Question Speculation: RDNA3 + CDNA2 Architectures Thread

[uzzi38]

Man I have been dying to make this one for a while now.

First rumours for RDNA3 are here so new thread time!

Just going to start off with this one for now: kopite7kimi on Twitter: "@VideoCardz Ah, I mean a simple mcm design with 10240 cores is not enough. Because the lift from RDNA2 to RDNA3 is much bigger than from RDNA1 to RDNA2. We should expect many big improvements in GFX11. 🤔" / Twitter

 

[Aapje]

So now they are re-tweeting the tweet they already put out a while back. How many times are they going to announce an announcement of an announcement of an announcement...

Until they have announced what the announcement of the announcement of the announcement announced, obviously.

 

[Aapje]

Is there any indication which way away from monolithic chips Nvidia will take? They don't intend to keep them monolithic for the coming gens as well, do they?

Kopite has said that next gen will be monolithic, for what that's worth.

 

[jpiniero]

Is there any indication which way away from monolithic chips Nvidia will take? They don't intend to keep them monolithic for the coming gens as well, do they?

The Hopper replacement Blackwell has been rumored to be chiplet based but I think it's too early for gaming cards.

 

[Saylick]

The Hopper replacement Blackwell has been rumored to be chiplet based but I think it's too early for gaming cards.

Hopper Next is likely based on their COPA architecture. Nvidia filed a patent recently for COPA.

Lovelace Next, aka Blackwell, is rumored to be monolithic still. This info came from the Nvidia leak earlier this year, if I remember correctly.

 

[maddie]

Not even sure what you are suggesting here. They don't look at the economy every day and decide whether or not to design products. If you stop designing new product, you are soon dead as a company. You just have to weather the economic downturns like every other company. Stronger companies can increase R&D during tough time to come out further ahead after recessions, than competitors that cut R&D during the tough times.




I didn't see anyone suggest that. NVidia is going to keep selling 20 series, 30 series and keep introducing new 40 series cards.

During a recession the best business to be in, is high end segment, that caters to the wealthiest consumers because they are largely immune from real recession impacts. 4090 sales won't be impacted significantly.

Lower end cards won't cease to exist, they will have lower sales, that is just something everyone will have to contend with.

I also don't expect the recession to lower prices much because then you just get lower margins. You aren't really going to drive low end sales during a recession. For discretionary spending like GPUs, a lot of these lower end sales just won't happen during a recession because people worrying about money for food/fuel/housing aren't going to waste it on a GPU, even if it's a more attractive price. I think it's more likely companies will be looking to limit production where they can, so they are not caught with an oversupply.

They will try. Radeon HD 4870/4850 & 9800 GTX - 2008.

 

[Heartbreaker]

They will try. Radeon HD 4870/4850 & 9800 GTX - 2008.

Ancient history. That AMD has very little in common with Lisa Su's AMD. She maximizes margin at every opportunity.

 

[maddie]

Ancient history. That AMD has very little in common with Lisa Su's AMD. She maximizes margin at every opportunity.

She maximizes margins as a means of maximizing profits. Margins by itself as a goal is not enough. When they were capacity constrained, that was the most rational behavior. When you can produce all you can sell, the tactics necessarily change.

Don't get me wrong, they, all of them, will try to keep margins as high as possible, for as long as possible. I'm not saying that any will choose a price war, just that circumstances will force it upon them. People in general, can fantasize freely, but market forces are irresistible.

 

[RnR_au]

Wouldn't they need to try to gain market share? CUDA still have a strangle hold over the productivity segment of the market. A close friend of mine just won't look at AMD gpu's because stable diffusion art generation is neato to play with.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Don't get me wrong, they, all of them, will try to keep margins as high as possible, for as long as possible. I'm not saying that any will choose a price war, just that circumstances will force it upon them. People in general, can fantasize freely, but market forces are irresistible.

I think the only fantasy here is your wishful thinking about a price war.

We'd all love a price war, but I don't see much chance of that. We see significant evidence that NVidia is almost immune to lower priced AMD cards, so there is nothing to gain in AMD lowering prices, except lowering their own margins.

See this post:

Page 97 - Question - are video card prices headed down yet?

Page 97 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

AMD already consistently has much better pricing than NVidia, and NVidia just keeps outselling them anyway.

 

[amenx]

AMD already consistently has much better pricing than NVidia, and NVidia just keeps outselling them anyway.

