Support NeoGAF

[Buggy Loop]

AMD's next-gen flagship UDNA Radeon GPU won't be as powerful as the GeForce RTX 5090

AMD is set to return to the high-end enthusiast GPU market with its next-gen unified UDNA architecture, however it could still fall short of the RTX 5090.

www.tweaktown.com

« They aren't making a big enough GPU," a new comment by an industry insider and known GeForce and Radeon leaker @Kepler_L2 over on X. Referencing AMD's next-next-gen UDNA architecture, which will unify the company's data center and gaming GPU hardware, AMD is reportedly to release a new flagship high-end enthusiast Radeon GPU in 2026 »

Didn’t think AMD would stay mid range 2 gens but even less that it’s not setting out to beat so-so gen to gen 5090.

 

[RagnarokIV]

Mid range is the place to be. We need good pricing and specs in the x70 class.

If you’re going to spend the big bucks, 1.5 or 2k on a GPU then you’re never going to go for AMD anyway. They’re the poor man’s GPU even as a flagship and everyone knows that. Trust me, I owned a 7900XTX.

Going flagship for AMD is like buying a Porsche Boxster.

 

[rm082e]

I don't think anyone was expecting them to beat the 5090 with the first product in a new line. If they were, they're ill informed.

What would be nice to see is AMD eventually offer a card can match the 4090, with more than 16GB of VRAM, for $1k or less. If they can do that in the next two years, that will be interesting to a lot of gamers. It would give some competition to the 5080.

 

[Kilau]

That’s why I’m buying a PS7 Pro on Thursday.

 

[OverHeat]

Halo product or bust plebs!

 

[Schmendrick]

Besides the 5090 nothing will beat the 4090 this gen either and I'd not bet on anything but the 6090 beating the 5090.... Depending on TSMCs node progress even the 4090 might still be among the high end performers then....
The xx90 series have gone completely off the charts concerning budget and power.
So.... Not exactly hard to see AMD simply ignoring those.

 

[IntentionalPun]

AMD announced they weren't going to release high end GPU's anymore...

 

[Puscifer]

Mid range is the place to be. We need good pricing and specs in the x70 class.

If you’re going to spend the big bucks, 1.5 or 2k on a GPU then you’re never going to go for AMD anyway. They’re the poor man’s GPU even as a flagship and everyone knows that. Trust me, I owned a 7900XTX.

Going flagship for AMD is like buying a Porsche Boxster.

Still makes me sad this is the AMD that wrecked Nvidia with the 7000 series. 7950/7970 GHz editions are still the best GPUs ever released IMO

 

[TheRedRiders]

It seems like AMD is giving up competing in the high end, for now anyway. I don't know enough about their vague business strategies to correctly speculate as to why they're doing that but I do think the R&D and technical challenge of doing it would be immense and even then they know they'll still come second to Nvidia,

AMD tend to care more about profits these days and less so about being competitive. It also seems like they're giving up on their MCM strategy when it comes to GPU and we had people shitting on Nvidia saying their monolithic design strategy would age poorly because MCM was the way forward. Oh... how the tables have turned.

Regardless, if they can offer excellent bang for buck in the low to mid-range then they'll always have a place in the market, even more so now with RDNA 4 which allows AMD's core feature set come closer Nvidia (took them seven years christ), more specifically in machine learning especially for upsampling and of course ray-tracing. I think there's also more pressure on them now as it seems like both Sony and Microsoft will want their next-gen console chips heavily focused on machine learning.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

This has been known for like a year or more

They can still make a splash if they handle the price right.

 

[//DEVIL//]

On the positive side, this kind of forces the developers to do more optimization so that their games run better on these mid-range cards.
the negative side is Nvidia is playing alone and we are getting 2000+ for a gaming GPU.


and unless the 5090 flop (I don't see it happening if gamers are not buying, companies will ), we are going to get screwed as gamers.

there is no winning here really.


with that being said. AMD really does suck when it comes to the GPU market. How did intel lose so badly in the CPU is baffling.

 

[G-DannY]

what a news

 

[Gaiff]

AMD announced they weren't going to release high end GPU's anymore...

This has been known for like a year or more

They can still make a splash if they handle the price right.

what a news

This was known for RDNA4. UDNA was still up in the air. AMD sometimes bowed up of competing in the top tier such as with RDNA, but they came back with RDNA2 and presumably tried with 3, only to give up on 4 and UDNA as well. Maybe they will try again after.

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

You only need CHAD gpu's to make up frames for you...they will do all that at the data centers.

You need very little GPU to stream games and a mid tier card to play the old ones.

All problems have been solved and of course:

(im trying to buy 5 of the 5090's in a few days...I am 100% part of the problem)

 

[LiquidMetal14]

This was known for RDNA4. UDNA was still up in the air. AMD sometimes bowed up of competing in the top tier such as with RDNA, but they came back with RDNA2 and presumably tried with 3, only to give up on 4 and UDNA as well. Maybe they will try again after.

