This new leak spells bad news for AMD Radeon RX 7000

AMD’s next-gen RDNA 3 graphics cards are just around the corner, but a new leak from a fairly established source tells us that it might be a rough climb for AMD this time around.

According to the rumor, the performance of AMD Radeon RX 7000 may leave much to be desired when compared to Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 40-series.

The leak (first shared by Wccftech) comes from Enthusiast Citizen, also known as ECSM_Official, who is a well-known source for PC hardware-related leaks that tend to check out. Despite the good track record, as with any rumor, make sure to take the following with a little bit of skepticism.

According to Enthusiast Citizen, AMD will first be launching two GPUs, and the leaker refers to them as the “first flagship” and the “second flagship.” Now, this could mean either two different variants of the top Navi 31 GPU or perhaps one Navi 31 model and one Navi 32 option. In any case, AMD is following Nvidia’s lead by launching the big GPUs first and targeting the enthusiast market before releasing mid-to-entry level graphics cards. Whether we’ll be getting a Navi 31 and Navi 32 or two Navi 31s, the fact is that both the dies are built on TSMC’s 5nm process node.

Unfortunately, the leaker has some bad news for the fans of Team Red. It seems that the GPUs may fall far behind Nvidia’s new RTX 40-series offerings, at least in terms of their performance in ray tracing and rasterization. That implies that we will continue to see the same trend that we’re already used to — Nvidia continuing to reign supreme in ray tracing.

It’s hard to say how this prediction will translate to real-world performance for the AMD Radeon RX 7000. AMD promises that the GPUs will be competitive in terms of performance-per-watt, offering a 50% boost over RDNA 2. Early specification leaks point toward the flagship (presumably the RX 7900 XT) having worse specs than the RTX 4090, but it’s too early to judge with any certainty.

AMD has already confirmed that the cards will be launching on November 3, but that doesn’t mean immediate availability. Enthusiast Citizen claims that the GPUs will be up for grabs in December, so a month-and-a-half later at the very least than Nvidia’s new flagship, the RTX 4090. Of course, AMD’s announcement on November 3 might shake things up in that regard.

It’s interesting to think what this might mean for the pricing of these GPUs. If Enthusiast Citizen’s speculation turns out to be true and AMD doesn’t target the best of the best with RDNA 3, it should price the cards accordingly. Intel started a bit of a revolution in GPU pricing by setting reasonable prices for Arc Alchemist and condemning the constant rise in GPU pricing, with the CEO clearly stating: “You should be frustrated.” If AMD follows that trend and prices them accordingly, we might have some very price-competitive GPUs coming soon.

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