Both AMD and Nvidia make some of the best graphics cards, which naturally, puts both of these companies in a position where they are always in competition. However, this is not any old rivalry. AMD continues to be in a weak position and Nvidia is the market leader who somehow always remains on top.
But is Nvidia really the one that AMD is competing with? no not really. In fact, the toughest competition for AMD’s RDNA 3 graphics cards comes from AMD itself. That’s why this is bad news for GPU makers.
A jump, not a jump
You know how people sometimes use the term “generational leap” to refer to a huge performance boost from one generation of hardware to the next? Well, for some of AMD’s RDNA 3 lineup, it would be more appropriate to call it a skip. This certainly isn’t a huge leap, and that becomes more and more true as we go down the list of AMD’s current-gen cards.
Looking at our own testing of the RX 7900 The RX 7900 XT ends up being about 14% faster than the RX 6950 XT, while the RX 7900 XTX comes in with a 26% lead.
This isn’t like Nvidia’s RTX 4090, which delivered a performance boost of up to 68% compared to the RTX 3090 Ti, and a whopping 89% boost compared to the RTX 3090. The RTX 4080, although less impressive, still has AMD in the lead with a 42% lead. Over RTX 3080 Ti.
If that 14% to 26% gain seems mild by comparison, the RX 7800 XT won’t let you down either. Depending on the title, the GPU is about 5% to 10% faster than the RX 6800 XT. However, it is still much better than Nvidia’s offering at the same price range. The RTX 4060 Ti 16GB comes with the same list price, but its performance is disappointing, partly due to the narrow memory bus. Sure, there are games where it’s faster than the RTX 3060 Ti, but there are also games where it’s really slow. This is one of the worst GPUs in this entire generation.
The 7700 XT actually offers more performance than its predecessor, the RX 6700 XT, beating the RDNA 2 card by about 22%. However, it lags behind Nvidia’s RTX 4070, which is 35% faster than the 3070 Ti at 4K.
Finally, we got the RX 7600, which is actually one of the top GPUs for 1080p gaming at the moment. It’s certainly a better offering than its Nvidia counterpart, but it’s let down by its last-generation cards, the RX 6600 and RX 6600 XT. Although it is faster by between 30% and 12%, it comes at a very similar price.
It’s fairly clear that AMD’s biggest gen-to-gen gains come from its most budget-friendly GPUs. AMD isn’t really competing at the high end these days, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s clear that the generational leap hasn’t happened between RDNA 2 and RDNA 3.
Some of Nvidia’s GPUs suffer from the same problem, with lower-end and midrange cards not providing the kind of juice you’d expect for the price. However, Nvidia has an edge over AMD – its last generation cards are no longer worth buying.
In the case of AMD, it is quite the opposite.
price does not always increase
If you only consider performance, there would be no reason not to choose RDNA 3 over RDNA 2. Sure, the benefits may be small, but they are still benefits. You might even get some extra frames from your new GPU, right? Except that it’s not that simple, because the price also has to be taken into account.
There are still plenty of RDNA 2 graphics cards left in stock, and there’s nothing wrong with them. From the RX 6600 to the RX 6950 XT, there are plenty of options to explore for more budget-conscious PC builders. Even the high-end RX 6950 XT costs only
And it’s readily available at various retailers and delivers solid 4K performance in AAA games as long as ray tracing isn’t a factor.
When it comes to cards like the RX 6600, RX 6600 XT, and RX 6650 XT, the scale tilts in favor of the current generation RX 7600. All of these GPUs range from $210 to $250 after price cuts, and the RX 7600 is the best of them all, though not by a huge margin. Spending just $70 extra gets you the RX 6700 XT, which is a notable upgrade over the 7600.
As we climb the ladder, buying RDNA 3 makes less and less sense.
Given that there is little profit between the 7800 XT and the 6800, and the cost of the latter is simply
, more budget-oriented PC builds may benefit from going with the last generation cards. The RX 6800 XT is priced the same as the 7800 XT, although – to AMD’s credit – it launched at $650.
The real problem for AMD’s lineup are the RX 6900 XT and RX 6950 XT, which are priced
And
, respectively. Both of those cards are faster than the 7800 XT, and there isn’t a huge difference in price.
When it comes to the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT, they’re both in a tough spot. They’re certainly faster than their previous-generation counterparts, but is it worth the $200 to $400 increase? For most people, it isn’t.
Those building a new PC in 2023 or purchasing a pre-built PC may often choose RDNA 3, but with prices the way they are, RDNA 2 remains a popular choice. And if you already have an RDNA 2 GPU, there’s no reason to upgrade.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for AMD. After all, whether sales are up to the RX 6950 XT or 7900 XTX, it’s a net profit for Team Red. Nevertheless, it’s still missing out on the potential sales that Nvidia could be driving due to those generational leaps.
RDNA 2 or RDNA 3? it’s almost the same thing
AMD’s latest GPUs are powerful, and in many cases, they deliver solid performance per dollar compared to the extremely expensive Nvidia offerings. However, when you only take AMD into the equation, there aren’t that many reasons to switch from RDNA 2 to RDNA 3.
Performance, while better, isn’t going to make or break your game. AMD has also mostly kept the same amount of memory on each card, so the recent uproar over VRAM in games isn’t a factor here either. RX 7900 These graphics cards are an improvement, but they face a lot of competition from their previous generation siblings.
RDNA 3 has something special that it lacks that leads gamers to choose it instead of Nvidia, and more importantly, instead of RDNA 2. While I would still recommend the RX 7800 XT as one of the best GPUs in terms of value, I’m not. Going to tell you to upgrade your RX 6700 XT. There is no need for this.
Nvidia beats AMD here, and it’s not just because of these gen-to-gen improvements. This is also due to DLSS 3, which generates entire frames instead of pixels and may lead the RTX 4070 to outperform the RTX 4090 in gaming scenarios. More importantly, it’s only available in RTX 40-series graphics cards, and I’m sure Nvidia is only making bank on DLSS 3. GPUs no longer need to be as impressive when they can be artificially enhanced to look better than they actually are.
AMD has FSR 2.0 and even FSR 3.0, but it’s not locked to a specific generation of cards. This is good for AMD, but it gives little incentive to upgrade, which means it’s shooting itself in the foot here. RDNA 3 comes with a few other upgrades, like support for AV1 encoding and decoding or DisplayPort 2.1, as well as better AI capabilities and a (slight) step up in ray tracing, but none of these come with DLSS 3 provided by Nvidia. Not equal to the offer made. ,
I still believe AMD is a more competitive option at around $250 to $500, and that’s good news for Team Red. If it could squeeze some more out of the remaining RDNA 2 stock, current generation cards could shine in comparison. Now, while still solid, they actually get lumped in with their last-gen counterparts, so if you already have RDNA 2, you might as well sit this generation out.