If you were hoping AMD might launch some new budget RDNA 3 GPUs in the near future, we’ve got bad news: unfortunately, the latest word from the grapevine is that this isn’t happening.
We’ve previously been treated to rumors of an expansion for the current-gen range of graphics cards, with the possibility that AMD might debut an RX 7400 and RX 7300 – but not according to Benchlife.
A report from the Chinese tech site – add seasoning as appropriate – claims that these GPUs are “not on the development list of any AIB partners,” meaning graphics card makers over in China.
If that really is the case, at this stage, it means the purported challengers to get on our list of the more affordable best GPUs probably aren’t happening, at least not in the form of a consumer release (boxed products on the shelves).
That still theoretically leaves the possibility that these low-end GPUs might be made for OEMs – third-party PC makers, so these firms can put them directly into prebuilt machines – but even that seems unlikely, mainly because Benchlife adds that there’s been no confirmation of the existence of such models from the main OEMs (Dell, HP, and Lenovo).
Rather, the report observes that everyone (in terms of graphics card makers) is focused on the launch of next-gen RDNA 4 products.
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Analysis: A mix up on the grapevine?
While this is just a single report – and it isn’t from one of our favorite sources, either, although we wouldn’t dismiss Benchlife by any means – it sounds pretty gloomy about the chances of these rumored graphics cards.
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So, what’s going on, and why were the previous rumors floating around in the first place? Well, it could simply be that AMD has changed its mind, and had plans for an RX 7400 and RX 7300, but they never came to fruition. Could this even be a sign that the timeframe for deploying RDNA 4 has been moved up?
That seems a leap too far, but still, we can hope – the latest speculation about the release of AMD’s next-gen GPUs asserts that this won’t happen until early 2025, with a reveal at CES 2025, potentially. (Although there’s a glimmer of hope RDNA 4 could arrive later in 2024, and maybe – just maybe – this rumor adds a touch of weight to that prospect).
What might be the case here, as VideoCardz, which spotted the report, points out, is that there’s been some confusion about what GPUs AMD has in the works for the near future (as the original leak mentioned Radeon Pro variants of the cards). There may never have been any plans for a consumer model, in other words.
Still, we might just catch a lower-end RDNA 3 model turning up in prebuilt PCs – there remains some hope that this might occur, if we read the report correctly (bearing in mind it’s a translation, which always introduces some additional doubt). However, all in all, this doesn’t seem likely, and the most probable scenario at this point appears to be that the next graphics cards we will see from AMD are RDNA 4 models – unless this report is leading us completely astray.
