A prominent hardware leaker has uncovered new patch notes revealing that the now-allegedly canceled AMD Navi 4X / 4C graphics cards would have been significantly more powerful than the current AMD flagship RX 7900 XTX.
Uncovered by Kepler_L2 (via Tweaktown), new patch notes for AMD GFX12 supposedly showcase Navi 4X die models, the newer equivalent of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, which would feature up to 50% more shader engines, however, it’s not looking likely that anything from RDNA 4 will be as quick as has been touted here.
Specifically, the patch notes reveal that Navi 4X / 4C die GPUs would have featured nine shading engines which is a significant upgrade over the six available from Navi 31 for a significant boost. RNDA 4 appears to be targeting the value crowd, so while the tech could have technically rivaled leading models from Intel, it’s likely the top-end was cut due to wanting to keep the prices competitive.
It calls back to an earlier leak at the end of last year as the supposed RX 8900 XTX design had reportedly leaked. Documentation from Moore’s Law is Dead showcased the Navi 4C config overview with an alleged patent for complex GPU architecture revealing up to 12 dies in parallel without a central or master die.
According to Videocardz, AMD decided to cancel the highest-end RDNA 4 GPU but no reason was offered. To speculate, this could have all come down to pricing. We’ve seen Nvidia’s mid-range and top-end cards explode in MSRP in the generational gap between Ampere and Ada, so it’s possible that Team Red wanted to avoid this from happening.
Cost is king in the new GPU market
While we’re champions of bleeding-edge hardware, it’s important to remember that the top-end will always be a luxury few can afford. There’s no question that the RTX 4090 is the best graphics card from a raw technical perspective, but it outprices the RX 7900 XTX by nearly $600 at MSRP.
For AMD to compete at the top-end, as it sounds like the 4C GPU could have, we would likely have seen prices creeping up past the $1,000 mark, which its RX 7900 XTX avoided. Until the release of the RTX 4080 Super, AMD had cornered the mid-range market with its line of 1440p and 4K graphics cards for gamers, and losing that edge to compete on a power front likely would have done more harm than good.