That may have been the case before, but now things look a bit different. Nvidia imo have scored an own goal with a sub-spec'd mid-range card (192-bit 12gb) pretending to be a higher end offering @ $900. Imagine where the cards below it will end up! AMD has a chance to attack NV's redefining of the mid-range segment with proper strategy. Pretty sure those people who "always buy Nvidia" (such as myself) will jump ship pretty easily (I will) if AMD handle it properly.

I remember the 4850/4870 cards AMD released back in the day. These cards caused Nvidia to drop the pricing of their newly launched cards GTX 260/280 by a massive 30-60% just 3 weeks after they were released! Sure Lisa Su was not there at the time, but also pretty sure she and others are aware of it and how easily it disrupted Nvidias plans at the time. This could be their moment to make significant inroads in market share and it should look tempting to them.

 

[biostud]

The question is how many 68xx and 69xx cards AMDs partners have in stock compared to nvidias 3080/3090. If not too many, they can price aggressively, otherwise they too will hurt the profits of the current generation.

 

[biostud]

nm

 

[Timorous]

She maximizes margins as a means of maximizing profits. Margins by itself as a goal is not enough. When they were capacity constrained, that was the most rational behavior. When you can produce all you can sell, the tactics necessarily change.

Don't get me wrong, they, all of them, will try to keep margins as high as possible, for as long as possible. I'm not saying that any will choose a price war, just that circumstances will force it upon them. People in general, can fantasize freely, but market forces are irresistible.

AMD will price at a level that is good for their production and supply. If they go too cheap demand will be too high and then scalpers / retailers will eat up the price gap. If AMD go too expensive then demand will be too low and wholesales will not be high enough.

I expect that with the capacity they have ordered combined with their lower BOMS AMD have an opportunity to price their parts aggressively vs NV while actually maintaining or even increasing the BOM.

Take N33 for example. Entirely possible AMD could sell that as a 7600XT in the $350-450 range depending on final performance and at that price the margin will be higher because the cost of N33 is lower than N23 given it is a smaller die on a cheaper node and the rest of the card is the same (bar memory speed probably). It is even drop in compatible for laptop OEMs so any N23 designs they have can work with N33 saving them money.

By my estimation it should be in the region of 90% 4080 12GB performance at 1080p and 1440p and at something like $400 that would be a relative steal vs the $900 4080 12GB. So here AMD can increase margin and be very very aggressive on perf/$.

 

[maddie]

AMD will price at a level that is good for their production and supply. If they go too cheap demand will be too high and then scalpers / retailers will eat up the price gap. If AMD go too expensive then demand will be too low and wholesales will not be high enough.

I expect that with the capacity they have ordered combined with their lower BOMS AMD have an opportunity to price their parts aggressively vs NV while actually maintaining or even increasing the BOM.

Take N33 for example. Entirely possible AMD could sell that as a 7600XT in the $350-450 range depending on final performance and at that price the margin will be higher because the cost of N33 is lower than N23 given it is a smaller die on a cheaper node and the rest of the card is the same (bar memory speed probably). It is even drop in compatible for laptop OEMs so any N23 designs they have can work with N33 saving them money.

By my estimation it should be in the region of 90% 4080 12GB performance at 1080p and 1440p and at something like $400 that would be a relative steal vs the $900 4080 12GB. So here AMD can increase margin and be very very aggressive on perf/$.

I agree, but think it will go further as who here believes NVIDIA will passively allow AMD taking a lot of marketshare in any segment.

 

[biostud]

I agree, but think it will go further as who here believes NVIDIA will passively allow AMD taking a lot of marketshare in any segment.

Or AMD could simply want to increase their margins and sell it for $499-549

 

[Timorous]

Or AMD could simply want to increase their margins and sell it for $499-549

They will probably try and optimise the volume/margin curve to maximise profit.

Sure they could sell fewer at that price and make more margin but if that means they have less demand than supply then there are opportunities to have even more profit even if the margin is worse.

 

[Heartbreaker]

I agree, but think it will go further as who here believes NVIDIA will passively allow AMD taking a lot of marketshare in any segment.

The point is, AMD having lower prices isn't enough to take a lot of market share. Remember this slide. These are real world prices:

https://www.techpowerup.com/img/WzJaU3fQc5LcBrZp.jpg

There are ridiculous perf/$ advantages for AMD in there.

Now look at the Amazon best seller list.

Amazon Best Sellers: Best Computer Graphics Cards

Discover the best Computer Graphics Cards in Best Sellers. Find the top 100 most popular items in Amazon Computers & Accessories Best Sellers.

www.amazon.com

Do you see the problem yet? There is a VAST disconnect between AMD's price advantage and sales.

