AMD’s new 7900 series GPUs received a lot of pre-launch hype. There were claims of 50-70% performance improvements over the previous flagship. Our benchmarks show that the 7900-XTX leads the 6950-XT by around 30%. AMD overhype their product launches because it is effective at getting first-time buyers to pay over MRSP. After an initial burst in sales, prices often drop rapidly, as with the 6900 XT and the recently launched Zen 4 7950X, which are now both 30% cheaper. AMD’s domination of social media platforms has historically resulted in millions of users purchasing sub standard products, those users will be very hard, if not impossible for AMD to win back. If this trend continues, semiconductors may become a secondary business line for AMD, who appear more focused on developing “Advanced Marketing” relationships with select youtubers and media outlets. Based on the volume of social media/press coverage, you would never guess that the combined market share for all of AMD’s Radeon 5000 and 6000 GPUs amongst PC gamers is just 2.12% (Steam stats). Be wary of sponsored reviews (golden samples+cherry picked games) that showcase the wins and gloss over the losses whilst conveniently ignoring frame drops. Despite steady price cuts, an increasing number of seasoned gamers simply have no interest in buying AMD products. They know from bitter experience that headline average fps are worthless when they are accompanied with stutters, random crashes, excessive noise and a limited feature set. Most gamers, who are better off playing at 1080p, will do well to wait for Nvidia’s upcoming 4060/4070 series cards (est. early 2023). Even brand fans that wish to be in AMD’s “2%” club, will find better deals after the launch hype settles. Shoppers should avoid AMD’s reference design as many users are reporting thermal issues. ^{[Sep '24 GPUPro]}

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