AMD's latest RDNA 3 presentation appears to have removed a slide comparing RTX 4090 performance

[Jimmy2x]

Something to look forward to: In his interview with PC World, Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions at AMD Frank Azor made it "crystal clear" which class the Radeon 7900 XTX was designed to compete in. According to AMD, the flagship is designed to trade blows with Nvidia's RTX 4080, not the more expensive 4090. However, an endnote in AMD's November 3rd presentation refers to a 4090 comparison slide that appears to have been removed.

AMD's recent RDNA 3 announcement was met with a healthy mixture of both excitement and skepticism by fans and critics. While many lauded AMD for their innovations and achievements using the new chiplet-based architecture, others were quick to point out that Team Red had no direct competition for Nvidia's hot new GeForce RTX 4090.

AMD's Frank Azor was one of the first to clarify the company's position and offerings in his post-presentation interview with PCWorld. During the interview with The Full Nerd's Gordon Mah Ung, Azor stated that the $999 7900 XTX is an RTX 4080 competitor and is not intended to compete with the almost 60% costlier Nvidia flagship.

On Friday, Computerbase.de updated a previous article discussing AMD's attempts to establish the 7900 series GPUs as AMD's direct RTX 4080 competitors. The update highlighted an oversight in AMD's November 3rd presentation that clearly references AMD's testing against a "similarly configured system" equipped with an RTX 4090.

Radeon RX 7900 XT(X): AMD legt sich die RTX 4080 als ersten RDNA-3-Gegner zurecht (Update 1) https://t.co/3UWuA0wF6j #AMD #Radeon

— ComputerBase *️ (@ComputerBase) November 18, 2022

According to AMD's endnotes & attributions slide, endnote RX-841 references a slide and information that were not present in the final presentation. The note about the omitted slide appears to show that AMD may have, at one point, attempted to compare the 7900 XTX's performance to that of the RTX 4090. It would also appear that the test results did not yield the narrative AMD wanted to tell, prompting them to remove the slide and test references altogether.

Despite the marketing mix-up, AMD has continued to prepare for RDNA 3's launch while taking advantage of any opportunity to congratulate Nvidia for their recent achievements and media coverage.

Stay safe this holiday season. @amdradeon pic.twitter.com/DOpg0f2qaP

— Sasa Marinkovic (@SasaMarinkovic) November 17, 2022

It's no secret that companies strategically pick marketing data to paint their products in the best possible picture. It is, however, an excellent reminder that we consumers need to be diligent in conducting our own research.

AMD, Nvidia, and any other company competing for your money will tell you what they want you to know about their products. It's our responsibility as consumers to dig deeper and make sure we have all of the information we need to know to make an informed decision.

AMD's Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards are scheduled to launch on December 13th at AMD.com and participating board partners. Look forward to our full reviews.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/96710-amd-latest-rdna-3-presentation-appears-have-removed.html

 

[passwordistaco]

It would be awesome if AMD had a 4090 competitor. They could brute force it with more CUs, especially with the design and die size of the CUs on Navi 31. As cool as the Titan class cards are, it's not a big market. AMD has more product lines to serve with their fab allocation than Nvidia. They need to prioritize the most profitable, which right now is server CPUs and probably compute GPUs.

From a business perspective, matching or beating the 4080 is a worthy goal. With a generation of chiplet GPU experience, hopefully Navi 4 will swing for the fences.

 

[punctualturn]

Its weird how unobtainable halo products influence the purchase decision of many.

 

[takaozo]

Bring on the reviews
not interested in slides

 

[poltevo]

Its weird how unobtainable halo products influence the purchase decision of many.

That's just the way it is. All the most expensive products from AMD, Intel & NVidia are designed to show performance leadership, not value. If AMD had a 4090 competitor they would absolutely release it.

 

[human7]

I'm kinda glad that they don't have a 4090 competitor - for now. The power consumption and the price point of the 4090 are very high. From a sales perspective, the flagships don't sell in volume compared to the mid-tier. Server and professional uses are of course a different story, but from the gamer/consumer perspective, we don't really benefit by paying through the nose for very expensive products, especially when they consume huge amounts of electricity.

Now, should AMD work on developing a 4090 competitor? Yes, and no. Technology improvements from generation to generation consistently show that the second best card matches or exceeds the prior generation's flagship, so they better have one that beats the 4090 easily in the next generation. But, between now and then, I'm not sure who the development of a 4090 competitor would actually serve, other than, ironically enough, Nvidia. Developing that hypothetical 7950 would simply validate the price point and power consumption that Nvidia put on the market: it wouldn't bring prices down in that segment for consumers that much, it may not sell in enough volume (compared to mid range cards) to be worth AMDs time and effort, anyone who is already willing to pay that much for a card is probably getting the 4090 anyways, and Nvidia got there first, so it would be Nvidia leading AMD and setting the market expectations, which we would expect to continue in the next generation. For both gamers and content creators, AMD's XTX offering is still great (pending benchmarks): it has good encoder and port support as well as very healthy amounts of VRAM at a much lower price point.

