Speculation about AMD’s Continued Commitment to High-End Consumer GPUs Increases as More Rumors Circulate

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Speculation about AMD's continued plans for releasing high-end graphics cards in the consumer market is increasing following a new rumor. The rumor comes via well-known AMD leaker @Kepler_L2 who claims that the next Navi4 generation will not include any high-end GPUs. According to VideoCardz, and the rumor, this renewed strategy would mirror what AMD did with its RDNA1 and Polaris graphics cards. Apparently, according to another rumor, AMD has already canceled its Navi 41 GPU, Navi 42 is in doubt, and Navi 43 and 44 are still on track.

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[Uvilla]

This wouldn't be surprising one bit.
In fact, the only thing surprising might be that this would be a sign of competence on AMDs part, so there is that.
Assuming they go very aggressive mid and below, then, at least that would be a strategy. This 'me too' strategy for a miserable discount is taking them to the road of oblivion gpu wise. I am convinced to 3rd place in as little as 2 years depending how aggressive Intel gets is what is in the cards if they keep the ' strategy' they have now.
They are long, long long overdue for over powered APUs. I can't imagine it would be nothing but a cake walk to merge and 8 core cpu, 1 chip of that new 24gb hbm, and a good gpu chip that packs a punch. Or whatever along this lines. It won't affect dpgus , it just won't.

 

[Grimlakin]

That's disappointing to me. I wanted to see them compete and drive the price of consumer gpus down. If this is true Nvidia is left to run roughshod over the market with free reign.

 

[Marees]

If this is true then that published road map needs an update.

No way AMD is building RDNA 4 cards on an "advanced" node. More likely to stay on the "cheaper" 5nm/4NP nodes.

 

[Elf_Boy]

I have been happy with my two most recent GPU's, 6900xt and 7900xtx. I dont have to have the literal best. The 7900xtx does a very good job with everything I have asked it to do, all at 4k with a second 4k monitor on the system.

For clarity, prior gpu's were team green except for my Matrox 400/450 back in the day. 980->1080 ti (which lasted me some years) then team red.

 

[Uvilla]

That's disappointing to me. I wanted to see them compete and drive the price of consumer gpus down. If this is true Nvidia is left to run roughshod over the market with free reign.

Only top end though. Mid and lower could very well be depressed price wise. AMD ain't doing squat for nvidias free reign right now, if anything they are enhancing / protecting it. An argument could be made that an nvidia complete monopoly might have been a weaker position for them at any period for the last decade or more.
Competitors do exist, knowledge of 3d acceleration is spread enough, if Nvidia was a complete monopoly, unless their prices became so outrageous, a number or companies might go for a space, for number two as it were. Right now AMD fills a space alright, they seem to be low price for things like consoles, and custom stuff, so they fill that a lot, yet when it comes to dgpus, all they have done is cock block for as long as possible, and this only helped nvidia, who gets to raise prices at will knowing number two is going to under cut them by just a little. If they were monopoly yes they could abuse, but also, they would risk a good deal of companies thinking about going in a big way. The way I see it, this horrible uncoordinated duopoly as left a huge gap anyway, one that Intel might be seeking to fill. I think if nvidia was a full blown dgpu monopoly we may or may not have had companies jumping much sooner,I don't know, but I think its a decent argument.

 

[Zarathustra]

If true, this is absolutely awful for the industry, leaving the high end to just Nvidia.

Monopolies are never good. That, and we also know halo products sell lower end models. BMW would probably lose half of its enthusiast sales for lower end cars if the M badge wasn't out there serving as marketing.

It also makes AMD GPU products completely irrelevant to me.

I hope this isn't true. If it is, get ready for a $5000 5090

 

[Zarathustra]

I have been happy with my two most recent GPU's, 6900xt and 7900xtx. I dont have to have the literal best. The 7900xtx does a very good job with everything I have asked it to do, all at 4k with a second 4k monitor on the system.

I don't really care about pissing contests or benchmark competitions either. I don't have to have the fastest thing on the market.

(I do use benchmarks, but mostly just to make sure my hardware is working properly and provided the expected performance, not for epeen competitions)

What I do demand - however - is that I have a fast enough GPU that every new title on the market can run with all settings at max, at 4k resolution without having minimum frame rates drop below 60fps.

Right now, that means 4090 or nothing. Even the 4090 can't meet this bar in all titles.

