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Underwhelming AMD RDNA 3 Navi 33 performance leak suggests a mediocre generation for midrange GPUs might be on the cards

The Radeon RX 6650 XT has 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM. (Source: Notebookcheck)
The Radeon RX 6650 XT has 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM. (Source: Notebookcheck)
AMD is expected to reveal midrange RDNA 3 cards, possibly the RX 7600/XT, with the Navi 33 GPU sometime in the coming months. Now, the latest rumor claims that the chip will only present measurable yet ultimately unexciting performance gains over the RDNA 2 boards.

AMD released the RDNA 3 Navi 33 GPU inside the company’s mobile RX 7600 and RX 7700S boards at CES. We are yet to see a desktop AMD board feature the chip. But, if the latest report from leaker All_The_Watts is accurate, the entry-level/midrange RX 7000 cards using the Navi 33 GPU may not be as powerful as previously rumored.

After claiming that AMD's RDNA 3 refresh has been canceled, All_The_Watts now maintains that Navi 33 will be less powerful than the RX 6750 XT while being equal to or more performant than the RX 6650 XT. In other words, the performance of the Navi 33 GPU could be between the RX 6750 XT and the RX 6650 XT, possibly somewhere around the RX 6700 XT level. Previously, the leaker suggested that the GPU will match the RX 6800 at the highest with average performance falling close to the RX 6750 XT.

To put these performance claims into perspective, the RX 6650 XT came out 10% ahead of the RX 6600 XT in our tests, whereas the RX 6750 XT ended up being 35% speedier than the RX 6650 XT. So, assuming the Navi 33 GPU matches the RX 6700 XT, the GPU will only be 15% more performant than the RX 6650 XT according to our benchmarks.

In essence, we are looking at evolutionary rather than revolutionary performance gains if All_The_Watts’ report is legit. Combine this with the rumor that the RTX 4060 Ti will be 10-15% faster vs the RTX 3060 Ti and one can argue that this generation is looking rather unimpressive in terms of midrange boards.

That said, desktop midrange RDNA 3 cards are still under wraps. So, it is important to reserve judgments until the boards get into the hands of independent testers.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2023 01 > Underwhelming AMD RDNA 3 Navi 33 performance leak suggests a mediocre generation for midrange GPUs might be on the cards
Fawad Murtaza, 2023-01-25 (Update: 2023-01-25)