Good point

 

[SplunkyMunkey]

I reckon amd is waiting for that moment in there R&D department to make a GPU that can keep up with a 4090 or 5090 with less power and tdp just like there CPU's that still beats intel even with less cores much of the time

 

[JohnnyFootball]

I am legit hoping that the 9070XT is priced at $500, offers 7900XT rast performance and has significantly improved ray tracing and upscaling.

I want to replace my 7800XT in my Bazzite home theater STeamOS PC after I decided not to try and get a 5090.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Mid range is the place to be. We need good pricing and specs in the x70 class.

If you’re going to spend the big bucks, 1.5 or 2k on a GPU then you’re never going to go for AMD anyway. They’re the poor man’s GPU even as a flagship and everyone knows that. Trust me, I owned a 7900XTX.

Going flagship for AMD is like buying a Porsche Boxster.

Mid range is fine but with how little 5090 got gen to gen, I'm expecting their 9070 series to not be too shabby against 5070 / 5070 Ti

So for their mid range next gen with huge architecture uplift to not pass 5090 sounds like insanity to me.

I'm pretty sure the leaker is missing a piece of the puzzle

Is he looking only at the GCD size out of an MCM architecture?

 

[LavitzSlambert]

I would imagine a return to the high end would make sense, but not a return to the "stupid high" end that is the xx90 series.

 

[ReBurn]

Did it really take a leaker to say it? AMD never really goes after the Nvidia flagship spec. The best we can hope for is price is commensurate with performance.

 

[StereoVsn]

Mid range is fine but with how little 5090 got gen to gen, I'm expecting their 9070 series to not be too shabby against 5070 / 5070 Ti

So for their mid range next gen with huge architecture uplift to not pass 5090 sounds like insanity to me.

I'm pretty sure the leaker is missing a piece of the puzzle

Is he looking only at the GCD size out of an MCM architecture?

The issue is that latest price rumors suck and AMD is going to be close in pricing to Nvidia.

Which means nobody will buy AMD once again unless you want to game on Linux.

 

[phant0m]

On the positive side, this kind of forces the developers to do more optimization so that their games run better on these mid-range cards.
the negative side is Nvidia is playing alone and we are getting 2000+ for a gaming GPU.

How did intel lose so badly in the CPU is baffling.

this tbh. optimization is so poor generally speaking these days. UE5 deserves a lot of the blame but it's not all the engine's fault.

it's too bad iD doesn't license out idtech. Doom Eternal looks fantastic and the game absolutely rips frames. Indy runs really well too.

 

[grvg]

AMDs GPU division never misses an opportunity to point a loaded 12 gauge at their foot and pull the trigger. Ever.

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

The issue is that latest price rumors suck and AMD is going to be close in pricing to Nvidia.

Which means nobody will buy AMD once again unless you want to game on Linux.

If the new steam OS has the same hardware support as the current version I will happily grab a new amd card, but if they want the cash they have to bring the features.

The amount of use my steam box has gotten hooked up to a crusty old 1080p tv with 3d support is insane. It has all of the positives of steam with none of the windows bloat (admittedly I limit to 1080p or 1440p play at the very most) but even now with "community support" the latest version of HoloISO is fantastic and has allowed me to get some of my friends kids into pc gaming on the VERY cheap for sure.

 

[Buggy Loop]

The issue is that latest price rumors suck and AMD is going to be close in pricing to Nvidia.

Which means nobody will buy AMD once again unless you want to game on Linux.

I still don't want to believe that rumor

if they price it as rumored, then I hope they were seriously sandbagging performances in previous rumors and it performs way better than expected.

 

[RoboFu]

They literally been saying that themselves for a year now.

And they shouldn't . A 2k gpu is ridiculous.

 

[Hot5pur]

It would be silly to compete with a $2K GPU, like why?
The problem is AMD just needs to cement itself as having the more reliable drivers/performance per watt, otherwise if they try to undercut Nvidia, Nvidia will just drop their prices and people will buy Nvidia.
AMD needs to be a more trusted name in gaming, which you would think should have happened since they're kicking ass with all these mobile/console chips

 

[Buggy Loop]

They literally been saying that themselves for a year now.

And they shouldn't . A 2k gpu is ridiculous.

RDNA 4 was known

I don't think anyone knew for UDNA. Well if they did, I sure as hell didn't see it.

 

[Haint]

They literally been saying that themselves for a year now.

And they shouldn't . A 2k gpu is ridiculous.

