Why AMD Cancelled BIG RDNA 4 for UDNA | Cut Down Yields

James Prior gives insight into why AMD cancelled big RDNA 4 in favor of accelerating UDNA.
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0:00 RADEON has NOT always Competed in High End GPU (this isn't new!)
3:55 Why UDNA is NECESSARY for AMD to compete in High End
6:45 Is Nvidia FORCED to leave an opening for RADEON due to AI?
11:40 Is RADEON scared to be aggressive?

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[MooresLawIsDead]

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[ktvx.]

If there's something AMD keeps doing wrong is holding back with pricing and then lowering it, but then the damage's done with reviews. That shouldn't be the plan _again_

[ConsoleCombat]

I agree that $1000+ GPUs for gaming is absurd. I’m not upgrading until a “mid range” GPU can best my current gpu by 25-50%.

[GrainOnTheGo]

If AMD makes the 8800XT matches 7900XT/XTX raster + 4070 RT I don’t really see how this isn’t high end? It’s just not behemoth NVIDIA XX90 tier high end. It’ll have healthy VRAM as opposed to NVIDIA starving us of VRAM.

It’s still going to be a huge win for consumers, myself included.

[sgredsch]

ati terascale exists

amd: this is great, but i want gpgpus

gcn exists.

amd: No that sux, lets split it Up.

cdna and rdna exists.

amd: no that sux, lets unify.

gcn: am i a joke to you?

[SPSteve]

The 8800XT sounds like a nice card if they can hit that <$600 price point. They'd own that part of the market.

[tomallan]

I can't disagree more on the 500/600 dollar MSRP debut. If say HUB says the price/performance is middling on the supposed 8800xt because once the initial reviews are out then the hoopla is over. People will take the initial review that the product is middling and if Steve is standing up during the review then nothing, NVIDA will get same or better market share. If AMD wants to make a dent into the GPU market they have to start at $500 with the 8800XT then if it is a success THEN go up with the 8850XT at higher price not the other way around. Starting out at $600 will be a huge mistake. If 8800xt sales suck at $500 then sales will really suck at $600.

[deathfroude]

AMD need to get the price right out of the gate on their next launch, this high then drop strat is not a winner imo (doesn't do well for reviews either)

[alexmills]

I think the major reason they canceled RDNA4 big was AI. RDNA doesn’t do AI as well as CDNA or Nvidia Ampere or Lovelace, or even Intel Arc! Intel is able to boost their AI TOPS by using their igpu as well as the NPU for that total number. AMD would love their UDNA igpu to be multifaceted and boost their total TOPS so they can perhaps reach the same performance with a smaller NPU and the same level of Igpu they were going to include anyway. It saves die space and that matters a ton with these bleeding edge nodes. Currently RDNA doesn’t do much in the TOPS war so the NPU has to do all the heavy lifting on AMD’s size. As that requirement grows so too does the NPU unless the Igpu can step in and assist.

[ecchichanf]

I want my big AMD chip again.
HD6950/R9 290/Vega64/7900XTX owner.

[btmedic]

launch pricing is what caused the fumble with rdna 3. amd really really needs to learn this lesson for rdna 4 to succeed to its fullest potential. if these cards launch at $500 with the estimated performance, then they will do extremely well in reviews, and that will help push market share. if they launch at $600, then reviews will be more tepid

[sauce]

If wafers are limited it makes more sense to sell to data centers rather than gamers. People want AMD to give them the best bang for buck and expect AMD to make little profit. But AMD is looking for where they can make more profit.

[beardoe]

Luckily I think Battlemage will push AMD a little on the low end.

A lot of consumers are kids or casual gamers that want a gaming PC for a price closer to a Playstation than a used car. $500 is a bit of a financial stretch for that market. It makes a reasonable mid range gaming PC at least $1, 100 which isn't horrible but when a $500 console can game at 4K 60hz $1, 100 can be hard to justify.

You can do a piece here and a piece there and upgrade but that usually means selling used hardware to fund the upgrades and that's a depreciation hit at every upgrade so the long term cost gets pretty high.

Of course a $2, 000 GPU in a $3, 500 PC is going to perform well but you triple the cost for the last 25% of performance and most games don't need that to be playable.

[abdullahzafar]

To editor:- appreciate "This isn't new" in the name but on the thumbnail you could say "clip"

The writing in the name is so in the end, it doesn't show up on phone

[GeraltofRivia]

No one ever talks about the state of gaming right now. There are absolutely no games out or in the near future to justify a moronic 5090. Its the tryhard status chasers that buy that junk with no games to push it.

[NexGen-D]

They just need to deliver the 7900 XTX performance at half the price and they will kill it on sales, just release a 8800/8800XT/8800XTX then wait 6 months and drop the 8850 variant, just destroy nVidia at the performance per dollar point.

[rakeshmalik]

I'm very much hoping that AMD continues its efforts to get 3rd party developers like Chaos Group and Pixar (Renderman) and SideFX (Karma) to support AMD GPUs. The larger memory configurations AMD offers would be a huge bonus for 3D rendering as well as for running high overhead VFX plugins like Sapphire.

[hkiller]

If 8800XT is 7900XT level of performance, IT CANNOT BE ABOVE 500! literally on black friday deals you could buy 7900XT for $600-$630, even if it's 10% better it still CANNOT be above 500! if AMD is serious about gaining market share they HAVE TO HAVE AGGRESSIVE PRICING! there is NO WAY I'm gonna pay anything above 500 USD for an 8800XT which is 16GB and is MAYBE a bit better than a 7900XT which has 20GB of memory. We have had this performance level since 3-4 years ago! Each generation, we would like to see 20% or more higher performance OR 20% or more lower price! 630-20%=$500. AMD would be shooting themselves in the foot pricing this thing anything above 500.

[MastermindAtWork]

If AMD can give me something on par with something that's 4070-4080 class, 16 to 20GB of VRAM, and developers are using RoCM for Compute related tasks for something like Blender and Meshroom, I will consider that a massive win as a consumer.

[SungJinWoo]

Not long ago mid range was Nvidia's xx60 gpus, at ~ $250, and AMD similar priced cards
are we accepting now that the mid range is $500 ???
If we keep paying they will keep this nonsense