AMD Radeon RX 8800 XT rumor: flagship RDNA 4 GPU is 45% faster in RT gaming than 7900 XTX

AMD's flagship Radeon RX 8800 XT graphics card will be the highest-end RDNA 4 SKU, with rumors of its performance and power consumption leaking with some rather surprising results.

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The new Radeon RX 8800 XT "RDNA 4" graphics card is the last RDNA 4 card we'll see before UDNA is introduced for the next-gen GPUs from AMD in the future. In a new post on the Chiphell forums, we're learning that AIBs will officially start mass production of the Radeon RX 8800 XT in mid-December, noting there are "still some minor bugs".

As for the power consumption, AMD's new RDNA 4-powered Radeon RX 8800 XT graphics card will consume 25% less power than the RDNA 3-powered flagship RX 7900 XTX. In some quick-and-dirty testing (I'm sure) in Resident Evil 4 Biohazard, ray tracing performance on the RX 8800 XT is reportedly 45% faster than the 7900 XTX.

• Read more: AMD to have 'full unveiling' of RDNA 4 at CES 2025, at least one new Radeon GPU in late January

Chiphell user "zhangzhonghao" said that "other mainstream games" were tested, with ray tracing "indeed an epic improvement" with the poster adding that "the main reason is that it was too bad before, in short, it is said that raster ray tracing is basically" the power of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4080 or RTX 4080 SUPER.

• Read more: Sony's next-gen PlayStation 6 console rumor: next-gen UDNA GPU from AMD
• Read more: AMD unified UDNA GPU architecture: combines RDNA and CDNA to compete against CUDA

But more interestingly, the power continued saying that NVIDIA could use its next-gen mid-range GeForce RTX 5070 to "kill the whole family" of RDNA 4 cards. NVIDIA will have its next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series "Blackwell" gaming GPUs unveiled at CES 2025 and unleashed throughout the month. The mid-range RTX 5070 is expected to smash the entire stack of RDNA 4 cards, leaving the ultra-enthusiast market to itself with the RTX 5080 and more so the RTX 5090.