I think AMD did the same as Nvidia, where they designed their lower-tier chips to sit a tier lower than they do, but the current GPU market wouldn't support that positioning. Consider that the 6800 XT's launch price was $650, while the 7800 XT's launch price is $500 - and that's after > 2 years of inflation. My guess is the 7900 XT was meant to be the new 7800 XT, while the 7900 XTX should've been the 7900 XT.
If we look at the specs, it becomes quite apparent that it wasn't meant as a true successor. The 7800 XT has 64 MB of L3 cache, whereas the 6800 XT has 128 MB of L2 cache. In terms of shaders, the 6800 XT has 4608 whereas the 7800 XT has only 3840. So, it's really quite apparent that AMD didn't really intend the 7800 XT to supersede the 6800 XT. They almost got away with it by boosting the 7800 XT's clocks, but not quite.
I think AMD's saving grace is that both perform pretty much in line with how they're currently priced. Okay, the 6800 XT is a slightly better deal, but the 7800 XT has better RT and AI performance.
Yes, they did a similar thing with the upnaming, difference being rdna3 did not hit target (I would debate it is 15-20% off), while Nvidia actually quiet overrun (2 node jump, new uarch, etc). So now the gap is very big. Hence nvidia is able to somewhat run away with a product named one tier higher, and sold even one more or simetimes 2 more tier higher prices. AMD could not do that.
Imagine this:
-Last time their 6900XT was able to fight with with a 3090 (give or take).
-Now, their 7900XTX (->"7900XT")is only able to fight with a 4080 (->"4070Ti really")
That is a disaster. Or look at it this way, in reality we got:
- a 1200 USD 3070Ti successor (up from 600USD)
- a 1000 USD xx70Ti competitor from AMD (up from how much? 579USD?) So its not even a 7900XT, but based on past more like a 7800 non-XT (maaaaaaybe an XT if we want to be very generous)
Inflation is a very bad argument. I am working in the industry, and have a huge insight (negotiating with partners, detailed cost breakdown, custom hardware orders, component manufacturing, etc). The thing is overall, this generation does NOT cost them more than the previous one. In fact, it is slightly cheaper. Not to mention, that technology overall is deflationary, balancing out the overall inflationary effects. It is all about shareholders, EBIT growing, more profit, simple as that.
Just theoretically, imagine the scenario, where Nvidia really releasing the currently upnamed 4080 16gb, as a 4070Ti for 600 USD. Thats it for AMD, gpu division I guess would have been needed to be dismissed maybe alltogether. Or would they sell the current 7900XTX as a 7800XT for 500USD? I highly doubt it.
Their saving grace is:
1) nvidia being hell of a greedy now
2) most people being dumby
3) pruchase based on emotions and not on logic in most cases.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram