Will RDNA 3 beat Nvidia?
There may be some difference in release times so can AMD make up the difference?
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The RDNA 3 graphics cards from AMD were announced in November, and it appears that graphics card manufacturers are already testing the top-end chips with generally positive results. In particular, the reference card’s TBP (board power use) is “wonderful”, making RDNA 3 stand out in this regard, and we can expect double the rasterization power for predicted performance.
This suggests that AMD’s predictions for RDNA 3 (50% gains or more) have been realized. AMD has already made significant claims for RDNA 3 in terms of performance per watt in terms of making enormous gains compared to the RX 6000 series. Or perhaps even surpassed?
Several NVIDIA RTX 4090 owners have reported cables and connectors that have burned or melted. The RTX 4090 consumes a significant amount of power (450W for baseline RTX devices), and that electricity is routed through just one connector.
PC gamers expressed worry over the design, and those reservations seem to have been, at least partially, vindicated. Instead of opting for the connection configuration it did, NVIDIA might have decided to have four PCI ports on the PCB.
The likelihood of melting and other problems would decrease if the power draw were divided among four ports. But also less user error was found to be the case as it is a tried connector already.
Herkelman affirmed that the future RDNA 3 graphics card and the RX 7000 series would not use the 12VHPWR power connector. Although NVIDIA is still looking into the problem, using that connector with the RTX 4090 seems to result in burning and melting.
AMD RDNA 3 will compete favorably with Nvidia RTX 4000 GPUs, particularly the RTX 4080. This puts the top graphics card in the RX 7000 series in an advantageous position that might be financially rewarding should it be able to compete with the Lovelace flagship and considerably lower its price.
It is still expected that RDNA 3 will have a rasterization performance that is competitive with the 4080. Nobody expects the top RDNA 3 card to outperform it in ray tracing, though.
So it is expected, the new AMD cards are likely to compare to the RTX 4080 instead of the top end. And with much lower pricing, it can compete on the value for money front that a lot of gamers will be more interested in.