So does AMD need a 4090 competitor? In the gamer space, I'm not sure they do, and I'm not sure they would benefit by making one.

 

[m3tavision]

The reason is most likely the RTX4090's performance was already known (then), while the RTX4080 only recently was known..?

RDNA3's announcement was purposely understated, because AMD knows what they have and can afford to be smug about efficiency and gaming performance. RDNA3's architecture is going directly after PC Gamers and not Content creators, or Graphic Artists, etc.. (Dr Su being coy/vague about RDNA3's performance, allows Jensen to boast and make claims... then Dr Su drops a royal flush! )


Gaming:
RDNA is in everything and is the Industry Standard! Every game engine and Game Studio is writing games for RDNA. And AMD said that AMD's 3rd generation of RDNA engineering is bringing many of their patents together. So many Game Studios are going to sink in deeper into RDNA, knowing the PC world will have greater depth... and able to showcase their latest tech.

Industry:
AMD's Chiplet design will allow them to offer more performance, for less...

Prediction:
The stock Radeon RX 7900xt ($899) will outperform the stock RTX4080 $1,299 in the just released $1.5 Billion game, Call of Duty/Warzone 2.0. Average joes will be able to use price/performance logic and by springtime, the RTX4090 will become irrelevant in gaming and just a niche creator card.

 

[yRaz]

That's just the way it is. All the most expensive products from AMD, Intel & NVidia are designed to show performance leadership, not value. If AMD had a 4090 competitor they would absolutely release it.

I know the 4090 is the best of the best, but it is far from practical. Case requirements, power requirements, cooling requirements and now we're in the middle of seeing the real cost of "performance at any cost" with the power connectors.

nVidia products always sell but now the tech industry is laughing at them. What would it mean for AMD to have a 4090 competitor? Absurdly large coolers, insane power requirements and the need to upgrade your case and power supply?

People thought the 3090 and 3090ti were ridiculous but the market brushed it off and accepted it. The 4090, not so much. And now nVidia has people up in arms over the 4080 and 4070ti.

These products will all sell out, especially considering that nVidia has said they are going to be releasing them in limited volume. When these cards are out of stock it will create the illusion of higher demand from gamers. All AMD has to do to win this round is keep stock up, prices reasonable and don't melt peoples powersupplies. nVidia is handing AMD the ball on this one.

As a bit of a side note, for a very long time I didn't want to go AMD because I hated their windows drivers. my 1070ti died and I replaced it with a 6700xt and I am happy to say that all of my concerns over AMD drivers and software are now gone. I will probably always prefer nVidia's GUI over AMD's, but it took me maybe 30 minutes to find out where everything is in AMD's software. I still think it looks childish and aimed at gamers with nVidia's software looking more professional. I will say, however, that's a small price to be to be freed from nVidia's nonsense.

 

[Red34jfp]

especially when they consume huge amounts of electricity.

If a gamer can afford a $1600+ GPU paying a little more expensive electricity bill is the least of the problems, especially considering how a gamer won't use at full load their GPU 24/7.

 

[godrilla]

Want To hear a joke? My local Microcenter has 120 4080s in stock muahahaha no one is buying them!

 

[Joseph McBloggs]

"It's no secret that companies strategically pick marketing data to paint their products in the best possible picture. It is, however, an excellent reminder that we consumers need to be diligent in conducting our own research."

I don't see what difference this would make if they kept them in with the current xtx specs, it's not priced anywhere near a 4090, what would the graph show? This 4090 is beating the 7900xtx by 10-15% but costs 60% more, what point would that serve either way?

This is how that would go down,
"Oh great, thanks AMD for showing us a comparison to something completely irrelevant, now can we have the slides comparing it to something priced with a little more common sense that I could buy alternatively for roughly the same money."

Had they had the 4080/4070ti results and removed those, then I would say the comment has some meaning, as that is what people would be looking at for roughly the same money, so its direct competition.

My guess is, as per the rumours, at some point, AMD probably pushed the GPU and RAM, trying to chase some imaginary performance crown at the costs of common sense, but obviously decided against it in the end and most likely didn't update the slides.

 

[hahahanoobs]

So does AMD need a 4090 competitor? In the gamer space, I'm not sure they do, and I'm not sure they would benefit by making one.

