AMD has done a stellar job of keeping its upcoming Radeon RX 7000 graphics cards under wraps. The only concrete information available talks about the specs of the Navi 31, Navi 32 and Navi 33 GPUs but nothing about the graphics cards they'll power. Prolific AMD leaker Greymon55 now has some fresh information about RDNA 3, and it comes as a breath of fresh air for Team Red fans.
Greymon says AIBs have already begun testing RDNA 3-powered graphics cards in their labs. The flagship Navi 31 GPU is reportedly about 2X faster than Navi 21 in rasterization. Raytracing performance improvements are stellar at "more than 2X" times that of its previous-generation counterpart. Unfortunately, the leaker's source didn't specify if the Navi 21 graphics card in question was the Radeon RX 6900 XT or the RX 6950 XT.
Greymon adds that the Radeon RX 7000 series will be power-efficient by calling the reference board's TBP "amazing". Recent rumours suggested that AMD will continue to use the traditional three-PCIe power PIN design on its high-end graphics cards and restrict the maximum wattage to 450 W. Exactly how AMD plans to do that while targeting a supposed 4.0 GHz boost clock remains to be seen.
While AMD is all set to win the power-efficiency crown this generation, an earlier leak said it might not be able to hold a candle to Ada Lovelace in terms of raw performance. It shouldn't matter as long as AMD prices the SKUs right. Even a US$999 price tag for the Radeon RX 7900 will be deemed acceptable in the face of the GeForce RTX 4080 and RTX 4090.
Unfortunately, 2022 has little in store for people on a strict budget because the only current-generation graphics cards up for grabs by the year's end will be the Radeon RX 7900 XT, Radeon RX 7800 XT, GeForce RTX 4090 and GeForce RTX 4080. Alternatively, one could buy the heavily discounted previous-gen models which are now available with hefty discounts.