AMD may not have officially revealed any RDNA 5 discrete GPUs yet, but that isn’t stopping the manufacturer from preparing driver support for them. AMD currently uses GDDR6 memory for its Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs but is expected to move to GDDR7 with RDNA 5; while there’s no confirmed launch timeframe for the next Radeon series, open-source support has begun. The latest is a bit trivial but still worth knowing about, as it shows AMD’s continued commitment to the open-source community. As reported by Phoronix, GDDR7 has now been listed among the supported memory types in a driver update. Other patches rolled out include enabling IP block IH 8.0 on the interrupt handler, along with updating the New Bus Interface (NBIF) to 7.10.
GDDR7 will be new to AMD’s graphics cards but has been used by NVIDIA with its Blackwell-based GeForce RTX 50 series who adopted it after GDDR6X in the previous generation. Neither GPU manufacturer has announced their plans for next-gen models, although NVIDIA is expected to use its Rubin architecture for its RTX 60 series. Recent rumors point to NVIDIA rolling out its RTX 60 series in 2028 but possibly releasing RTX 50 refreshes before then, which could coincide with other rumors hinting that AMD might begin launching its discrete RDNA 5 cards in 2027.
Many are hoping that AMD will offer an RTX 5080 competitor with RDNA, but doubts are equally high, as AMD previously stated in 2024 it was not interested in offering similar flagship GPUs for the enthusiast sector due to costs and a desire to focus more on the gaming PC market with mid-tier models.
“Do I want to go after 10% of the TAM [Total Addressable Market] or 80%? I’m an 80% kind of guy because I don’t want AMD to be the company that only people who can afford Porsches and Ferraris can buy. We want to build gaming systems for millions of users.”
– Jack Huynh, AMD Computing and Graphics Business Group head
However, AMD may have to rethink this strategy given how much more demanding modern AAA titles have become thanks to path tracing and other features, which often require more powerful GPUs. The big trick will, of course, be pricing, as the current rampocalypse is wreaking havoc for manufacturers and consumers alike in the PC community. Only time will tell but AMD has typically lead the market with more affordable GPUs, and here’s hoping that remains true for RDNA 5 but affordability is in the eye, or more specifically, wallet, of the beholder and things have not been well for PC users in 2026.
Discussion
Join Discussion →No replies yet. Be the first to reply on the forum.