 

[Elf_Boy]

I don't really care about pissing contests or benchmark competitions either. I don't have to have the fastest thing on the market.

(I do use benchmarks, but mostly just to make sure my hardware is working properly and provided the expected performance, not for epeen competitions)

What I do demand - however - is that I have a fast enough GPU that every new title on the market can run with all settings at max, at 4k resolution without having minimum frame rates drop below 60fps.

Right now, that means 4090 or nothing. Even the 4090 can't meet this bar in all titles.

Oddly enough the reason I upgraded from the souped up 6900 I had is a 20 year old game. There are no more GPU optimizations for City of Heroes in modern drivers anymore. A game still on either dx9 or pre-vulkan ogl, I forget which as it could run on either at one point.

Running it at 4k is a pure brute force situation and in some situations the 6900 could lag. This game was never designed to run at 4k and doesnt have any of the optimization's of dx 10, 11, 12 or Vulkan. Even the 7900xtx (and I am guessing the 4090) will occasionally bog (15+fps in COH anything over 20 is playable but not always nice to look at) in RAID situations with 40 super hero's spamming powers. This is with alkl in game settings maxed (except depth of field which I dont like) and aa/af maxed at the driver level.

Be nice if the engine could be updated to a modern api, but oh well, I am happy enough the game still plays.

 

[Stoly]

It's not the first time that AMD is rumored to even abandon the high end market, so there's that.

 

[Elf_Boy]

I am sure there are realities and difficulties with the GPU market that I am completely ignorant about, for [reasons] it is really easy to believe NV/Jensen Huang is willing to push prices/margin as high as the market will bear in the name of profit.

To be clear:
I am very much aware, and good with, companies making a profit. I don't think every corporation should be run as a 501c3 (or any other non-profit variant). Where I draw a line (vague and wavy as it is) is when a company pushes prices though the roof despite increased costs, being low, just to make more money. Example the 2022 case against Mylan and subsidiaries for price-gouging on Epi-Pens, a medication some people literally cant live without.

Is NV price gouging? I dont know, I can only speak to it feeling like they are very willing to do so.

More competition in the high end gpu market will benefit consumers, however, really, how many Über gamers are there per 1000 people in the US/World anyways? Is it price gouging if it is a luxury item and not a staple?

I do seem to be in a mood today, got to get those opinions out there, and stand on that pile of soap boxes once in a while, right?

Anyhow, curious what thoughts the rest of FPS has on the topics.

 

[LazyGamer]

It's not the first time that AMD is rumored to even abandon the high end market, so there's that.

It's not the first time they've actually done it, either; AMD launched their first raft of GPUs after purchasing ATi as 'mid-range' competitors that relied on Crossfire to achieve higher performance.

There may have been another instance between, but they also did it for their RX400/RX500/RX5000-series. They had higher-end parts, but they weren't competitive (or they were overpriced due to one of the coin-crazes causing a shortage).

Is NV price gouging? I dont know, I can only speak to it feeling like they are very willing to do so.

Compare with your epi-pen example - Nvidia is designing new technology (which epi-pens aren't), and is selling it at market prices; and people don't need GPUs to live!

I'll say that I think Nvidia is doing well as a company; they're making profit, and they're providing value. That value may primarily be targeted at the enterprise, and it's also very present in the desktop GPU market as well, given the comprehensive solutions that they provide. Gaming yes, but keep in mind content creation as well.

 

[Zarathustra]

Oddly enough the reason I upgraded from the souped up 6900 I had is a 20 year old game. There are no more GPU optimizations for City of Heroes in modern drivers anymore. A game still on either dx9 or pre-vulkan ogl, I forget which as it could run on either at one point.

Running it at 4k is a pure brute force situation and in some situations the 6900 could lag. This game was never designed to run at 4k and doesnt have any of the optimization's of dx 10, 11, 12 or Vulkan. Even the 7900xtx (and I am guessing the 4090) will occasionally bog (15+fps in COH anything over 20 is playable but not always nice to look at) in RAID situations with 40 super hero's spamming powers. This is with alkl in game settings maxed (except depth of field which I dont like) and aa/af maxed at the driver level.

Be nice if the engine could be updated to a modern api, but oh well, I am happy enough the game still plays.

I had similar experiences when I replayed the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series a few years ago. I had a GPU which should have been overwhelmingly overkill this series, but it struggled and was a bit stuttery.