compute in the world is meaningless if it's strangled in gaming by lack of memory bandwidth. 2 channels of DDR isn't enough and hasn't been for decades. To actually get FPS in line with it's nominal compute level they'd need to step away from the PC paradigm and stick 8GB of GDDR6 onto the the package.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Admittedly, mediocre devices tend to be rumored as being amazing and the second coming typically before launch.

 

[ChadD]

I predict profound disappointment when the product launches. All the theoretical compute in the world is meaningless if it's strangled in gaming by lack of memory bandwidth. 2 channels of DDR isn't enough and hasn't been for decades. To actually get FPS in line with it's nominal compute level they'd need to step away from the PC paradigm and stick 8GB of GDDR6 onto the the package.

Assuming the leaks are legit Strix uses 256bit LPDDR5X ram with up to 8 chips arranged around the SOC. The top end Strix supposedly has 273 GB/s memory bandwidth... which is basically identical to a 7600xt. Guess we'll get a better idea what official numbers look like next month. Some rumors are top strix should push 4070, most say 7600xt.
Do doubt though we'll see what is what when they release. Clearly the memory arrangement isn't going to make these AMDs new SOC drop in for AM5. These are socket FP11 and apparently the socket is large... so I'm not sure what AMD is planning to target with these. Be interesting to hear where and how they plan to sell these. To me it basically sounds like AMD has a gaming console PC platform... not sure who is going to sell that and how. I mean if someone like Valve was looking at shipping something like a brand new steam machine, strix halo seems like the way to go.

 

[ChadD]

Admittedly, mediocre devices tend to be rumored as being amazing and the second coming typically before launch.

You up late waiting for battle mage too ?

 

[GoldenTiger]

You up late waiting for battle mage too ?

Mayyyyybe

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Admittedly, mediocre devices tend to be rumored as being amazing and the second coming typically before launch.

I'm not sure a subsequent gens mid tier edging out current gens high end is what I would call "amazing" or "second coming". It's just normal progress.

Maybe progress has slowed some compared to what we were used to a few years back, but still, we should kind of be expecting this.

That said, I'm with you in my assumption that at this point RDNA4's performance rumors may be slightly hyped or based on cherry picked data, like RE4, which I am not convinced I remember seeing in pretty much any major reviewers review suite.

 

[mullet]

I love AMD but the RT stuff is pretty cool. I hope AMD will solve this issue.

 

[LukeTbk]

With inflation and tariffs I’m guessing $650, I’d be happy to be over the actual MSRP though, but I fear I’m under it.

Considering the $599 4070 super

What can we expect the 5070 performance and price to be, if is is a +30%, a bit better at RT, faster dflss and frame gen, much better at ray reconstruction around $650, that would be the 4080-4080s at $650, with DLSS 4.0 who know what it will be.

AMD need like always to undercut that price a bit.

There is an ASrock 7900xt selling for $650 right now, that 530mm of chips on 320 bits bus... that launched with a $900 price tags, in comparison a 350mm-256 bits-16GB (i.e the 4080...) 8800xt for $600 could feel really nice in comparison (which give an idea how nice Lovelace must have felt for nvidia).

 

[Sir Beregond]

From past history, AMD rumors have fallen short when the actual GPU hit the street. Price to performance and what feature set will determine value for me. Even if 45% better in RT, when my 7900XTX is getting 10FPS in path trace games 14.5fps with the 8800XT is no upgrade if same or slightly less raster performance. AMD is not really compelling an upgrade to current AMD users on the 7000 series with these rumors.

AMD competition may also have a 45% increase in RT performance as well. I will wait and see all that has been cooking before I bite.

I agree with your points, however, will those same increases on the Nvidia side really be seen in the same price segments AMD might be targeting with RDNA4? Remains to be seen. 4080 performance for $500 would be good for the mid-tier market. Nvidia has not really been serving the below $500 market well and I'd hardly call their 60-class cards worth it for ray tracing, so becomes a moot point. If a theoretical 8800XT has 4080 raster and 4070 Ti or even 4070 Ti Super RT improvement, that's fantastic for the mid-tier market and Nvidia's 60-class at least so far isn't touching that. Almost pointless to talk about RT and below $500 cards from Nvidia currently. And considering the stagnation in Nvidia's lineup for that segment over the past three gens, I'm not suddenly expecting Nvidia to change that here.

But like all AMD rumors, best to take with a grain of salt.

 

[LukeTbk]

Maybe progress has slowed some compared to what we were used to a few years back, but still, we should kind of be expecting this.

It depends how we look at it, the 4080 super is a smaller die with the same memory bus than the 3070 (which was 96% enabled), they could have been the same sku.

The 4080 super is 100% faster than the 3070 at 4k, 200% with RT on, while being more efficient, the 3070 use 50% more watts per frame, that generation jump was one of the biggest modern one if it was not the biggest, Samsung 8nm having dragged back Ampere quite a bit.

