Shipping Manifest Breaks AMD Radeon RX Navi 44 XL GPUs Are Incoming
Today's leak originates once again from the free and open NBD.ltd shipping database, where watchful leaker Everest (@Olrak29_ on Xwitter) spotted some containers moving that are said to contain "video/graphic cards" marked as "NAVI44XL". Well, that's pretty clear, isn't it?
While you might be given to expect that "XL" indicates the largest version of a GPU, it in fact normally is the smallest or weakest version that AMD makes. The red team's internal GPU codenames are inherited from old ATI Technologies product names, and so the largest version of a given GPU is typically called XT or XTX, while XL refers to a smaller, cut-down card.
So what we're looking at here, Navi 44 XL, is going to be the cut-down version of an entry-level GPU. We expect that it will still be rather potent; we're not looking at an RX 6400 or Arc A380 here. Instead, we think it's probably still a gaming GPU, and thus more likely to be on the order of the Radeon RX 7600. Indeed, it may well end up being branded "Radeon RX 8600", with the XT version being the "Radeon RX 8600 XT." All indications are that it will probably have a 128-bit memory interface and use GDDR6 memory, instead of GDDR7.
From what we've heard as recently as yesterday, AMD is purportedly planning a similar strategy for RDNA 4 as it used with RDNA 1 (the Radeon RX 5000 series.) So saying, the company is just going to launch a handful of cards targeting the most accessible parts of the market. AMD really needs to gain some market share against competitor NVIDIA, and with the green team focusing on the higher end of the market, some entry-level and mid-range GPUs with excellent price-performance ratios could be exactly the way to do that.
Thanks to Everest for pointing out this leak.
