It looks like AMD Big Navi may not be able to take on the RTX 3080 Ti after all
Report claims flagship RDNA 2 graphics card will be launched as an RTX 3080 competitor
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AMD’s flagshipBig Navi RDNA 2graphics card will reportedly offer performance on par with theNvidia RTX GeForce 2080 Ti and will be launched as a rival to the Ampere-basedGeForce RTX 3080.
Although early reports claimed AMD Big Navi would be a “Nvidiakiller”, a new report fromCoretekssuggests Team Red’s next-generation GPUs might not be as powerful as first thought.
AMD has reportedly started to share information about the incoming graphics cards – codenamed Sienna Cichlid – with Add-in Board (AIB) partners, who have claimed the Big Navi GPUs will only be 15% more powerful than Nvidia’s RTX 2080 Ti, and that is in AMD “optimized” titles.
That’s a far cry from early rumors that claimed AMD’s next-generation flagship GPU would offer 50% more performance than the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, and suggests the graphics card will launch as competitor to the GeForce RTX 3080 .
While this news might be disappointing for some, and means Nvidia’s flagship RTX 3080 Ti could have no direct competition, AMD is reportedly planning to price its RDNA 2 flagship to undercut Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 in a bid to offer consumers better value in the high-end market.
The report’s AIB sources also suggest that AMD will have two Big Navi GPUs at launch; likely a premium and a lower-end offering. AMD’s lower-end Navi SKUs will also be competitive with Nvidia’s other RTX 30 offerings, according to the report.
These will reportedly be the only Big Navi GPUs to launch this year, with so-called ‘Navy Flounder’ graphics cards set to arrive the first quarter of 2021 as a mid-range version of the flagship graphics cards.
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The Coreteks report also suggests AMD is planning to reveal its first Big Navi GPUs at an event in early September, with a release planned for October 7. With Nvidia reportedly planning to release its Ampere GPUs on September 17, we wouldn’t be surprised if Team Red was planning a reveal to coincide with Nvidia’s long-awaited launch.
Carly Page is a Freelance journalist, copywriter and editor specialising in Consumer/B2B technology. She has written for a range of titles including Computer Shopper, Expert Reviews, IT Pro, the Metro, PC Pro, TechRadar and Tes.
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