This quarter, AMD confirms the release of new “enthusiast-class” Radeon 7000-series graphics cards.
AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su stated during the company’s financial results call for the second quarter of 2023 that new “enthusiast-class” gaming graphics cards will be released in the third quarter of 2023 (anytime before October). “In the second quarter, we introduced our entry-level RX 7600 cards for 1080p gaming, expanding our Radeon 7000 GPU family. With the introduction of new, enthusiast-class Radeon 7000 series cards in the third quarter, we are on schedule to further increase our RDNA 3 GPU offerings, the spokesperson said.
There are two different interpretations of what the term “enthusiast class” refers to. The first and most obvious one might be the release of the RX 7800 series, which includes the RX 7800 XT, which is anticipated to closely mirror the limited-edition RX 7900 GRE based on the specs. However, the RX 7950 series is also a less-discussed possibility. The RX 7900 GRE, which AMD is attempting to compete with, was found to offer raster 3D performance in its testing that was comparable to the RX 6950 XT of the previous generation, but with greater ray tracing performance due to enhanced Ray Accelerators. This should imply that the “RX 7800 XT” AMD product needs to perform better than the RX 7900 GRE in order to be compelling (perhaps through higher clock rates or a few more CU).
By raising clock rates and power limitations, the Radeon RX 7950 series attempts to considerably improve performance over the RX 7900 series. While the RX 7950 XT could be able to match the performance of the RTX 4080, AMD is likely hoping that the RX 7950 XTX will challenge the RTX 4090 for the performance crown. The RTX 4070 Ti is already outperformed by the current RX 7900 XT.
Given that AMD has already created the mobile-friendly package found powering the desktop RX 7900 GRE, the news may also be a clue at the potential of mobile versions of the RX 7900 series. Physically smaller than the standard “Navi 31,” this package has a lower Z-height and is therefore designed with notebooks in mind. Its lower pin count might point to a GDDR6 memory bus that is just 256 bits wide and has fewer power pins to match the lower power constraints.