As far as the 4000 series: From the arguing I've done against DLSS 3, frame interpolation and push back I've gotten (here and on another forum), there is a segment that already believe NVidia marketing, and think DLSS 3 frame generation is good enough to be considered the real frame rate. Even if there are issue today, they think all the artifacts and latency issue will just be cleared up in a software update, and it will be a free performance doubling. This is going to be another thing NVidia can market to the gullible.

So lets focus on the worse of NVidia's announced cards. The 4080 12GB at $900. What price point do you think AMD needs to target this card with, to take a lot of market share?

 

[Joe NYC]

Or AMD could simply want to increase their margins and sell it for $499-549

One thing to keep in mind is that all of these companies made commitments to TSMC. They have to take certain number of wafers.

So selling small number of cards at high price does not necessarily increase margins, because the company already ordered (and has to pay for) wafers for large number of cards.

 

[Joe NYC]

The point is, AMD having lower prices isn't enough to take a lot of market share. Remember this slide. These are real world prices:

https://www.techpowerup.com/img/WzJaU3fQc5LcBrZp.jpg

There are ridiculous perf/$ advantages for AMD in there.

Now look at the Amazon best seller list.

Amazon Best Sellers: Best Computer Graphics Cards

Discover the best Computer Graphics Cards in Best Sellers. Find the top 100 most popular items in Amazon Computers & Accessories Best Sellers.

www.amazon.com

Do you see the problem yet? There is a VAST disconnect between AMD's price advantage and sales.

As far as the 4000 series: From the arguing I've done against DLSS 3, frame interpolation and push back I've gotten (here and on another forum), there is a segment that already believe NVidia marketing, and think DLSS 3 frame generation is good enough to be considered the real frame rate. Even if there are issue today, they think all the artifacts and latency issue will just be cleared up in a software update, and it will be a free performance doubling. This is going to be another thing NVidia can market to the gullible.

So lets focus on the worse of NVidia's announced cards. The 4080 12GB at $900. What price point do you think AMD needs to target this card with, to take a lot of market share?

This best seller list seems to be incorrect. Why would 4090 at $2999 be #2 on the top seller list?

 

[Dribble]

AMD will charge as much as they can possibly get away with to maximise profits, if they didn't their investors would not be happy. The only way we get cheap AMD cards is if they lack features and/or performance in key areas.

 

[Heartbreaker]

This best seller list seems to be incorrect. Why would 4090 at $2999 be #2 on the top seller list?

Because that's the new hot thing, and all the wealthy nerds are running to buy them. Anywhere I look right now, the only ones I see in stock are ~$3000 scalper stores...

 

[Joe NYC]

Because that's the new hot thing, and all the wealthy nerds are running to buy them.

Why would you no try to get the cards close to MSRP, and pay double instead, especially in current market?

 

[amrnuke]

Why would you no try to get the cards close to MSRP, and pay double instead, especially in current market?

Just because the current asking price on Amazon is $3000, doesn't mean that 4090s sold and contributing to the spot on the list were all sold at that price.

 

[maddie]

The point is, AMD having lower prices isn't enough to take a lot of market share. Remember this slide. These are real world prices:

https://www.techpowerup.com/img/WzJaU3fQc5LcBrZp.jpg

There are ridiculous perf/$ advantages for AMD in there.

Now look at the Amazon best seller list.

Amazon Best Sellers: Best Computer Graphics Cards

Discover the best Computer Graphics Cards in Best Sellers. Find the top 100 most popular items in Amazon Computers & Accessories Best Sellers.

www.amazon.com

Do you see the problem yet? There is a VAST disconnect between AMD's price advantage and sales.

As far as the 4000 series: From the arguing I've done against DLSS 3, frame interpolation and push back I've gotten (here and on another forum), there is a segment that already believe NVidia marketing, and think DLSS 3 frame generation is good enough to be considered the real frame rate. Even if there are issue today, they think all the artifacts and latency issue will just be cleared up in a software update, and it will be a free performance doubling. This is going to be another thing NVidia can market to the gullible.

So lets focus on the worse of NVidia's announced cards. The 4080 12GB at $900. What price point do you think AMD needs to target this card with, to take a lot of market share?

Maybe this is an alien world to you, but a LOT more individuals worldwide are going to be, if not already, experiencing financial problems, as in not being able to afford their dreams. They are the ones that will budget aggressively.

If I had the money, I would really, really want X, Y, Z, but I guess I have to settle for this. Better than nothing after all.

 

[maddie]

This best seller list seems to be incorrect. Why would 4090 at $2999 be #2 on the top seller list?

Because overall sales are collapsing.

Joke.