In a move that would be sure to raise eyebrows, AMD has published several slides (courtesy of Tom's Hardware via VideocardZ) comparing NVIDIA's upcoming RTX 4080 16GB GPU to its Radeon RX 7900 flagship graphics card. Not only does this confirm that AMD is targeting the RTX 4080 performance level with its Radeon RX 7900 graphics cards but also shows that the GPU wars are reaching a level of heat not seen since the Hawaii GPU days (capsaicin anyone?).
GPU wars heat up with AMD's official Radeon RX 7900 XT vs RTX 4080 graphics card comparison
The first slide shows AMD comparing both the Radeon RX 7900 XT and XTX against the upcoming RTX 4080. Based on the slides, it is equating RDNA3 compute units to NVIDIA SMs - which is a very interesting equivalence to make. Considering RDNA3 has 64 shading units in one compute unit while Ada Lovelace (RTX 4080) has 128 CUDA cores per SM, it also means that AMD is stating that 1 of their shader units = 2 CUDA cores.
Up next, a comparison is main on GDDR6 memory - where AMD is the easy winner at 20 and 24 GB of GDDR6 memory compared to only 16 GB on the RTX 4080. AMD cards also feature higher memory bus widths at 320 bits and 384 bits compared to the RTX 4080 at 256 bit. We also have the raw performance metric compared, with shader TFLOPs of 49 (RTX 4080) being compared to 52 TFLOPs on the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX. Finally AMD reminds everyone that their cards support DisplayPort 2.1 while NVIDIA supports 1.4, followed by a price comparison of the SEPs.
Oh and the shade does not stop here. AMD goes on to point out that both the Radeon RX 6950 XT and RX 7900 XT are shorter and slimmer than the RTX 4080. While the RTX 4080 requires the new and potentially problematic 12VHPWR plug, while AMD will stick to using the standard 2x 8 pin connectors that have been the bread and butter of GPU power for years.
AMD's RX 7900 XT and XTX will also include a USB-C part (which they are quick to point out NVIDIA does not) and also support a maximum video bandwidth of 54 Gbps using UHBR 13.5 while NVIDIA will max out at 32.5 Gbps. AMD's RX 7900 series of graphics cards will be able to support 8K at 165 Hz and 4k at 480 Hz compared to NVIDIA's maximum of 8k at 60 Hz and 4k at 300 Hz.
In the last few slides, AMD also shared some performance benchmarks where they showcase that AMD was able to achieve 67% more performance compared to the RX 6950XT in rasterization loads and up to 82% more performance in ray tracing loads. Taking a cue from NVIDIA, they have also included the FSR ON/OFF numbers as stacked bar graphs in their performance chart.
Needless to say AMD has been dolling out some hot chillies to add to the heating GPU war, but our readers would be well advised to wait for NVIDIA's launch before making up their minds since I am sure - Jensen will have something to add to the figurative pot as well.