Would AMD have pushed Nvidia, Lovelace launch could have been > Pascal.

A 2025 gpu family launching on the latest revision of TSMC 3NM-GDDR7-Ampere die size, would be interesting to see, a 276 mm xx60 card, 392mm xx70 card, 600mm xx80 card on TSMC 4nm-gddr7-previous gen larger bus, they would be monster.

Even if that 5080 was only 30% faster than the 4090, that would be a 60-65% gen on gen jump, same for the 5070 only 30% faster than the 4080, that would be a doubling of the performance gen on gen over the 4070.

 

[LukeTbk]

and I'd hardly call their 60-class cards worth it for ray tracing, so becomes a moot point.

While this is a repeated talking point, lot of video game does not let you turn RT off these days and it is a price point where people expect to play 2 years old-new game with high demands, just not at native resolution, very high settings, high frame rate at the same points.

For people that played Black Myth Wukong or Star Wars outlaws, 4060 ray tracing capability is not a fully moot point over the more expansive (at launch at least, maybe it moved since) 7600xt choice.

Lot of the raytracing engine choice of really mainstream game like the next Assassin Creed will have the 3060 level of gpu in mind.

 

[Sir Beregond]

While this is a repeated talking point, lot of video game does not let you turn RT off these days and it is a price point where people expect to play 2 years old-new game with high demands, just not at native resolution, very high settings, high frame rate at the same points.

For people that played Black Myth Wukong or Star Wars outlaws, 4060 ray tracing capability is not a fully moot point over the more expansive (at launch at least, maybe it moved since) 7600xt choice.

Lot of the raytracing engine choice of really mainstream game like the next Assassin Creed will have the 3060 level of gpu in mind.

Interesting. Is the performance actually working well?

 

[LukeTbk]

Interesting. Is the performance actually working well?

Ubisoft snowdrop RT is quite good performance wise specially when you consider how much the final image seem to rely on it, if you look at the rendering with RT off:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1AtdtEMj-8

And offer a lot of scaling from top to bottom.

The other frequent RT only are Unreal 5 title (black myth, Hellblade 2, upcoming Indiana Jones it look like), there it can be rougher, but it is the type of game that a 4070 can beat a 7900 gre or a 4060 the much stronger 6800 under some scene-settings because of RT being always on.

It could get common in 2025, as Unreal 5 completely replaced 4.x now, to see RT always being there via Lumen and for the "hardware version" branch being available.

And we will have to see the 5060 ray reconstruction capabiltiy, at some point the xx60 gpu will be significantly stronger at it than the 3080 was and the Cyberpunk-Alan wake 2 path traced with RR will be playable on them. If the 5060 has 4070ti raw RT power it will be stronger in some way to the 3090 ti at it, let alone the Ray reconstruction part.

 

[noko]

Ubisoft snowdrop RT is quite good performance wise specially when you consider how much rely on it, if you look at the rendering with RT off:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1AtdtEMj-8

And offer a lot of scaling from top to bottom.

The other frequent RT is always on are Unreal 5 title (black myth, Hellblade 2), there it can be rougher, but it is the type of game that a 4070 can beat a 7900 gre or a 4060 the much stronger 6800 under some scene-settings because of RT being always on.

It could get common in 2025, as Unreal 5 completely replaced 4.x now, to see RT always being there via Lumen and for the "hardware version" branch being available.

And we will have to see the 5060 ray reconstruction capabiltiy, at some point the xx60 gpu will be significantly stronger at it than the 3080 was and the Cyberpunk-Alan wake 2 path traced with RR will be playable on them. If the 5060 has 4070ti raw RT power it will be stronger in some way to the 3090 ti at it, let alone the Ray reconstruction part.

That is very interesting, no fallback mode for not using RT as in light maps and baked textures. Now if this really relies on RT for all of the lighting, that would be fantastic! Plus I would think this would be much easier for the developers. In the end could mean games can get better since time could be spent more on the gameplay vice trying to make it look right.

 

[Marees]

AMD allegedly confirms Radeon RX 8600 and RX 8800 GPUs via ROCm Github update​

AMD has inadvertently confirmed its upcoming Radeon RX 8600 and RX 8800 desktop GPUs through recent updates to its ROCm (Radeon Open Compute) libraries. The GPUs, which are expected to be part of AMD's RDNA 4 architecture, appeared in code changes, hinting at active development and future releases.

The latest update references to "gfx12_rx8800" and "gfx12_rx8600" alongside existing "gfx11_rx7900" entries. This suggests "gfx12" denotes a new GPU architecture, and RX 8800/RX 8600 represent families of cards. A changelog entry explicitly mentions "add nav4x arch," confirming these GPUs are part of the next-gen Navi 4X series expected to power AMD’s upcoming Radeon line-up.

