In the next few months, the graphics card market competition will experience an unprecedented major change. Nvidia, AMD, and Intel will release new products in a concentrated and intensive manner over a short period. Meanwhile, NVIDIA and AMD are making strategic adjustments and accelerating the development of next-generation AI technologies, such as FSR 4.
This also means that the landscape of the GPU market will undergo comprehensive changes, with mixed results, but there is no doubt that we are entering a new era in the PC gaming industry.
GPU Overlord——NVIDIA
Although Nvidia has not confirmed the RTX 50 series GPUs, the market has widely discussed its release plans.
Nvidia has typically released new generations of graphics cards at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC). CES, on the other hand, has mainly been used for special speeches and not for product launches. However, things are different this year. Nvidia introduced new gaming GPUs, such as the RTX 4080 Super, at CES instead of following the traditional GTC release model. This shift may indicate GTC’s growing focus on AI. Nvidia seems to have chosen CES for gaming graphics card releases, aligning with broader technology shows.
Nvidia has yet to officially confirm it, but its active presence at CES and upcoming keynote suggest the RTX 50 series is near. The deployment of the Blackwell architecture for next-generation GPUs further hints at this. Additionally, the discontinuation of multiple RTX 40 series models points to an early debut next year.
In addition to the release time, the graphics card specifications are also worthy of attention. Nvidia seems to have continued the trend of RTX 4090 and RTX 4080.
The RTX 5080 will feature significantly fewer cores than the RTX 5090, further widening the performance gap between the two generations. Building on the success of the RTX 4090, which replaced the Titan series and excelled in both gaming and professional workloads, the RTX 5090 is expected to continue this trend.
In addition, the next generation of graphics cards may feature GDDR7 memory. Developers have known about GDDR7 for over a year, and it recently began mass production. While rumors suggest Nvidia will adopt this next-gen memory, the company’s leadership in graphics memory technology makes it highly likely.
Performance is uncertain, but Nvidia’s dominance in the high-end market will be more prominent. The real question is how far Nvidia wants to push performance, and how much consumers are willing to spend.
Variable – AMD
AMD is entering a critical stage. AMD has officially confirmed that it will release the RDNA 4 series graphics cards (RX 8000 series) in early 2025. CEO Su Zifeng proposed this news and emphasized it many times, although he did not directly state that AMD will cooperate with Nvidia at CES 2025. Released at the same time.
The specific release date is not a core issue. AMD executive Jack Hugh has pointed out that the company does not intend to compete with Nvidia for industry leadership. Instead, the RDNA 4 series will focus on markets outside the ultra-high-end range. While AMD has consistently worked to close the gap with Nvidia, it has been particularly competitive in the entry-level and mid-range markets, with Nvidia maintaining dominance in the flagship sector.
AMD has successfully competed with Nvidia’s RTX 3090 on price with the RX 6900 XT in the RDNA 2 series of graphics cards. However, its ray tracing performance is slightly inferior. Despite this, the RX 6900 XT remains a strong contender in terms of value. However, Nvidia later launched the more powerful RTX 3090 Ti. In the new generation, Nvidia has left AMD’s RX 7900 XTX to compete only with the RTX 4080 due to its powerful flagship and high pricing alone.
Although sales of the flagship products were limited, they set the tone for a new generation of graphics cards. These products also demonstrated each brand’s market positioning. AMD may shift its strategic focus to lower-end product lines, as it did with past successes like the RX 5700 XT and RX 580.
Through FSR technology, AMD aims to regain market share among high-performance consumer groups. Similar to NVIDIA’s DLSS, AMD is developing its own super-resolution and frame generation technology. The next generation of FSR will use artificial intelligence, and the RDNA 4 GPU is expected to feature specific hardware that enhances AI performance.
The default winner – Intel
This year, Intel launched the Xe2 architecture, known as Battlemage technology, for the Lunar Lake series notebook CPUs and revealed its internal structure through a detailed video. Intel intends to launch GPUs before AMD and Nvidia to avoid overlapping the media promotion cycles of these two giants. Although GPUs such as the Arc A770 and A750 perform well, Intel’s current market share is still far lower than AMD and Nvidia, so it needs to find a breakthrough to attract more attention.
In addition, ASRock has listed two graphics cards on Amazon in advance, adding a touch of surprise to Intel’s release. Both of these are Arc B580 graphics cards. Although ASRock has removed the graphics cards from the shelves and left their prices unknown, some key information has surfaced. The low-end model of the ASRock Challenger series features an 8-pin power interface, suggesting its power consumption will stay under 150W. It also comes with 12GB VRAM and a PCIe 5.0 x8 interface.
These details indicate that the B580 is just one of many models Intel plans to launch. It may be positioned at the low end of the market. In comparison, the A770 comes with dual 8-pin power connectors and 16GB VRAM. The Arc A580, however, only has 8GB VRAM. The PCIe 5.0 x8 interface stands out. It works well with a PCIe 5.0 motherboard but could face bandwidth bottlenecks in PCIe 4.0 motherboard slots. However, these issues need to be further explored after the graphics card is launched.
Intel is clearly targeting AMD, not Nvidia, with its high-end models to capture a piece of the market. Its strategy focuses on cost-effectiveness. The performance of the flagship graphics card seems to be benchmarked against the RTX 4070, although this claim is not yet proven.
Intel doesn’t appear to be pursuing flagship-level performance, nor does it aim to match Nvidia’s RTX 5090. Instead, the strategy is to gain market share by offering lower-priced products while AMD and Nvidia focus on the high-end market.
This strategy began to bear fruit when Intel launched its first-generation desktop GPU.
write at the end
In general, PC gamers will usher in a good situation with diversified new hardware choices. At the same time, market competition will intensify due to the release of new products from AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel.
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