It is quite clear from every video and Reddit post about the AMD RX 7000-series that consumers are anticipating NVIDIA struggling to match the price/performance offered by the RDNA 3 GPUs from Team Red. Comments sections are lighting up discussing the abilities of even the non-XT graphics cards, and allowing AMD to think that maybe - just maybe - they will come out on top in what could be the most hyped Christmas and Black Friday yet.
NVIDIA vs AMD: The Leak War
It seems that just about every other day we are hearing vague and wholly unsubstantiated claims about either NVIDIA or AMD, but with each day passing we get a little closer to an official announcement of their line-up. The hype train has been fully-fuelled and left the station at lightning speed, with photos and spec sheets littering Twitter, YouTube and Reddit. The lack of information from either manufacturer is nothing new.
PC gamers have been here before, though. Hype and curiously timely leaks are nothing new to the industry. There are just as many standing on the platform waiting as there are boarding the runaway hype train, with nobody truly knowing if they are making a stop at Dissapointmentville or Vindication Central. Now that I think of it, both of those could be actual locations in the Fallout series.
When, and only when, NVIDIA and AMD are ready to offer us some morsels of news, will we - the pragmatic few - start to believe the hype.
AMD RDNA 3 RX 7000 Leaked Specs, Price, & Release Date
YouTuber, Graphically Challenged, recently revealed a round-up of the current leaks and rumours, and - rather than just talking about the advent of the RTX 40-series and RDNA 3 AMD GPUs, he slipped in a very interesting point about the first ATX 3.0 PSUs. These are the same PSUs we heard about from MSI, capable of delivering 600 watts to a graphics card from a 1300-watt PSU using a new 12+4-pin rail. These PSUs, of course, have PCIe 5.0 graphics cards in mind, and are a refresh on technology that hasn't had an overhaul since 2003.
The rest of the leak roundup looked like this:
Whilst these are very tentative dates, due to the sources not being official, there is some "credence" lent to the RTX releases thanks to the infamous NVIDIA data theft and subsequent leak.
Out of the thick hyperbole fog, one Graphically Challenged video sparked an interesting conversation. This video was published back in March 2022, and discussed AMD's RDNA 3 architecture, the RX 7000 and the current state of leaked specs, pricing and various rumours of the actual release date. In the comments section, however, the topic of price/performance was the most debated.
YouTube user George Vangelas said "Price/performance of the 7700 is the most exciting part of the lineup. Relative performance per dollar has been moving steadily upwards since the Nvidia 9xx series. Time to bring things back down to earth in the mainstream sector."
This is where the line between leak and reality blur, because we do know that AMD are heavily focused on price versus performance in all of their products. Frank Azor, AMD's Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions and Marketing, published an interesting tweet back in May 2022, saying "As a longtime gamer I’m grateful for the renewed competition in high-end graphics, we all win from it. As an AMD employee I’m super proud of what our Radeon team has accomplished" Attached to the tweet was a slide detailing just how competitive AMD can be when it comes to value for money, and why Radeon was up to 89% better (price/performance) against NVIDIA:
This was then, however, and now you would expect things to be vastly different, given the price drops from NVIDIA across their 30-series.
The AMD RX 6950 XT vs. RTX 3090 (in May 2022) showed 80% more FPS/$ (frames per second per dollar spent) and 22% better FPS per Watt. In a more up to date comparison dated August 2022, we see the following:
With just 11% more FPS per £GBP spent, AMD are still ahead - and one might think this is a concern for NVIDIA, who have made significant discounts on their hardware in preparation of the RTX 40-series launch and the lack of crypto mining interest in their GPUs (which we predicted back in December 2021). The launch of Intel Arc desktop graphics cards in the USA will muddy the waters further, considering the Alchemist and Battlemage GPUs are literally tipped to offer the best price/performance in the industry.
Back to the leaks, and our intrepid YouTube commenters, and it would not come as any surprise if the RX 7000 series are better in terms of performance per hard-earned pound spent. Responding to user George Vangelas, John Brackett II said:
"...don't go for less than the best for you is what I've learned, but I have a custom water cooled NVIDIA RTX 3080 / Ryzen 7 5800x, and unless I just have the money to spend at the time I will skip. This is all exciting, but I'm playing any game I want at 4k and sometimes I think youtubers forget not everyone has it like that but it's there viewers and there money maker to stoke the flames of exciting new technology.
The strong attraction to the great value RTX 30-series right now is the value for money, with extra features like Ray Tracing - so when consumers hear other gamers are playing any game at 4K with an RTX 3080, it will certainly be food for thought in terms of upgrading to the new GPUs. Why upgrade when you can stick with current gen - and be satisfied at 4K?
If consumers are weighing up the advantages of buying an AMD RX 7000-series graphics card, however, the choice is not a simple one. With AMD's clear focus on delivering value for money, the new GPUs just might be more attractive to gamers. If Team Red stay true to their loyal customers, it will pay dividends in the GPU war that is now, thankfully, just around the corner.
