AMD Backs Off RDNA 3 Efficiency Comparison to RTX 4090
According to an updated report by ComputerBase, AMD is reportedly hiding performance per watt graphs of its upcoming RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT graphics cards. AMD’s footnotes from November 15th’s performance presentation state there was supposed to be a performance per watt slide “RX-841” for the RX 7900 XTX, but AMD never presented it.
To be more specific, AMD was initially supposed to show off a performance per watt slide of its RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT compared to Nvidia’s very power-hungry GeForce RTX 4090 based on publicly disclosed TBP values. However, because this slide was never shown, and AMD accidentally left this footnote in its presentation, its decision was apparently made at the very last minute.
We don’t have any confirmation of why AMD decided to hide this slide, but we suspect Nvidia’s RTX 4080 had something to do with it, especially considering its very high performance-per-watt ratio.
Our review of the RTX 4080 found the card’s performance-per-watt to be incredibly good. It outperformed Nvidia’s power-sucking RTX 3090 Ti while consuming far less power than its maximum 320W TBP allows. In fact, according to our tests, the RTX 4080 Founders Edition consumed just 221W at 1080p. Furthermore, the only workload we found that would max out the RTX 4080’s power budget was Furmark combined with a GPU overclock.
This was the exact opposite of our RTX 4090 results, where we found that card consumed over 400W of power while gaming. Apparently, Nvidia wanted to push the 4090 to its absolute limits, while its RTX 4080 focused more on efficiency.
Nvidia confirmed the 4080’s efficiency with its own article on the same subject, (opens in new tab) stating the RTX 4080 could hit just 251W of power consumption under average gaming conditions (albeit at 1440p resolution). This is an impressive feat considering Nvidia’s previous generation RTX 3090 Ti consumes significantly more power at 398W under typical gaming workloads, according to Nvidia’s article. This accounts for a 37% power reduction for the RTX 4080, and that’s not even considering the 4080’s slightly faster gaming performance.
Again, we can’t confirm that AMD hid this slide purely based on the RTX 4080’s power results. However, it is the most logical solution we can think of right now. Furthermore, AMD is already targeting Nvidia’s RTX 4080 with its flagship RX 7900 XTX instead of the RTX 4090. So AMD has a lot riding on its RX 7900 XTX competing with Nvidia’s RTX 4080.
If everything goes perfectly for Nvidia, AMD will have a flagship GPU that consumes slightly more power than the 4080. The RX 7900 XTX’s power consumption is rated at a slightly higher 355W TBP compared to 320W on the 4080. So there is a chance this will happen. But like we saw with the 4080 results, TBP doesn’t tell the whole story. So you’ll have to wait for our RX 7900 XTX review to come out in December to see if AMD’s 7900 XTX can beat Nvidia’s RTX 4080.
