Top RDNA 4 GPU performance to be slower than Radeon RX 7900 XTX, faster than 7900 GRE

Ahead of a new generation of discrete GPU hardware for gaming, especially when a release is expected within months, not years, a steady stream of information arrives from known sources and leakers. On the Radeon front, several credible sources have confirmed that AMD won't be releasing a flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX killer for its upcoming RDNA 4 generation. Instead, AMD is focusing on the mid-range and competitive markets.

The reasoning for this comes down to AMD's next-gen chiplet design not being ready, so it will instead release monolithic Radeon RX 8800 XT, RX 8700 XT, and Radeon RX 8600 XT GPUs. Today, we've got some performance expectations from known Radeon leaker @All_The_Watts over on X - albeit in cryptic form.

As you can see, we get emojis instead of actual words - a fun presentation that, although posted on April 1, is not an April Fool's joke. The rumor, as deciphered, is straightforward, offering performance info for Navi 48 (Radeon RX 8800 XT) and Navi 44 (Radeon RX 8600 XT).

It states that the top RDNA 4 GPU, the Radeon RX 8800 XT, will not be as powerful as the top RDNA 3 GPU, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. However, it will be more powerful than the cutdown Navi 31 chip found in the Radeon RX 7900 GRE.

2

Regarding 1440p gaming performance, it will be at least 14% faster than the Radeon RX 7800 XT. If the cutdown Navi 31 chip referenced is the Radeon RX 7900 XT, performance should be on par with the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. This isn't all that exciting, and it leaves the door open for NVIDIA to have at least three more powerful options: the GeForce RTX 5070, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090.

@All_The_Watts's second RDNA 4 cryptic message states that the top RDNA 4 Navi 44 GPU, presumably the Radeon RX 8600 XT, will be faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT but slower than the Radeon RX 7700 XT. This would be disappointing, as performance would be closer to the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti rather than something faster than the Radeon RX 700 XT. Again, this leaves the door open for NVIDIA to release a powerful GeForce RTX 5060.

Still, depending on the pricing, RDNA 4 could present great value if they're more efficient than current-gen Radeon cards and provide a decent overall bump to ray-tracing performance. According to earlier rumors from @All_The_Watts, RDNA 4 will stick with GDDR6 for its memory, which should help keep the costs down.

• Read more: AMD RDNA 4 flagship GPU rumor sounds disappointing - and it has us scratching our heads
• Read more: PlayStation 5 Pro features next-gen RDNA 4-based ray tracing engine, allows 2-3x faster RT
• Read more: AMD Linux Driver points to 'RDNA 4' coming soon, and the Radeon team moving on from RDNA 3