GamingGPUs

NVIDIA’s RTX 4090 Likely to Be Faster than the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT due to More Counts and Higher TGP [Rumor]

NVIDIA will likely hold onto the performance crown with its next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards set to launch later this year. The GeForce RTX 4090, 4090 Ti, and the 4080 Ti will leverage the massive AD102 die packing as many as 18,432 cores, 96MB of L2 cache, and a 384-bit bus interface. Of course, all these ALUs will need at least 600W of power when fully enabled and running at their peak clocks.

GPUTU102GA102AD102AD103AD104
ArchTuringAmpereAda LovelaceAda LovelaceAda Lovelace
ProcessTSMC 12nmSam 8nm LPPTSMC 5nmTSMC 5nmTSMC 5nm
GPC671275
TPC3642724230
SMs72841448460
Shaders4,60810,75218,43210,7527,680
TP16.137.6~100 TFLOPs?~50 TFLOPs~35 TFLOPs
Memory11GB GDDR624GB GDDR6X24GB GDDR6X16GB GDDR616GB GDDR6
L2 Cache6MB6MB96MB64MB48MB
Bus Width384-bit384-bit384-bit256-bit192-bit
TGP250W350W600W?350W?250W?
LaunchSep 2018Sep 2020Aug-Sep 2022Q4 2022Q4 2022

The AD102 die will get a haircut before going into the RTX 4090, dropping the core count from 18,432 to 16,384. This means that a few of the SMs, TPCs, and GPCs along with the L2 cache will also be axed. As for the clocks, Kopite7kimi states that we can expect core boost clocks well over 2.8GHz. This should result in a staggering single-precision throughput of almost 100 TFLOPs.

GPU NameRX 7700 XT (Navi 33)RX 7800 XT (Navi 32)RX 7900 XT (Navi 31)RX 7950 XT (Navi 30?)
Process Node6nm5nm + 6nm5nm + 6nm5nm + 6nm
Die Config6nm x15nm x1, 6nm x45nm x1, 6nm x55nm x1, 6nm x6
Shader Engines2466
WGPs16324848
CUs32649696
Cores4,0968,19210,752?12,288
Memory Bus128-bit256-bit320-bit?384-bit?
Memory TypeGDDR6GDDR6GDDR6GDDR6
Memory Capacity8GB16GB20GB?24GB?
Infinity Cache64MB128MB192MB192MB?
TGP200W250W?300?350W?
LaunchQ4 2022Q1 2023Q4 20222023

Moving on to the Radeon RX 7900 XT and the Navi 31 core powering it, we’re looking at a core count of 12,288 for the former and not a lot more for the latter. That’s a delta of 4,000 cores between the 7900 XT and the RTX 4090, and even wider if you consider the RTX 4090 Ti. AMD is rumored to be working on a larger Navi 3X core featuring up to 16,384 cores but even then the fully enabled AD102 die vis-à-vis the RTX 4090 Ti has a few thousand core advantage. There’s also no guarantee that it’ll actually enter volume production. Add to that the use of faster GDDR6X memory on the higher-end 40 series cards and Lovelace gets a bandwidth advantage.

https://twitter.com/greymon55/status/1542553359340535808

There’s also the matter of the release dates. From what we know, AMD will kickstart the RDNA 3 family with the release of the Radeon RX 7700 XT in October, followed by the RX 7900 XT in November or December. This will give the top-tier RTX 4080 and 4090 to rule the enthusiast gaming market for a good one or two quarters. AMD may come up with superior GPUs in terms of performance per dollar and performance per watt but as usual, NVIDIA seems ontrack to retain the performance crown once again.

Areej Syed

Processors, PC gaming, and the past. I have written about computer hardware for over seven years with over 5000 published articles. I started during engineering college and haven't stopped since. On the side, I play RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Divinity, and Fallout. Contact: areejs12@hardwaretimes.com.
Back to top button