AMD RDNA 4 8000 series GPUs: Everything we know

Details on AMD’s next generation of graphics cards remain elusive, but we’ve collected all the information we have on what Team Red will deliver with RDNA 4 and 8000 series.

AMD has done pretty well out of its RDNA architecture so far. Graphics cards like the RX 5700 XT and later the RX 6800 XT were the first mainstream GPUs to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in a long time.

For the current generation, the RX 7900 XTX using the RDNA 3 architecture got within shouting distance of the mighty Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080.

With this in mind, many are keen to see what AMD can offer with the updated 8000 series. We’ve gathered up all the leaks, rumors, and concrete information we can on the RDNA 4 platform.

Release window speculation

Leakers suggest that AMD’s 8000 series RDNA 4 graphics cards could be released in late 2024, or in 2025. There is still a great deal of uncertainty regarding the possible release window for the RDNA 4 line of graphics cards.

Most leakers, including sources such as Moore’s Law is Dead, have suggested that the second half of 2024 is the goal.

However, other industry insiders such as Kepler_L2 have indicated that AMD will wait for CES 2025 to unveil the Navi 48 GPU, which is expected to be at the heart of the flagship card. The Navi 48 would then follow in Q2 of 2025.

This is backed up by a source quoted again by Moore’s Law is Dead as saying: “All I will say is that we don’t have any mandate to get this thing out the door in 2024.”

Nvidia is expected to launch its RTX 50 series line starting with the flagship RTX 5090 card. This extremely high-end and expensive card is not in the market that AMD wants to compete in this time around.

So in this case, holding their fire until the competition arrives might be a smart move, as AMD will be able to adjust its pricing and marketing accordingly.

Specifications speculation

The majority of what we know about RDNA 4 comes from industry leaks. The most prominent among these is YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead, though several others have corroborated some of his predictions, lending credibility to some of those reports.

The leaks generally agree that RDNA 4 will not have the pure horsepower needed to match the eye-watering power of Nvidia’s high-end GPUs like the RTX 5090. Instead, AMD seems to have its eye on the midrange.

Moore’s Law is Dead pointed to the aforementioned Navi 48 chip as AMD’s flagship, which is likely included in an RX 8800 XT card. Other predicted specs for this card include a 256-bit interface and GDDR6 memory clocked at 20Gbps.

The Navi 44, meanwhile, is said to sport a 128-bit memory bus and a smaller die size.

While the use of older GDDR6 memory is puzzling, it could be a cost-saving measure to help AMD target the mid-to-low range of the market.

More encouragingly, clock speed estimates from AMD board partners have been posted at up to 3.3GHz on factory overclocked models. This is a considerable upgrade over the RX 7900 XTX, which has a clock speed of 2.3GHz.

Leaker Kepler_L2 provided new information about the memory configuration for the RDNA 4 cards, as follows:

• 256-bit and 20 Gpbs for a speed of 640 GB/s
• 256-bit and 18 Gbps for a speed of 576 GB/s
• 192-bit and 19 Gbps for a speed of 456 GB/s

Notably, this would make the memory capacity for the RDNA 4 chips higher than the existing RX 7800 XT or RX 7900 GRE cards.

This leak was shortly followed by another from Kepler_L2 concerning the size of the ‘Infinity Cache’. This is the term used by AMD for the large internal cache which has been a feature in RDNA 2.

Kepler confirmed that AMD will be using 64MB and 48MB cache configurations for its RDNA 4 GPUs. The latter is similar to existing card configurations such as RX 7800 XT.

The main difference is that in RDNA 4, the Infinity Cache and memory controllers will be located on the same die since the previous MCM or ‘Multi-Chip-Module’ is being eliminated from this design.

Performance speculation

Another prominent leaker, RedGamingTech, claimed that RDNA 4 would offer ‘major gains’ in ray tracing scenarios. He went on to predict a ‘10-30%’ increase in ray tracing capability.

He also said that the new RDNA 4 GPU chips will have ‘over double’ the performance of the predecessors. These figures remain speculative, however.

Some sources believe that the RX 8800 XT should be able to outperform the RTX 4070 Ti Super, making it slightly faster than the RX 7900 GRE and within the envelope of the RTX 4080.

Some early benchmarks were leaked from Geekbench, but these figures are unlikely to reflect the capabilities of the final product.

It remains to be seen if AMD has any tricks up its sleeve regarding its FSR tech. Nvidia’s equivalent, DLSS has shown several advantages over its rival. If AMD can level the playing field when it comes to software, then it will be in a better position to compete when Team Green rolls out the RTX 50 series.

Price speculation

Analysts predict that the mid-range RDNA 4 offering could be priced as low as just $500. It seems that AMD is not planning to compete with Nvidia in terms of pure power. Instead, the company strategy appears to involve staking out the mid-range and offering customers better value for money.

Alongside improvement in ray tracing performance, the main draw of the Navi 48 toting RX 8800 XT graphics card is likely to be the price. Some analysts have predicted a price point of just $500, which would be an absolute steal for a card that can outperform the RTX 4070 Ti Super.The Navi 44 is thought to offer similar performance to an RX 7700 XT, but at an even lower price, making it a very attractive option for those on a budget.