Neowin reviewed two of AMD's products over the last few weeks. The more recent one was that of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D which received a score of 9 out of 10. While that score is nothing to scoff at, the RX 9070 XT that we tested before the 9950X3D did even better and scored a full 10 out of 10.
That is because it delivered a great product for the price (SEP/MSRP) and almost exactly what the company had promised. For example, AMD claimed a huge boost in AI performance and we definitely saw that.
The mostly positive reception looks to be paying off. In an interview with HotHardware (via Wccftech), David McAfee, AMD's Corporate VP and General Manager of the Client Channel Business, stated that RX 9000 series desktop GPUs are seeing "unprecedented" success, which is also why they have been hard to get at their SEPs/MSRPs.
He also explained how AMD is conducting its business with AIB (add-in-board) vendors this time as there is no reference card, only aftermarket AIB variants. For example, Neowin received the Sapphire Pulse model as the review sample. McAfee stated:
We put a process around a box. We set a price for that product. We ship it directly into the market and we control that end. With the launch of RDNA 4, You know, we sell an Asic to our board partners, who then have a range of designs that they want to enable and then the end retailers and any tailors around the world are the ones that are picking the assortment of cards that they want to carry for day one we can help in that process, but it's something that we don't honestly directly control
... the biggest thing that we are doing quite honestly is ramping supply of Navi 48, very aggressively the demand that we saw on day one was really unprecedented and unprecedented across all the price points in the RDNA 4 product portfolio.
Naturally, with its near-performance parity with Nvidia, users are left wondering whether we may eventually see something like the 9080 XT or the 9090 XT/XTX that will take on the RTX 5080 and 5090.
Sadly, that does not seem to be the case, at least not anytime soon. When inquired about this, McAfee stated that AMD is still focused on winning market share and mind share first:
Market dynamics or technology dynamics for that matter are required to make that a reality for you. I think that if you look at a graphics business as a whole, and what it's done over the past couple of years, priority number one is really bad.
The truth is if you look at the market in the segmentation of the market setting aside dollars where the units reside, you know, it's $800 and below $700 and below $500 and below right that that is where most people in the world buy gpus and when you go back to things like our conversation about FSR 4 and in game technology to help Advance the experience, you know, what we are very focused on in our Graphics businesses ensuring that we have the scale, you know, Graphics business to drive the relationships with game developers to get the Mind share that AMD technology into their games and to have the broadest appeal that we possibly can to you know, as many gamers as we can touch in the ecosystem.
I think as you look forward in time, you know, we certainly have aspirations to cover the entire gamut of gaming solutions that are out there in the market and maybe one day we'll get there. But for now, we're focused on really growing scale, driving the developer relationships that come from having a bigger footprint in the graphics market, and that's the near-term focus of our Graphics business.
Thus, AMD appears firm on its initial commitment of not taking on the Green team at the high end. However, the company is probably right in its approach, as at the end of the day, winning market share and mind share is key for its long-term success against Nvidia. Besides that, AMD also must not lose share to Intel and its new Arc cards.
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