The benefit is a higher return on your product in the form of higher margins that could have been used to fund future projects. Being less competitive means less money in the pot. And users. You can't sell what you don't have.

 

[veLa]

Competitor or not, I'm sure it'll be a fine product.

 

[dangh]

If a gamer can afford a $1600+ GPU paying a little more expensive electricity bill is the least of the problems, especially considering how a gamer won't use at full load their GPU 24/7.

I don't think about affording the card, is just about performance for the price. I can easily afford 4090 but I had to choose of go with amd (but I want to see tests first).
And complaining about the power is again not about the price, but work culture and impact on heat dissipation. You might need to strongly crank up your ac to keep with heat. I know that in summer my pc raises temps significantly.

 

[Lionvibez]

I know the 4090 is the best of the best, but it is far from practical. Case requirements, power requirements, cooling requirements and now we're in the middle of seeing the real cost of "performance at any cost" with the power connectors.

nVidia products always sell but now the tech industry is laughing at them. What would it mean for AMD to have a 4090 competitor? Absurdly large coolers, insane power requirements and the need to upgrade your case and power supply?

People thought the 3090 and 3090ti were ridiculous but the market brushed it off and accepted it. The 4090, not so much. And now nVidia has people up in arms over the 4080 and 4070ti.

These products will all sell out, especially considering that nVidia has said they are going to be releasing them in limited volume. When these cards are out of stock it will create the illusion of higher demand from gamers. All AMD has to do to win this round is keep stock up, prices reasonable and don't melt peoples powersupplies. nVidia is handing AMD the ball on this one.

As a bit of a side note, for a very long time I didn't want to go AMD because I hated their windows drivers. my 1070ti died and I replaced it with a 6700xt and I am happy to say that all of my concerns over AMD drivers and software are now gone. I will probably always prefer nVidia's GUI over AMD's, but it took me maybe 30 minutes to find out where everything is in AMD's software. I still think it looks childish and aimed at gamers with nVidia's software looking more professional. I will say, however, that's a small price to be to be freed from nVidia's nonsense.

I'm not surprised that your concerns over the drivers are gone now. Most people I know that still say AMD drivers suck are basing it on stuff they used years ago and nothing current. Also you prefer Nvidia's control panel that looks like its from the windows xp era, which also requires you to use MSI after burner and alot of 3rd party tool for stuff you can do directly in the Adrenaline software?

 

[GoldenGoat]

Unless money is no object for you, then I don't know why you would care who has "the best" card. I'm not in the market for a $1600 gpu so it absolutely does not matter to me who has the "best" card at that price point. I only care who has the best gpu in my price range. But I also don't define best gpu solely by FPS. I also care about power consumption, quality of picture, and other features. Especially when they start using things like fake frames to drive up their numbers.

 

[Irata]

Its weird how unobtainable halo products influence the purchase decision of many.

E-pen.

Insecure people e.g. feel better owning an RTX 3050 (that they paid more for than a 6650 XT) basking in the 3090 Ti‘s glow.
The same kind of person that puts a Ferrari sticker on their entry level Fiat.

 

[Gars]

AMD just admitted that they dont have product to compare with:
- power consumption
- bad power connectors
- PSU 3.0 requirements
- Need frozen room for the idle system
- "TF r you using this more slots anyway?"
- and so on

yeah, the grape is sour, the roses are red and no1 need 4090 to begin with

 

[Nobina]

RTX 4090, being so powerful, makes headlines. All it's issues are then ignored, for the most part.

That is why having "the fastest" card is important. It gets mindshare, puts Nvidia in spotlight making them able to sell overpriced cards that burn your house down.

 

[wiyosaya]

Maybe AMD just does not want to compare itself to a card that explodes into flames.

 

[kiwigraeme]

The benefit is a higher return on your product in the form of higher margins that could have been used to fund future projects. Being less competitive means less money in the pot. And users. You can't sell what you don't have.

They are not selling all over - plus there isn't that many out there - poor value to 4090 - overpriced - folks better off buying a last gen AMD card for under half the cost with some free AA games thrown in .
4080 is good card - but needs to be $300-400 cheaper - People aren't as stupid as you think .
Double hit - as many don't want 4090 as the size , power draw etc is not there style - so those people may move to AMD.
Nvidia need to get a reasonable price 4060 ASAP - or drop 4080 price.

I think many people revaluating how much they want to pay - they realized just wait a few years get a 5060 equaling a 4080 for 40% of cost.

Think a lot of people under lockdown got carried away paying too much.

