Can AMD beat Nvidia in the battle for next-gen graphics cards?

Although Nvidia can fundamentally change the situation.

Next-gen graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD are expected later this year, and we’re getting more rumors about when exactly to expect Lovelace and RDNA 3 products, hinting at the start of the next next-gen GPU war.

The information comes from the German tech site 3DCenter.org, which provides a string of rumors about the testing and estimated release dates of the next Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, based on the latest information from Twitter, where several insiders share data at once.

Of course, these are all just rumors and speculation, and as 3DCenter makes clear, there are serious reservations about accuracy, but it’s nonetheless interesting to see how speculation is formed as to which graphics cards will come first (and some data is interspersed with those what we got from other sources, adding weights to them – we will return to this later).

So, based on the projections made here, the first products for Nvidia and AMD – which will presumably introduce the RTX 4000 and RX 7000 series respectively – will be the flagship AD102 and Navi 33, possibly in September-October 2022.

This means that Nvidia’s first product could be the flagship RTX 4000, and probably the only one, since the latest rumor from Kopite7kimi is that the RTX 4080 won’t use the AD102 chip and will actually be based on the AD103 with some upgrades.

AMD, on the other hand, is going to release Navi 33 graphics cards, which will be mid-range rather than flagship-level graphics cards. There is some confusion as to exactly where the boundaries for Navi 33 lie, based on recent reports from renowned insider Moore’s Law is Dead, but these graphics cards could be RX 7600 or even 7700 models.

The following Nvidia Lovelace graphics cards will presumably not be far behind: The AD103 and AD104 represented by the RTX 4080, 4070 and 4060 are expected after a test cycle a month or two after the RTX 4090, meaning all graphics cards will debut at some point in Q4 2022 year (and possibly in November).

AMD, on the other hand, will keep its gamers waiting until 2023 for the rest of the lineup, if rumors are to be believed, as the flagship RX 7900 (Navi 31) is expected early in the year (January), while the rest of the RDNA 3 series (including the RX 7800) may not appear until spring 2023 (this is Navi 32).

Analysis: AMD’s Initial Advantage?

The most important thing to remember is that even the estimated release schedule of Nvidia and AMD in the current market situation is a long wait, so things can change. If the fate is that these are just rumors, it becomes clear how carefully they should be taken.

What’s interesting, however, is that AMD’s release is consistent with what we’ve heard from Moore’s Law is Dead, who believes Navi 32 shouldn’t be expected until the first half of 2023, so next spring could be the correct prediction. He also believes that Navi 33 products will be the first to come out from under the wing of AMD, so three insiders converge in this forecast at once, adding weight to the information.

The difference is that Moore’s Law is Dead claims that the flagship RDNA 3 graphics card will not be far behind the Navi 33 at all, while the 3DCenter report suggests a significant gap.

In any case, from what’s coming up here, Nvidia’s flagship and AMD’s mid-range cards will be the first to open the war for next-gen graphics cards, giving Red Team an edge, at least in terms of market integration.

Nvidia’s problem boils down to the fact that by releasing only the RTX 4090, it has a niche offering at a very high price and very likely requiring a replacement power supply, since the 4090 is rumored to be gluttonous.

As a result, AMD’s RDNA 3 series could pull ahead of Nvidia from the start if it proves to be profitable – as long as Team Red can offer production to match demand.

That said, Nvidia shouldn’t be far behind the rest of the RTX 4000 by offering all these graphics cards before AMD releases anything else, at least in theory. As a result, the situation can turn in favor of the Green Team rather quickly, depending on how the merits add up to the price of these video cards (and the level of inventory in the warehouse plays an important role).

As a final note, I would also like to point out that later in 2033 the world of GPUs will not be a two horse race, we expect some influence from Intel Arc desktop graphics cards (they should go on sale next month and probably appear on the shelves in large quantities later in 2022).