According to the most recent evidence, AMD''s first RDNA 3 graphics cards will be released in December.
This comes from ECSM on Bilibili, a Chinese video sharing platform, that Toms Hardware (opens in a new tab), and while this person has been right about the grapevine in the previous year, wed still take this with a whole lot of seasoning. This is especially as the speculation is couched in somewhat vague terms (post-translation, that is, also).
The RX 7000 series will be available in November (sounds about right), with the first graphics cards coming out in the second half of December right as the holiday season arrives, basically. Which models are coming, you may well ask?
The first and second flagship is the leaker''s assertion, which we term the pair of graphics cards based on the Navi 31 processor, according to the RX 7900 XT and RX 7800 XT, but this is evidently the bigger side of the speculation.
The key is that ECSM floats the assumption that, in terms of performance, the AMD flagship might be difficult to compete with the Nvidias RTX 4000 series, indicating that the flagship RTX 4090 is also possible.
Analysis: Even if that is true, you may not panic, but the RDNA 3 flagship might be quite competitive.
It''s certainly true that for a long time, it has been alleged that AMD will launch its next-gen processor first when it comes to RDNA 3 graphics cards, so this is evidently true.
We were hoping for the first RX 7000 to arrive sooner than this, and since the date is correct, AMD is just squeaking in with the possibility of selling next-gen goods by the end of 2022, as promised.
It''s a misgiving that ECSM is putting doubt on how the top-end RDNA 3 GPU will perform relative to the RTX 4090. In case you were wondering, one of the commenters on Bilibili actually asked whether this might be related to ray-traced performance or rasterization (traditional, without ray tracing) and the leaker clarified that they meant both.
We can only put so much stock in rumors, but let''s keep our fingers crossed that these irritating noises are overly cautious bits of speculation. Although even if AMD''s flagship performance does struggle to compete with Nvidia, there is still room to cost GPUs to make for a compelling recipe on the price/performance front.
Don''t forget that this is the spectrum''s primary end, which we discussed separately, which is a relatively niche proposition, and the mid-range confrontation (and indeed lower-end) might look completely different.
Another challenge will certainly be stock, where there will always be questions about how much RAM 7900 XT supply AMD might be capable to acquire. Because as weve seen, Nvidia was initially expected to have strong levels of RTX 4090 stock initially, but that is not what we have seen thus far (keep an eye on the location of the RTX 4090 article if you want to know more about it).