AMD remains resolutely silent about its RDNA 4 launch plans, but a new rumour may have spoiled a potentially seismic surprise. In just a few months, Team Red could potentially beat all of its competitors to the punch and debut new Radeon graphics cards as early as October. This launch window comes with some juicy price and performance estimations too.
More specifically, the leak in question alleges that AMD will release Radeon RX 8800 XT, powered by the brand’s Navi 48 GPU. This is the best graphics card in the RDNA 4 lineup based on what we know about the architecture thus far. Featuring vastly improved ray tracing capabilities, it will apparently go toe-to-toe with some of Nvidia’s most powerful pixel pushers.
According to a source close to YouTuber Moore’s Law Is Dead, AMD is preparing to launch RDNA 4 later this year and in high volume. They claim that Radeon RX 8000 series graphics cards will be on store shelves in either October or November 2024. When asked about prior Q1 2025 launch rumours by MLID, the source says this was part of an intentional disinformation campaign to throw off competition and leakers.
| Specification | Navi 48* |
|---|---|
| Compute Units | 64 |
| Max. Boost Clock | 2.9-3.2GHz |
| Infinity Cache | <96MB |
| Memory bus width | 256-bit |
| VRAM | 16GB GDDR6 |
| TDP | 210-280W |
| MSRP | $499-599 |
In terms of specifications, Navi 48 will allegedly feature 64 compute units (CUs) clocked at 2.9-3.2GHz boost, with just under 96MB of Infinity Cache. In terms of VRAM, 20Gbps GDDR6 seems to remain the go-to choice for AMD with up to 16GB of capacity linked over a 256-bit bus. Finally, it’ll be a monolithic die, unlike the majority of RDNA 3 GPUs.
Excitingly, Navi 48 has the gusto to give GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super and GeForce RTX 4080 a run for their money. AMD is increasing the number of ray tracing accelerators per compute unit in RDNA 4 GPUs, relative to RDNA 3. This would welcomingly close the gap between Radeon and GeForce, where Team Red has classically lagged behind. Just look how Black Myth: Wukong put my RX 7900 XT to shame with 11fps at 1440p.
This performance profile apparently translates to rasterised rendering too. Better yet, all this pixel pushing power should only require 210-280W. This is much more efficient than RDNA 3, though Nvidia could beat this with its RTX 50 series.
Adding to what already sounds like a great graphics card, MLID claims a propsective Radeon RX 8800 XT will cost $499-599. This would mean AMD plans to offer RTX 4080-like performance for the current cost of a Radeon RX 7900 GRE. Not bad. Curiously, AMD won’t be selling cards directly through its website despite already having a reference cooler design.
As usual, take these rumours with a grain of salt. AMD is no stranger to last minute adjustments, whether it’s Ryzen 9000 launch dates or Radeon RX 7600 pricing. That’s not forgetting sources can easily fall foul of disinformation campaigns too. What is certain though is that we can’t wait to get our hands on RDNA 4 whenever it decides to show face.