Based on Steam metrics, the 4090 by itself generated significantly more profit and revenue than AMD's entire 7000 lineup, and the 7900XTX was by far their most popular and highest selling 7000 series card. This data seems to suggest their niche was dirt cheap low end stuff, and high end competitors at a cheaper price. Literally nobody was interested in their $550-$700 mid range shit, which stand as their least successful products by far. On the face of it, going whole hog into mid-high expense XX70 competitors is literally the dumbest thing they could do.

 

[FingerBang]

Based on Steam metrics, the 4090 by itself generated significantly more profit and revenue than AMD's entire 7000 lineup, and the 7900XTX was by far their most popular and highest selling 7000 series card. This data seems to suggest their niche was dirt cheap low end stuff, and high end competitors at a cheaper price. Literally nobody was interested in their $550-$700 mid range shit, which stand as their least successful products by far. On the face of it, going whole hog into mid-high expense XX70 competitors is literally the dumbest thing they could do.

But the 7900xtx wasn't a 4090 competitor either. AMD not going for the xx90 killer doesn't mean it won't have a flagship card.

It's been like this for a while. AMD has rarely competed with Titans, Tis etc. The only generation they did compete all the way to the top was the 6000 series.

If AMD can bring back sanity to the sub-$1000 market, they're welcome.

 

[SweetTooth]

Didn't AMD state that they will focus on midrange?

 

[SolidQ]

If AMD can bring back sanity to the sub-$1000 market, they're welcome.

That their target for now. up 1k$ market.
at least would be fine like 5090 -10% for 1k

 

[FingerBang]

Didn't AMD state that they will focus on midrange?

For RDNA4. People are confusing the two things:

For RDNA4, they decided they would only focus on the midrange.

For UDNA, the new architecture coming in a couple of years will unify their gaming and professional products (so they make the same chip that can go in different cards). They never said the above and are expected to be competitive again. However, as others have noticed, AMD might not even offer a flagship gaming card like the 4090 and 5090, probably because that card would be stupidly expensive to make, and not many would buy it since it doesn't say Nvidia on it. That doesn't mean they won't have something in the xx80 range. Their 6000 and 7000 series did not have a chip like the one in the 4090 and still managed to offer a lot at the top end.

 

[kevboard]

so AMD will release a line of GPUs in 2027 which won't be able to beat Nvidia's 2025 flagship?

damn...
I really wonder if they just fully gave up on high end GPUs, or if they actually can't keep up and are forced to only compete in the mid range bracket.

 

[Hudo]

The thing they need to compete on is CUDA. It doesn't matter how good their GPUs are if their software stack isn't there. And it isn't. ROCm and OpenCL are, unfortunately, not able to compete.

 

[SolidQ]

because that card would be stupidly expensive to make

top RDNA4 was like 2.5-3k gpu

 

[squidilix]

.

 

[Xyphie]

If it can't beat 5090 it's likely a 384-bit GDDR7 chip at the high-end, as even with much faster future GDDR7 chips that won't reach the bandwidth of a 5090. So probably should land somewhere in-between 5080 and 5090, similar to some future 5080 Ti with a further binned <512-bit GB202 (~128SM or so).

 

[The Skull]

They need mindshare. A great value midrange card with FSR4 looking to finally compete with DLSS, or at the very least be usable, is how they'll get that. Last time they had a good value offer was the RX480 and 5700XT.

 

[SolidQ]

it's likely a 384-bit GDDR7 chip at the high-end

That was also Navi4C

 

[Elog]

The key metric to look at for AMD is how successful they are in transferring the chiplet technology to GPUs. If that works they will break the current cost cycle in the same way as they have done for CPUs vis-a-vis Intel. That would - on paper - allow very competitive pricing compared to Nvidia/Intel.

It has obviously been much more tricky on the GPU side than for CPUs due to the latency increase. We will see.

 

[DeepEnigma]

 

[FingerBang]

The key metric to look at for AMD is how successful they are in transferring the chiplet technology to GPUs. If that works they will break the current cost cycle in the same way as they have done for CPUs vis-a-vis Intel. That would - on paper - allow very competitive pricing compared to Nvidia/Intel.

It has obviously been much more tricky on the GPU side than for CPUs due to the latency increase. We will see.

Yeah, RDNA3 was chiplet based and it didn't help them much, to the point they canceled their top-end RDNA4 because of it. I think their failure is the reason we're getting a pretty disappointing generation this time

 

[RoboFu]

AMD really needs to beat the 5070 and at a better price. If they can do that then they are back in the game big time. but Nvidia knows this and has priced the 5070 very aggressively. I am almost 99% sure that is what caused the 9070 delay.

 

[Wolzard]

With the unified architecture, AMD will already make the cuts in silicon to the Datacenter GPUs. They just wouldn't make a top-of-the-line gpus if they didn't want to. Or keep this imbecile mindset of excluding GPUs from Rocm Support.

 

[MikeM]

Lisa Su doesn’t want big chips taking wafers from AI/Servers.