AMD’s next-gen Navi 33 GPU could disappoint some gamers

AMD’s next-gen Navi 33 graphics card could sport 4,096 cores (stream processors) according to the latest from the GPU grapevine, which is fewer than the rumor mill previously theorized, plus it may not turn up until 2023 (we’ll come back to that point later).

This is speculation from one of the more regular Twitter hardware leakers, Greymon55, who updated their bio to indicate that figure of 4,096 cores – but with a question mark added, reminding us of how deep this is in rumor territory currently (keep that bagful of condiments handy).

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The change is notable because as Wccftech points out, Greymon55 previously suggested that Navi 33 would have more cores than this: 5,120 to be precise. Hence some folks immediate thoughts on this fresh rumor are heading along the lines of Navi 33 – which could possibly be the GPU that powers the RX 7600 series, given that Navi 23 (current-gen) is the midrange RX 6600 – not being quite as powerful as originally anticipated.

Hold your stream processing horses before trying to draw even any vague conclusions here, though, as the overall performance level of Navi 33 is still predicted to exceed the current flagship RX 6900 XT by Greymon55. The leaker further tweets to clarify that Navi 33 was “designed to be better than the 6900 XT” and even if it doesn’t meet that design goal, its performance is still expected to be around the level of the 6900 XT.

n31:5nm+6nm 256bit gddr6 n32 5nm+6nm 192bit gddr6n33 6nm 128bit gddr6 perf>6900xtad102 5nm 384bit gddr6xad103 ?ad104 ?ad106 ?September 19, 2021

Analysis: Very early days yet

In a nutshell, then, Greymon55 is suggesting that while Navi 33 will have fewer cores than they previously believed, what might be the midrange offering for RDNA 3 cards could still turn out to be more powerful than the RDNA 2 flagship – driven by what are presumably some seriously impressive architectural advances – or if not, it shouldn’t fall short and is expected to deliver around the same gaming oomph.

Really, though, it’s still very early in the overall timeframe for AMD’s next-gen graphics cards to be making such predictions. We’ve got to be very skeptical around all this, and even Greymon55 admits this in another tweet in which they say that as time goes on, the “specifications will become clearer” – and so obviously this speculation is in pretty muddy rumor terrain as it is.

Greymon55 further observes that AMD is “still planning” when it comes to next-gen GPUs, and that they won’t see the light of day until 2023, as mentioned at the outset of this story. Presumably early 2023, given that we were previously expecting the new graphics cards to launch at the end of 2022.

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