AMD says 'King of the Hill' GPU strategy hasn't worked: RDNA 4 mainstream only, no high-end GPU

AMD is giving up the high-end GPU market with RDNA 4, in its own words, where it will switch to a new business model for RDNA 4 that will focus on 'customer scalability' versus competing in the flagship GPU business.

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We've been hearing rumors for months and months now, but AMD has officially confirmed the news with Tom's Hardware with Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Computing and Graphics Business Group, Jack Huynh, verifying the rumors of RDNA 4.

AMD wants to avoid customers looking at its flagship GPUs like the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, against NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090, which the RTX 4090 destroys the RX 7900 XTX. AMD doesn't want a slower product (even if its flagship) against a better product... so not competing in the high-end with RDNA 4 at all, avoids that association against NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards.

• Read more: AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 GPUs rumored to mirror RDNA 1 product positioning: aimed at mid-range

Jack told TH: "So, my number one priority right now is to build scale, to get us to 40 to 50 percent of the market faster. Do I want to go after 10% of the TAM [Total Addressable Market] or 80%? I'm an 80% kind of guy because I don't want AMD to be the company that only people who can afford Porsches and Ferraris can buy. We want to build gaming systems for millions of users".

He continued: "Yes, we will have great, great, great products. But we tried that strategy [King of the Hill] - it hasn't really grown. ATI has tried this King of the Hill strategy, and the market share has kind of been...the market share. I want to build the best products at the right system price point. So, think about price point-wise; we'll have leadership".

AMD had its planned Navi 41 GPU but rumor has it, that was cancelled. The new RDNA 4 chips to expect are the Navi 44 and Navi 48 GPUs, which we've been hearing more and more about lately, with more news on those GPUs below:

• Read more: AMD's next-gen Navi 44 XL: mid-range RDNA 4 for Radeon RX 8600 teased
• Read more: AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 GPUs to have 48MB to 64MB of Infinity Cache
• Read more: AMD RDNA 4 leak: Navi 48 GPU up to 3.2GHz, RTX 4080 perf, $499 to $599
• Read more: PS5 Pro rumored to be 45% faster than standard PS5, 2-3x faster in ray tracing
• Read more: AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 GPUs rumored for 2025: Navi 48 at CES, Navi 44 in Q2
• Read more: AMD's next-gen Navi 48 XTX GPU with 4 different board designs spotted
• Read more: AMD's next-gen Navi 48 GPU: 3.0-3.3GHz, up to RX 7900 XTX perf, not using GDDR7

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AMD's next-gen RDNA 4-based Navi 48 GPU leaks:

• 64 CUs @ 2.9GHz to 3.2GHz (real-world max GPU boost clocks)
• less than 96MB of next-gen Infinity Cache
• 256-bit memory bus
• 16GB of GDDR6 memory @ 20Gbps
• 210W to 280W power draw (TDP)
• Increase in Ray Tracing Accelerator count per CU
• Monolithic die manufactured on TSMC 4nm
• Added FP8 + Matrix Hardware (arguably proven in the MLID PS5 Pro leak)
• October-November launch time frame
• $499 to $599 MSRP

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The skinny on AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 GPUs:

• Heavily improved ray tracing performance: In leaks over the last few months, we're hearing that there are some major ray tracing improvements in RDNA 4, with the new Radeon RX 8800 XT expected to trade blows with the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER when it comes to games with ray tracing enabled.
• Improved power efficiency: AMD won't be gunning for 500W+ or something with RDNA 4, rather they'll keep efficiency in check for its RDNA 4 GPUs just like we've seen with power efficiency improvements with AMD's new Zen 5 processors.
• Next-gen Infinity Cache on RDNA 4: We should expect to see next-gen Infinity Cache on RDNA 4 graphics cards, with some rumors saying less than 96MB of Infinity Cache on Radeon RX 8000 series GPUs, with fresh rumors saying we'll see a max of 64MB on RDNA 4.
• Won't beat NVIDIA's next-gen RTX 5090 or RTX 5080: Nope. NVIDIA will have the high-end gaming GPU market to itself, which it did with the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 SUPER anyway. The new Blackwell-based GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 cards will be the gaming GPU kings in 2025. RDNA 4 will NOT compete with high-end RTX 50 series GPUs, period. We'll have to wait and see what RDNA 5 brings, which is a complete design of the GPU architecture and not coming until 2026+.

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• Radeon RX 8800 XT should be the flagship RDNA 4 card: AMD launched the flagship RDNA 3-powered Radeon RX 7900 XTX, which under that fell the RX 7900 XT, and then the RX 7800 XT. With RDNA 4, we're expecting to not see any RX 8900 series GPUs, but rather the Radeon RX 8800 XT will be the flagship RDNA 4 card.
• RDNA 4 tech is inside Sony's upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro: AMD has done some fantastic work on RDNA 4, which will be powering the GPU side of the beefed-up semi-custom SoC inside of Sony's upcoming PS5 Pro console. The PS5 Pro is expected to have 2-3x the ray tracing performance of the standard PS5, so we're going to enjoy those optimizations on RT for the Radeon RX 8000 series GPU side on the PC when it comes.
• Possibly just 3 different RX 8000 series GPUs at first: AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 GPU architecture will most likely power just 3 different RX 8000 series GPUs at first: the Navi 48 XTX-powered Radeon RX 8800 XT, the Navi 48 XT-powered RX 8700 XT, and the Navi 44 XT-powered RX 8600 XT graphics cards. We could be wrong, but that's where we think they'll fall when RDNA 4 is unleashed.