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AMD's next-gen flagship UDNA Radeon GPU won't be as powerful as the GeForce RTX 5090

AMD is set to return to the high-end enthusiast GPU market with its next-gen unified UDNA architecture, however it could still fall short of the RTX 5090.

AMD's next-gen flagship UDNA Radeon GPU won't be as powerful as the GeForce RTX 5090
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TL;DR: AMD plans to release a new flagship Radeon GPU in 2026, succeeding the RDNA 3's Radeon RX 7900 XTX with a new flagship. With RDNA 4 launching in 2025, AMD will focus on mid-range GPUs, competing with NVIDIA's RTX 5070 series. The new UDNA architecture aims to unify data center and gaming GPUs, potentially using TSMC's N3E process for improved efficiency. However, it may not surpass NVIDIA's RTX 5090 in performance.

"They aren't making a big enough GPU," a new comment by an industry insider and known GeForce and Radeon leaker @Kepler_L2 over on X. Referencing AMD's next-next-gen UDNA architecture, which will unify the company's data center and gaming GPU hardware, AMD is reportedly to release a new flagship high-end enthusiast Radeon GPU in 2026 - a successor to RDNA 3's Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

The GeForce RTX 5090 towers over AMD's current flagship Radeon GPU.

The GeForce RTX 5090 towers over AMD's current flagship Radeon GPU.

With RDNA 4 set to debut in March 2025, AMD will focus on the mid-range market this generation. The Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT will compete with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti, respectively. This means it won't have an answer to the GeForce RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 until UDNA arrives sometime in 2026.

Although we're still in the very rumor stage of AMD's new unified GPU architecture, @Kepler_L2's confident "AMD won't beat 5090 next-gen" comment and mention of the GPU die size indicates that they're familiar with Team Red's plans for its first flagship UDNA GPU for gaming and, presumably, AI workloads.

The GeForce RTX 5090's eye-watering $1999 price tag, which is much higher for partner models like the impressive MSI GeForce RTX 5090 SUPRIM SOC model we recently reviewed, and performance make it the undisputed king of PC gaming performance. To put that into perspective, based on our testing, it's a whopping 89% faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XTX for 4K gaming - a card that is set to be the most powerful Radeon gaming GPU for at least another year.

However, rumors point to UDNA potentially using TSMC's cutting-edge N3E process, and AMD could be looking to match or surpass GeForce RTX 4090's performance with better overall efficiency. According to NVIDIA's benchmark data, the raw performance of the upcoming GeForce 5080 will only be 15% faster than that of the GeForce RTX 4080. This leaves ample room for AMD to introduce a new flagship gaming GPU significantly more performant than the Radeon RX 7900 XTX while still falling short of the RTX 5090's performance.

Either way, it's still early days for UDNA (at least officially), and it'll be several months before we start getting a better picture of how AMD's new flagship gaming GPU is panning out.

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NEWS SOURCE:x.com

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Kosta is a veteran gaming journalist that cut his teeth on well-respected Aussie publications like PC PowerPlay and HYPER back when articles were printed on paper. A lifelong gamer since the 8-bit Nintendo era, it was the CD-ROM-powered 90s that cemented his love for all things games and technology. From point-and-click adventure games to RTS games with full-motion video cut-scenes and FPS titles referred to as Doom clones. Genres he still loves to this day. Kosta is also a musician, releasing dreamy electronic jams under the name Kbit.

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