Since $300 turned into "budget?"
The 6800 XT and 6800 were "enthusiast" GPUs at launch. Their replacements will thus also be "enthusiast" parts. Some enthusiasts spend lots of money, others make the best of mainstream parts.
Yes, historically, the level-8 card(s) of a Radeon generation have been designated as "enthusiast-class". The numbers always looked like this:
<5 - Glorified Video Adapter (720p mid - 1080p low)
5 - Entry-Level Gaming (720p high - 1080p mid)
6 - Mainstream Gaming (aka mid-range, 1080p mid - 1440p low)
7 - High-End Gaming (1080p High-Refresh - 1440p mid)
8 - Enthusiast-Class (1440p high-2160p mid)
9 - Halo Product (2160p+, no-holds-barred)
The problem with this generation is that Sasa Marinkovic completely screwed with this logical formula by having THREE level-9 cards when there should only be one (unless there's a refresh later). Historically, the level-8 GeForce and Radeon cards competed with their part number counterparts on the other side. If AMD didn't have anything that competed with nVidia's top-end, then they would name that card appropriately, even if it was their fastest card at the time. The RX 5700 XT is a perfect example of proper video card nomenclature.
Last-gen was also properly named with cards at every level. Sure, there wasn't much of a difference between the RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT when it came to performance (only about 8%) and it certainly didn't justify the $350 difference in price but at least AMD was transparent about it. They did say that the RX 6900 XT was to be a niche product and that most people would prefer the RX 6800 XT. Of course, that went out the window when the mining crisis began and people were buying whatever they could get their hands on. It's pretty clear that Sasa wasn't smart enough to realise that the level-9 sales became inflated because of the unique market situation and just assumed that demand for level-9 cards was far greater than it actually was and cynically created TWO "level-9" cards where none should've existed.
Since AMD followed nVidia with their product releases, this is how the cards
should have been named:
- The RX 7900 XTX should have been named the RX 7800 XT
- The RX 7900 XT should have been named the RX 7800
- The RX 7800 should be named the RX 7700
- The RX 7700 should be named the RX 7600
- RX 7600 should have been named the RX 7500
The "XT" suffix should be saved for only enthusiast-class cards or higher because it's short for "extreme". Sasa made a mockery of the suffix when he decided to attach it to the RX 6500 XT. The only thing about the RX 6500 XT that was extreme was how
bad a value it was! AMD might still yet salvage what's left of this debacle called RDNA3 but only through aggressive pricing.
If AMD continues to follow the RDNA3 pricing model that they have been up to now, the RX 7700 and RX 7800 are two products that won't even be worth bringing to the market. AMD over-produced RDNA2 (no complaints here) and so now they have to compete with themselves. The price drops on RDNA2 have been so effective that RDNA2 has been single-handedly kicking the butts of Ampere, Ada Lovelace and RDNA3
combined because of how good of a value its lineup has become with all products having fallen
far below their original (and fairly reasonable) MSRPs. Let's face it, how does one compete with an RX 6950 XT for ~$600, an RX 6800 XT for ~$500, an RX 6700 XT for ~$300 or an RX 6600 for ~$200 when both red and green cards have had generational performance uplifts that could be called tepid at best and nonexistant at worst?
It's been pretty clear that RDNA2's impact has been significant because when is the last time that nVidia did price cuts less than a year after the launch of a product? I can't remember it
ever happening. When was the last time that a GeForce launch was largely ignored by consumers? Something is causing it and it sure as hell isn't RDNA3 or Ampere. After all, an RTX 3050 for $225 is a joke when compared to the RX 6600 for $200.
Here is a prime example of how RDNA2 ended up being "too good" for AMD's own good (despite their best efforts for it not to be so). Remember when I predicted that the release of the RTX 4060 Ti at $500 would result in what I called "A Romulan Bloodbath (Green blood will flow)"? Well, I also used that terminology in a comment to one of Daniel Owen's videos and I think that he noticed:
This is what RDNA2 has done to the market. It has been great for consumers but has necessitated a certain level of competence in tech executives. We can all see just how well that has gone.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram