AMD RDNA 3 GPUs announced
New graphics card unveiled and they have come to offer something else that we're excited for
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It’s been a long time coming, and we’ve finally had the stream of information from AMD. And there’s a lot to process for the new RDNA 3 GPUs and what they can bring compared to Nvidia’s RTX 4000 series.
With a lot of hope and promise behind the launch of what we hope to be better performance per watt, better pricing, and better stock. As the RTX 4090 has met some issues, especially stock and high power. So let’s see what’s on the horizon.
What’s coming with RDNA 3
RDNA 3 aimed for power and energy efficiency. Going for performance per Watt and making sure you’re not having to run a power station for your rig or pay more for your electricity than necessary.
61 TFLOPS of computing power, 5.3 TB/s of chiplet interconnect with 24GB GDDR6, and 58 billion transistors. And this is for the first chiplet GPU following on from Ryzen 7000.
The chip is unveiled and tells us it will have a 54% performance improvement over RDNA 2. But this only comes with only two graphics cards first. Following a cut-down release as seen by Nvidia.
The initial release is going to be formed of the RX 7900 XTX with 24GB of memory, and the RX 7900 XT with 20 GB.
Infinity cache offers a 2.7x increase in bandwidth over the last generation. It is unified and focused on high-resolution gaming.
Tuned for efficiency and improved ray tracing performance. With 165% more transistors per mm². It also increases the AI accelerators found on the Compute Unit, with a 2.7x improved performance. Whilst the CUs offer a 50% performance increase each focused on ray tracing with 1.5x.
The new RDNA 3 GPUs also rate the first to feature DisplayPort 2.1 ports. Achieving 4k 480 Hz and 8k 165 Hz. Something that Nvidia lacked in its cards.
There is also support for 8k60 AV1 encoding, and simultaneous AVEC/HEVC encoding and decoding. The cards have decoupled clocks, with a 2.3 GHz shader clock and a 2.5 GHz front-end clock. Aiming to improve efficiency but still getting more performance.
The vague benchmarks show at least 1.5x to 1.7x improved performance including raytracing over its last generation.
The RX 7900 XTX specs are 96 CUs, 2.3 GHz, 24 GB GDDR6, 2.1 DP, AV1, and 355W. Throwing shade at Nvidia’s burning power adapter, these only require 2x 8-pin connectors. And are much smaller than the other offerings, meaning there’s no need for a whole new build.
AMD announces that Halo Infinite is getting ray tracing with DXR. As well as announcing the new FSR 3, an upgrade to its own upscale, but not limited to its own hardware. But offers 2x more performance over FSR 2. Akin to Nvidia’s DLSS 3 announcement.
As one of the last things to be announced, and leaked first, the release date and price are shown. With both coming out on the 13th of December 2022. So over a month’s wait for the two flagships. But they come at a much lower price, below both the RTX 4090 and 4080. The RX 7900 XTX costs $999 and the RX 7900 XT $899.
Adrenalin updates
Throwing even more shade over team Green, AMD boasts it won’t track you as you don’t need to sign in to use it. And then it is introducing Hypr-Rx a one-click optimization in the software to improve performance and latency without you having to faff around in it.
AMD SmartAccess Video combines Ryzen 7000 CPU and RX 7000 GPU to encode and decode at the same time. Improving rendering processes. Along with the introduction of AMD Advantage desktops like its laptops.
Final thoughts
There is a lot of promise behind these cards. And the specifications sure have improved over the last generation. But importantly they are focused and efficient and not a massive behemoth just pushing power.
It will again come down to the actual performance. We don’t expect it to match Nvidia but it can offer a better efficient and cheaper option. With a 95W lower board power and $600 cheaper pricing for its flagship.