AMD released its Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT graphics cards despite knowing that they came with unfinished RDNA 3 “Navi 31” GPUs, according to new claims made online by individuals that include Kepler, who alleged on Wednesday that the hardware lacks a working shader prefetch HW, something that could reportedly lead to poor gaming performance, including frame rate drops and stuttering.
“So AMD decided to release Navi31 A0 silicon, which is known to have a non-working shader prefetch HW,” Kepler said in a tweet dated December 14 regarding AMD’s alleged blunder, which is said to affect other chips as well that are destined for future Radeon RX 7000 Series graphics cards, including Navi 32, as noted by some publications.
So AMD decided to release Navi31 A0 silicon, which is known to have a non-working shader prefetch HW 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️https://t.co/cQTRKynN0B pic.twitter.com/CIdv6GUcYW
— Kepler (@Kepler_L2) December 14, 2022
If Kepler is to be believed, this issue is a complicated one that could take AMD several months to fix, assuming that the company even plans on fixing the alleged issue at all.
There’s also the problem of Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT graphics cards being on shelves and in the hands of many enthusiasts already, a good portion of which will presumably be upset to know that they have inferior versions of RDNA 3 in the event that AMD ends up releasing proper versions of its new GPUs.
Complementing the allegations are various reports from some reviewers who claim AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT graphics cards are exhibiting inconsistent performance, with fluctuations present in popular titles that include Activision and Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, whose multiplayer is free to play from December 15 through December 19.
It's getting weirder. First it's running MW2 (1080p) at ~350 FPS with ~2900 MHz clocks. But an hour and a reboot or two later, it's doing ~300 FPS with t~2400 MHz.
— Nadalina (@NadaOverbeeke) December 14, 2022
Same game, same test run, same settings.
Now retesting the XTX, suddenly the same thing: +20% FPS out of nowhere. https://t.co/hvRCPzLqXV
AMD launched its first Radeon RX 7000 Series graphics cards in the form of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT on December 13, 2022, and they appear to be selling well despite brewing controversies.
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX has an SEP of $999 USD, while the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT has an SEP of $899 USD.