Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
There ’s no better way to reverse spoilt press than a true apologia tour . GPUs are on a bit of one right now in an effort to get ahead back the goodwill of PC gamers with juiced - up specs , good pricing , and some fancy newfangled stigmatisation .
Most obviously , we can see this with Nvidia ’s RTX 40 - series Super GPUs , but AMD is also throwing its chapeau in the ring with theRX 7600 XT , too . Nvidia and AMD are react to the rather disappointing year that GPUs just had , and in the process , they ’re proving that enough discontent can bring the GPU market to a near position .
The apology tour
We have four new GPUs to sound off off 2024 — AMD has the RX 7600 XT , while Nvidia has theRTX 4070 Super , RTX 4070 Ti Super , and RTX 4080 Super . Each one of them is a open attempt to right the wrongs of the base versions of these cards . It ’s the common thread , and it ’s something that at least Nvidia has engage with in the past . The infamous RTX 20 - series GPUs saw a Super refresh less than a year after releasing .
The RX 7600 XT gives AMD ’s entry - degree offering more VRAM and a boost clock hurrying , while the RTX 4070 Super offer up boost specs to more intimately align performance with price . The cock-a-hoop changes issue forth with theRTX 4070 Ti Superand RTX 4080 Super , however .
Thebase RTX 4070 Tiis one of the weakest GPUs Nvidia has released this contemporaries . The Super model does a smattering of things to bring it up to par . Most notably , it get the full treatment of the AD103 GPU we see in theRTX 4080 , as well as a higher pith count and the 16 GB of GDDR6X memory we see on the RTX 4080 . The memory and effect tally were two of the biggest complaints about the RTX 4070 Ti when it launched with a $ 800 Mary Leontyne Price shred .
The RTX 4080 Super is in a different attitude . We do n’t have reviews yet , but based on the specs and Nvidia ’s own operation claims , I suspect it will be almost selfsame to the base RTX 4080 in performance . The gravid variety here is that Nvidia slashed the price from $ 1,200 to $ 1,000 . And sure enough , that was the big charge about the base RTX 4080 — it was never that it was a bad GPU , just too expensive .
So what ? We see updated GPUs all the time . It would be more strange tonotsee a mid - gen refresh of graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia . The bad difference this time around is the fanfare . Mid - gen refreshes are typically released under wraps . We get cards like theRTX 3080 12GBandRX 6950 XT . They ’re announced and released during off months in an attempt for AMD and Nvidia to squeeze a fiddling more life out of their silicon before the next propagation drops .
That ’s far from what we saw this clock time around . Nvidia and AMD both claim to one of the largest events they ’ll take part in this year , CES , to declare the raw GPUs , and Nvidia go as far as to release new Founder ’s Edition models fit with a new color dodging and branding . These are n’t just mid - gen refreshes where gameboard partners can slap their old ice chest on updated Si — they ’re a statement .
And that statement is an apology . Of course , multibillion dollar corporations do n’t apologize with products , but the late batch of GPUs are an attempt to win over some of the goodwill that was lose over the past year . The RTX 4070 Ti was universally pan out , the RTX 4080 was way too expensive for what it offer , and although theRX 7600was a decent if unimpressive GPU , it only terminate up that fashion due to a last - minute price cut of meat day before launch .
Damage control
It ’s really the marketing that is dissimilar this time around . Like with most mid - gen refreshes , I suspect Nvidia and AMD are n’t expecting to sell a set of new GPUs .
We ’re seeing some of that in action already with the RX 7600 XT , RTX 4070 Super , and RTX 4070 Ti Super , which , according to someadmittedly dubitable sales data , are n’t selling as well as their foundation versions . Some YouTube ironware leaker depart as far as to say sale for the RTX 4070 Superwere a “ disaster . ”I see similar claims for most GPU launching , but it makes mother wit that these updated reading would n’t deal as well as the understructure modelling .
That does n’t seem like the goal here . The destination seems to be to rewrite the tale of the past twelvemonth in microcomputer gaming . The two unwashed threads throughout last twelvemonth were that GPUsdidn’t come with enough VRAMand thatGPU priceswere too mellow . Almost every graphics card that release last twelvemonth was criticise for its VRAM mental ability or pricing , and normally both , from the RTX 4060 to the RX 7700 XT to flagships like the RX 7900 XT . The only exclusion I can think of isAMD ’s RX 7800 XT .
It ’s in the zeitgeist for PC gamers , and it ’s no wonder . It ’s laborious to forget whenNvidia CEO Jensen Huang saidthat falling GPU damage were a “ account of the past , ” or when game likeThe Last of Us Part OneandHogwarts Legacyreleased in dire states , only to double down on performance issues with VRAM limitations . I wrote about how last yr was one of theworst times to be a PC gamer , and that was due in no small part to GPU releases .
The vote
It ’s great recognizing that Nvidia and AMD are seek to make up for some lackluster releases last yr , but what can we take away from it ? Well , something exploit . It ’s impossible to say if the GPUs sell poorly , or if Nvidia and AMD get feedback from users to heart , or if it was something else entirely . It does n’t really count , though . Clearly , AMD and Nvidia felt it was necessary to compensate the issuance we see with GPUs last twelvemonth .
There ’s an authoritative monitor here about the dynamic between companies sell products and the customers that buy them . Too far in one counsel , and the society is n’t making as much money as it could . Too far in the other , and there ’s bad will among the base of customers , which can lead to a downslope in sales .
Regardless , it takes two to head the ship . There ’s the old saw about voting with your wallet , but it goes beyond that . Enough pushback on decisions that a large group of people do n’t agree with can drive unlike decisions in the future tense , and we ’re consider a bit of that play out right now — however minor it may be .
Ultimately , we can only pass judgment the products we have at any cave in time . Right now , Nvidia and AMD are try on to get ahead back some party favor , and doing a decent — if imperfect tense — job of it . We ’ll have to see how long that campaign holds .
