AMD’s Radeon merchandise are not any strangers to the record of finest graphics playing cards. Nevertheless, the chipmaker has additionally been very vocal that trendy graphics playing cards ought to have at the very least 16GB of reminiscence to push the most recent triple-A titles. Sasa Marinkovic, the senior director of gaming advertising at AMD, has highlighted in a new tweet that AMD’s Radeon 16GB graphics playing cards begin at $499, in contrast to Nvidia, the place you do not get 16GB till the GeForce RTX 4080, which has a $1,199 MSRP.
Marinkovic’s comparability is evidently primarily based on the scale of the reminiscence subsystem and pricing. Rasterized and ray tracing efficiency is not taken under consideration. There seem like some discrepancies in pricing, although. For instance, the AMD govt listed the Radeon RX 6800 with a $499 price ticket, that means that he is not utilizing MSRP for comparability. The Navi 21-based graphics card debuted in 2020 for $579 however now sells for as little as $469. In the meantime, he listed the competing GeForce RTX 3070 for $549, which is neither its MSRP ($499) nor the most affordable mannequin ($485) available on the market.
Clearly, not each Radeon graphics card sports activities a 16GB. Nevertheless, the chipmaker makes use of the Radeon RX 6800 sequence as the place to begin. The Radeon RX 6700 sequence, such because the Radeon RX 6700 XT, maxes out at 12GB. However AMD is not fallacious. The chipmaker’s Radeon graphics playing cards typically provide extra onboard reminiscence at decrease costs than competing Nvidia GeForce RTX SKUs. On this technology, mainstream shoppers do not get entry to 16GB from Nvidia playing cards except they spend greater than $1,000. AMD’s newest Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX provide 20GB and 24GB with a sub-$1,000 price ticket.
It is humorous that Marinkovic solely in contrast AMD’s Radeon merchandise with Nvidia’s GeForce choices when a 3rd participant is available on the market. If we do not take into account efficiency and solely base the comparability on pricing, the most affordable 16GB graphics card title belongs to Intel’s Arc A770 16GB, which retails for $349.
The factor about these sorts of daring statements is that you must again it up, or it’s going to finally come again and chunk you within the ass. Bear in mind the entire “Sport Past 4GB” fiasco again in 2020? AMD emphasised how 4GB had turn out to be outdated and that future graphics playing cards ought to have 8GB because the minimal. Just a little over a 12 months and a half later, the chipmaker launched the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which solely had 4GB of reminiscence. Whether or not you consider in coincidence or not, the weblog put up had gone lacking throughout the Radeon RX 6500 XT launch, however AMD finally republished it.
AMD nonetheless has a variety of value gaps to fill with its newest RDNA 3 lineup. The Radeon RX 7900 sequence has been out since November 2022, and shoppers have been ready eagerly for the Radeon RX 7800 or Radeon RX 7700 sequence. The previous will doubtless have 16GB, however the latter’s reminiscence might be smaller. AMD’s Radeon RX x700-tier SKUs have by no means had greater than 12GB, so the AMD higher surprises shoppers or the chipmaker’s newest swagger will not age properly.
Fashionable video games are getting more and more demanding, though some are unhealthy ports or lack optimization, corresponding to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which has confirmed to eat as much as 21GB of VRAM. It is not an exaggeration to suppose that 16GB graphics playing cards will turn out to be the brand new norm finally.
