Good call.
I think RDNA3 will be the way to go for the next crop, but we will see. I bet the top tier RDNA3 will be pushing power consumption as well, not to 500w, but still higher than what I like..
RDNA2 was builded to compete with nvidia on the same power budget of a 2080ti. They never expected nvidia to move to 350+ watt cards to push performance forwards as there halo cards where designed around 300w. If AMD designed there RDNA2 around 350-500w. The performance would be straight up 50% higher already. This is why i said a while ago when ampere just launched that i didn't had the feeling that the 3090 was there halo card, but that they had a 500w or even higher monster card ready if amd would go that route. Instead they cut the card to the point they felt it was fine and competitive + yields high enough for fighting off AMD.
RDNA2 nvidia had lots of options to fight them.
- lower nm
- more watt
- 30% advantage already with turing over rdna1
- DLSS
So my logical conclusion at rdna2 reveal was, nvidia real struggle will start when RDNA3 starts to hit the market. That card will be a pain in the ass to compete against.
Because:
- No performance advantage
- RDNA3 will focus on high wattage also so no wattage tricks anymore ( big chance RDNA3 has a 500w if not a 600w halo card themselves this time around )
- MCM
- DLSS will probably be required to compete.
It's going to be interesting to see how nvidia is going to compete with this.
If i was nvidia i would do the following if hopper wasn't ready yet.
- increase wattage far above what amd delivers so 600w+
- bake dlss into the card itself so it does it automatically in every game without the need of additional software ( because reviewers )
- Drastically focus on DLSS quality improvement ( we already see this with 2.3, it will probably launch with 3.0 which could basically mean 1080p>4k without quality loss, intel also seems to focus on this ) ( that's 2x performance gain right there ), so only 100% increase in performance left needed which they could create easily.
- focus on features such as av1 ( next gen streaming nvenc ), AI, RT performance and a new form of DLSS maybe that is only possible on that gen card + RTX I/O
- Heavy invest into every game developers that matter, they already do this tho.
- hoping that RDNA3 and AMD do not have a DLSS alternative.
- MCM bootleg design, aka 2 gpu's on 1 card.
RDNA4 can be countered with hopper, as nothing about those cards is known.
I think something along the line of this would be the reality.
This is also why i think my 3080 is a dud of a card specially if amd and nviida drop a ton of v-ram on those cards. the 3080 will practically be a 2060 at that point. I will be selling my 3080 off while the prices are still high for sure once the announcement of the cards happen.Even if that means i will be sitting for a few months if not half a year on a 1650 super, to not have 2080ti price drops happening again ( hope mining prices stay high tho )
however the good thing is high resolution high hz gaming will finally be a thing and 8k will finally be achievable.