So what would be the point of the Oct 28 event then? Just to announce skus, pricing and availability?
The point of the Oct 28 event is probably what it was always supposed to be: an actual Radeon event. I think this event today was supposed to be about Zen, only. I think Nvidia release and press speculation and of course, the data coming about regarding PS5 and XBox hardware, AMD decided to tease something with hardware that clearly isn't quite ready.
Also, they are certainly facing the same supply issues that everyone else is. I don't think they are muting anything because they are worried about performance or that they won't be able to compete with Nvidia, but that they don't want to go nuts about promising well, physical hardware that they likely have no power to predictably deliver.
It simply makes no rational sense why, at an event like today, if you do show your GPU hardware, you don't show your best. That just isn't what they do.
Meaning, if this is something like a 72CU Big Navi, and they plan/hope to have a full 80CU device, it will probably be limited bin, some quarter or so later after whatever this thing is releases. ...I think that's the only angle for this not being "biggest Navi" They just don't have the supply to make it worth shipping right now, and just can't predict when that will be possible to any economically sound degree.
Still, what they did show looked pretty good and allows much room for optimism--early software, engineering sample Mobo, all sorts of janky engineering stuff that is likely hindering performance to what already looks what, 10-7% of 3080?
That's not bad at all. Consider that the 3090 is just flat out junk considering how preposterously expensive it is, for what you barely gain over 3080. Oh, and both of those cards are kinda broken right now, so AMD is doing all right. They don't need to even think about 3090. It's a bigger piece of garbage than 2080Ti, and Nvidia knows it.
Already getting within spittle distance of 3080 at this point is pretty awesome. Now let's see a price and maybe some actual hint at potential revisions....