AMD with RNDAs has the PS5 and XBox1 - now they want market share - when they get more - they will tie their CPUs and GPUs closer to get 5%-20% boosts - but still be good with Intel cpus

 

[Rocky4040]

I'm not surprised that your concerns over the drivers are gone now. Most people I know that still say AMD drivers suck are basing it on stuff they used years ago and nothing current. Also you prefer Nvidia's control panel that looks like its from the windows xp area, which also requires you to use MSI after burner and alot of 3rd party tool for stuff you can do directly in the Adrenaline software?

Yep for sure I've been on AMD cards for quite a while and have had very little issues with them when it comes to drivers. I also had 2 different Nvidia cards in the past and had quite a few issues GTX 580 & GXT 680. But that was a long time ago and just like AMD Nvidia was able to fix the problems.

I find it pretty funny there are people still saying AMD has crappy drivers but also say Nvidia has no issues with their drivers. I have owned both AMD and Nvidia cards and both camps have had their fair share of problems and yet people seem to give Nvidia a pass but bring it up as often as they can how bad AMD drivers are.

Fact I currently own a Vega 64 8GB card which is known to be a problematic GPU guess what it runs every game just fine at good speed and it just works. When I see people complaining about AMD or Nvidia cards and how bad they are I say maybe it's not the GPU's fault your system sucks so bad. It might be configured wrong or hey maybe try dropping that CPU over clock or GPU over clock or maybe install all of your drivers again to make them all up to date. Oh and clean your system for both dust and viruses and spyware. I bet if you do all of this you will find your system is now stable and no more issues.

 

[human7]

If a gamer can afford a $1600+ GPU paying a little more expensive electricity bill is the least of the problems, especially considering how a gamer won't use at full load their GPU 24/7.

Yes, but just because they can, doesn't mean they should, and I don't think we should normalize companies releasing high power parts as the main driver of performance increases. If we do down that road, the power and price will just keep creeping upwards. That's not good for the consumer just so the company can get a few people who are willing to whale on a GPU.

The benefit is a higher return on your product in the form of higher margins that could have been used to fund future projects. Being less competitive means less money in the pot. And users. You can't sell what you don't have.

Normally, you'd be right. But for AMD this generation it's not that simple: the XTX maxes out the die. It doesn't have any cores disabled that AMD can just turn on to make a higher margin product. They would either have to design a whole new chip or incorporate GDDR6X memory + higher clock counts + higher TDP with the existing chip and hope that they can catch up to the 4090. They can't sell what they don't have, but in this case the effort of making that hypothetical 7950 may not be worth it.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Yes, but just because they can, doesn't mean they should, and I don't think we should normalize companies releasing high power parts as the main driver of performance increases. If we do down that road, the power and price will just keep creeping upwards. That's not good for the consumer just so the company can get a few people who are willing to whale on a GPU.


Normally, you'd be right. But for AMD this generation it's not that simple: the XTX maxes out the die. It doesn't have any cores disabled that AMD can just turn on to make a higher margin product. They would either have to design a whole new chip or incorporate GDDR6X memory + higher clock counts + higher TDP with the existing chip and hope that they can catch up to the 4090. They can't sell what they don't have, but in this case the effort of making that hypothetical 7950 may not be worth it.

AMD said to expect 700W GPU's from them soon. They know that is how you get more performance. We haven't even had low power parts long enough to be accustomed to them. lol People are jumping on a trend that doesn't really exist on PC.

As for AMD not being able to compete with 4090, damn right it's gonna hurt their profits and overall sales. Flagships aren't just for show. They are necessary.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Yes, but just because they can, doesn't mean they should, and I don't think we should normalize companies releasing high power parts as the main driver of performance increases. If we do down that road, the power and price will just keep creeping upwards. That's not good for the consumer just so the company can get a few people who are willing to whale on a GPU.

You can still buy 35 watt CPUs and single slot passive GPUs if you want, if you desire the power draw of a system from 1997.

Power draw of parts has been increasing for over 20 years, the limit has always been the node itself, and the size of the dies you can produce. The 4090, people seem to forget, is more efficient in imperical draw then the 3090 ti, unless you screw with it trying to OC, and provides a major improvement in overall performance.

12 years ago, systems normalized the use of 1kw+ power supplies, and 2kW systems that required 220v outlets existed. A modern 4090+13900k system is still below the hexa core i7+ multi GTX 580 systems of yesteryear.

The last thing we should be normalizing right now is what is considered "acceptable" power use. "acceptable" is a highly subjective term (what is considered acceptable? 300w? 200? What if I say 75w should be the limit, and anything over that is a total waste of resources?), and so easily abused, if that wasnt obvious from every regulatory body ever. If you dont want the insane power draw parts, then dont buy them. Nobody is forcing you too and lower draw parts are still widely available, and theyre not going anywhere.