Extra rumors concerning the subsequent huge AMD Radeon GPU launch are circling, and so they’re once more pointing to AMD abandoning the highest finish of the gaming graphics card market with its forthcoming RDNA 4 structure. The truth is, based on this newest leak, not solely is AMD’s new GPU not popping out till 2025, however it additionally received’t be as quick as AMD’s present flagship, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
That’s not essentially a large downside for AMD, if it could get the pricing proper. Assuming this card is priced at across the $500 mark, and it improves on AMD’s at the moment lagging ray tracing efficiency, whereas beating no matter GPU Nvidia has on this worth vary at launch, this might be among the finest graphics playing cards, however will probably be a fragile stability.
This newest little bit of gossip comes from prime tech leaker Kepler_L2, who has simply posted some data purportedly about RDNA 4’s ray tracing capabilities in a put up on X (previously Twitter). We’ll come onto these modifications in a second, however what additionally stood out to us was Kepler_L2’s follow-up assertion, when requested when RDNA 4 was popping out, and if the strongest RDNA 4 GPU could be equal to a brand new Nvidia RTX 5080 when it comes out.
In response, Kepler_L2 replied, “Early subsequent 12 months. Will probably be at most in between 7900 XT and XTX.” If this rumor is true, and refers back to the common efficiency of AMD GPUs, then AMD isn’t even planning to beat its present flagship, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, which might be two years outdated by the point we get to early 2025. The truth is, if this leak is on the cash, the top-end RDNA 4 GPU will solely be a bit faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT, which at the moment goes for round $699.
Earlier rumors have pointed to AMD aiming to supply RTX 4080 efficiency for half the value, and this card may probably try this. In our Radeon RX 7900 XT assessment, we discovered this AMD GPU may sustain with the dearer RTX 4080 in a number of recreation exams, and even beat it in Hitman 3. Nonetheless, it couldn’t compete with the RTX 4080 when it got here to ray tracing, and AMD FSR 3.1 frame-gen tech nonetheless isn’t supported in as many video games as Nvidia DLSS 3.
If AMD can enhance its structure’s ray tracing efficiency, although, then it may probably be onto a winner right here, and that’s what’s implied by Kepler_L2’s authentic put up. The leak particulars a number of new ray tracing options reportedly present in RDNA 4, however it solely contains the names of the options, with no particulars on how they’re anticipated to work. We’ve listed these under:
- Double ray tracing intersect engine
- RT occasion node remodel
- 64B (bytes) RT node
- Ray tracing tri-pair optimization
- Change flags encoded in barycentrics to simplify detection of procedural nodes
- BVH (bounding quantity hierarchy) footprint enchancment
- RT help for OBB (oriented bounding field) occasion node intersection
All of which could sound a bit intimidating for those who haven’t learn a number of whitepapers on ray tracing, however the common gist is that AMD is reportedly introducing numerous new options that imply ray tracing is dealt with otherwise in RDNA 4 than RDNA 3. Particularly, the efficiency of ray intersection and ray-triangle intersection calculations seems set to be improved, and the brand new GPUs ought to be quicker and extra environment friendly at dealing with geometry for ray tracing as effectively.
There’s solely a lot you may glean from an inventory of technical options, although. The true proof might be after we get an opportunity to benchmark this GPU in ray-traced video games and see the way it performs. AMD’s ray tracing efficiency has improved considerably with RDNA 3 over RDNA 2, however its present GPUs are nonetheless behind Nvidia’s equivalents, notably relating to video games comparable to Cyberpunk 2077 with its path tracing mode.
It seems as if we’re going to have to attend till 2025 for this new GPU now, and there are rumors of RTX 5090 delays as effectively. When you’re searching for a brand new AMD card within the meantime, try our Radeon RX 7900 GRE assessment, as this mid-range GPU gives nice efficiency for the cash.
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