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AMD: We Didn’t Make RDNA 3 as Fast as RTX 4090 to Keep Costs and Power Down

In an interview with Japanese outlet ITMedia, AMD Executives Rick Bergman and David Wang shared Team Radeon’s opinions on the state of the next-gen GPU market. As noted in our review of the Radeon RX 7900 XT, the RDNA 3 heavyweight is substantially slower than the GeForce RTX 4080 in ray-traced gaming. The $899 GPU also fails to catch up to the more expensive NVIDIA card in rasterized workloads.

AMD officially positions the RX 7900 XTX as the competitor to the RTX 4080, leaving the 7900 XT to deal with the 4070 Ti. Unfortunately, the RDNA 3 parts heavily fall short of their Ada Lovelace rivals in ray-traced gaming while offering substantially worse efficiency.

Technically, it is possible to develop a GPU with specs that compete with theirs (NVIDIA) . However, the GPU developed in this way was introduced to the market as a graphics card with a TDP of 600W and a reference price of $1,600, and was accepted by general PC gaming fans . After thinking about it, we chose not to adopt such a strategy.

The RDNA 3-based GPU Radeon RX 7900 XTX released this time is targeted at $999, which is considered to be the “upper price” assumed by high-end users among general PC gaming fans. Developed . The Radeon RX 7900XT below it is said to be $699.

The price strategy is the same as the previous RDNA 2 (Radeon RX 6000 series), with the top-end Radeon RX 6900 XT and Radeon RX 6800 XT targeting $999 and $699, respectively. However, the target price changes for each GPU generation .

We take this strategy to fit into the mainstream infrastructure (hardware environment) utilized by today’s PC gaming enthusiasts . At the same time as demanding high performance, it should be possible to operate with an existing common sense” power supply unit, “be able to cool the inside of the case with common sense”, and can be installed without requiring an extremely large case.” ――The Radeon RX high-end product group was designed with these in mind.

AMD EVP, Rick Bergman (via ITMedia)

AMD EVP Rick Bergman stated that while it was possible to design an RDNA 3 GPU to rival the RTX 4090, it would cost more than their price targets with excessive power consumption. It’s worth noting that while the RTX 4090 is notably more expensive than the RX 7900 XTX ($1,599 vs. $999), it draws less power and is in a league of its own.

AMD claims that its price strategy (with an upper limit of $999) prevented it from making a faster RDNA 3 graphics card, but it’s worth noting that building an AM5 PC with a Ryzen 9 7950X/7950X3D CPU and X670E board will cost over $1,000 with flagship setups hitting the $2,000 mark.

We just don’t think such GPUs are suitable for consumer use.

We haven’t planned a “$1600 GPU” like the competition (NVIDIA) for PC gaming fans in recent years. Instead, we are focusing on planning a GPU that fits in the $1,000 class with a good balance between performance and cost.

There is a “difference” of about $600 from them (laughs), but I think that using that $600 to procure other parts, such as a CPU, would lead to a better gaming experience. I’m here.

AMD SVP, David Wang (Machine Translated via ITMedia)

Areej Syed

Processors, PC gaming, and the past. I have been writing about computer hardware for over seven years with more than 5000 published articles. Started off during engineering college and haven't stopped since. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Divinity, Torment, Baldur's Gate and so much more... Contact: areejs12@hardwaretimes.com.
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