In other related news, AMD's unreleased Radeon RX 8800 XT graphics card recently surfaced on power supply manufacturer Seasonic's wattage calculator webpage. While there is no official confirmation, the leaked information suggests that the card will come with a 220W TDP (Thermal Design Power).

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...-8600-and-rx-8800-gpus-via-rocm-github-update

 

[Lakados]

That is very interesting, no fallback mode for not using RT as in light maps and baked textures. Now if this really relies on RT for all of the lighting, that would be fantastic! Plus I would think this would be much easier for the developers. In the end could mean games can get better since time could be spent more on the gameplay vice trying to make it look right.

I like your optimism but what it will mean, is developers can put fewer people on the project to get the same result.
RT has never been about making things better for us. The tools developed around it are directly geared toward doing more with a smaller development team and allowing for faster turnaround times.

Art departments are expensive, why spend millions doing something by hand when the developer can tell you to spend a few hundred on a new GPU so it can do the work for them.
It's the RAM problem all over again, why spend money to optimize code to use less RAM when you can tell your customers to buy more instead.

 

[KazeoHin]

It almost sounds as if what they are calling an "8800xt" is a 7900xtx level chip, but with better raytracing, intended to be sold as a lower end part number.

Except the 7900XTX only competed with Nvidia's X080 level chip, and a cut down one at that.

So really, this is AMD eating humble pie and pricing/naming their silicon appropriately... Only the 5080 will be out and perform 30-40% faster than that, so really this should be called the 8700XT.

 

[Lakados]

Except the 7900XTX only competed with Nvidia's X080 level chip, and a cut down one at that.

So really, this is AMD eating humble pie and pricing/naming their silicon appropriately... Only the 5080 will be out and perform 30-40% faster than that, so really this should be called the 8700XT.

But at least it will have a strong influence on the 5070 lineup.

 

[arthur_tuxedo]

With the top RNDA 4 die cancelled, AMD has no reason not to push this thing as hard as they can, especially if the UDNA replacement isn’t coming until 2026. A mid-range die can perform surprisingly well when pushed (5700 XT, for instance). I’m a little skeptical of the claims that it will equal a 7900 XTX / 4080 in raster, though. Maybe for a factory-overclocked version at $600+, but I’d be pretty surprised to see that level of performance for $500 retail. Crossed fingers that I’m wrong, of course.

 

[KazeoHin]

With the top RNDA 4 die cancelled, AMD has no reason not to push this thing as hard as they can, especially if the UDNA replacement isn’t coming until 2026. A mid-range die can perform surprisingly well when pushed (5700 XT, for instance). I’m a little skeptical of the claims that it will equal a 7900 XTX / 4080 in raster, though. Maybe for a factory-overclocked version at $600+, but I’d be pretty surprised to see that level of performance for $500 retail. Crossed fingers that I’m wrong, of course.

remember when the top end card that made gamers cream themselves cost $500?

 

[arthur_tuxedo]

remember when the top end card that made gamers cream themselves cost $500?

GeForce 2 Ultra, IIRC. What does that have to do with Navi 48?

 

[KazeoHin]

GeForce 2 Ultra, IIRC. What does that have to do with Navi 48?

Just reminiscing about the past... Adjusted for inflation that would be a $900 card now...

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

remember when the top end card that made gamers cream themselves cost $500?

I bought the fastest GPU money could buy - a GeForce 3 TI500 - for $229 in 2001. It launched at $249, but already a month or two later it was readily available on shelves at $20 below MSRP.

Yeah, those days are over.

That $229 in 2001 dollars is about $410 today due to inflation.

 

[mullet]

So over half of the cost of a PC is now the GPU?

 

[LukeTbk]

I bought the fastest GPU money could buy - a GeForce 3 TI500 - for $229 in 2001. It launched at $249, but already a month or two later it was readily available on shelves at $20 below MSRP.

Today if Nvidia tried to sell a 128mm2 die (not even on the latest node) on a card looking that cheap with a 50 watt cooler for that much people would be angry (not even adjusted for inflation)...a RX 6600 is twice as big...

A mid-range die can perform surprisingly well when pushed (5700 XT, for instance)

The 7600xt was 100% core enabled, 7800xt-7900xtx has well, would not be a big surprise if you are right, could be more challenging without chiplet to do it at a good price to...

 

[mullet]

I bought the fastest GPU money could buy - a GeForce 3 TI500 - for $229 in 2001. It launched at $249, but already a month or two later it was readily available on shelves at $20 below MSRP.

Yeah, those days are over.

That $229 in 2001 dollars is about $410 today due to inflation.

Yeah the fastest in 2001 was $230.00.
What will the fastest card money can buy you today? 410?
410 buys you the budget today.

 

[Lakados]

So over half of the cost of a PC is now the GPU?

Well a modern GPU also contains almost as many components as the rest of the PC so...