AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE review: Shrinkflation isn’t just for groceries anymore
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I just want to commend Andrew Cunningham and Ars in general for not insisting on a headline like "Is the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE worth $549?" like pretty much every single other tech publication on Earth would do. I bitch about everything lately and I thought this was worth the opposite. Good job guys.
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This... is very much a matter of opinion. Performance wise in the practical sense? Possibly. For the price they actually go for online + the problem of Nvidia is becoming a new monopolist in the compute market because of CUDA + not, sorry, but Nvidia doesn't have a working open source driver stack which is of huge importance in the FOSS world, not to mention CUDA is entirely proprietary.
Much of the problem in the gaming world is a catch 22. Many buy Nvidia because the gaming experience is "better". What people don't realize is the gaming houses are adapting their gaming assets and engines to work around Nvidia's bugs and other quirky crap and not bothering to do the same thing with AMD or Intel's offerings. Self fulfilling prophecy reinforces itself - in the Windows market anyway. Nvidia is the Internet Explorer of the gaming industry.
Frankly, ALL the new(ish) hardware is vastly over-inflated. Even the 9060XT 16GB is selling $100 USD over MSRP. Nvidia's hardware is even worse because people are flocking to it for CUDA inference engine interfacing. At this point I'd rather have a Mac than pay Nvidia hardware prices. They're a better buy if you're looking for something better performance and more versatile than just another over priced dGPU. The MacMini 24GB is $999 which is a better buy and more versatile than the 24GB PC dGPUs. So long as your game runs on Mac you're golden. Course, that's the kicker, but if you don't care about games, Blender, most inference engines, and other compute intensive systems support Apple Silicon Macs. Frankly, non-console gamers are barely a blip on corporate profit sheets at this point. We're lucky AMD, et al are even throwing us the occasional bone at this point with cut down hardware.
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Problem is the price. The product as designed makes sense as an upgrade from something like a 6700XT, but the price is about $100 too high.
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Probably primarily harvesting partially defective cores. as on a wafer you may not get all the cores needed for the high end RX 9070 XT, you cutdown / fuse off bad parts then you get the RX 9070, then you do it again and get the RX 9070 GRE
It to optimize dies and reduce waste.
But from a sales side, as others pointed out its priced wrong, why pay 549 lower performing RX 9070 GRE vs the normal RX 9070. it should have been priced $50-$100 lower
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It's a cut down board for an over inflated market aimed at people that can't get anything else due to supply issues. PC gamers, I'm sorry, but we're not the master race any more and haven't been for 10 years. Compute drives the GPU market. This is meant to insert into that market, pricewise to help with getting some of the binned silicon out the door. Gamers either don't bother or sit on what they have till they can't any longer. That's pretty much the new normal for the past several years.
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The former might explain the latter, as in we only have a limited number of cores that are "defective enough" to produce GREs so the pricing is also to constrain sales to a lower volume. Otherwise they'd have to downgrade healthier chips to have sufficient stock.
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It just makes no sense to buy any PC hardware until the AI-bubble pops unless you absolutely must, like e.g. if your GPU breaks. Alas, there's no saying how long they can keep bubble going, so it could still be several years of waiting...
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That's not true. PC and Console game revenue is pretty much 50/50 atm with PC set to take the lead in the next year or two.
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An unspoken problem (as I have seen play out in the DIY sphere out here) is fanboism.
Brand insistence is not a new phenomena by any means, but it seems to have taken on a finer edge in this absurd timeline.
In fact, at current count (and I know this is a limited, anecdotal perspective) I know of more instances wherein someone has bought a GPU based on the brand they like vs what their needs (and even budget) really call for.
Back on topic; this card is overpriced for what it offers and would be completely DOA at virtually any other time in computing history.
But because many other superior products are also under highly inflated prices and/or difficult to procure - it will survive and somehow have a market.
Sadly.
Brand insistence is not a new phenomena by any means, but it seems to have taken on a finer edge in this absurd timeline.
In fact, at current count (and I know this is a limited, anecdotal perspective) I know of more instances wherein someone has bought a GPU based on the brand they like vs what their needs (and even budget) really call for.
Back on topic; this card is overpriced for what it offers and would be completely DOA at virtually any other time in computing history.
But because many other superior products are also under highly inflated prices and/or difficult to procure - it will survive and somehow have a market.
Sadly.
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The hilarious part of this 9070GRE release...AMD NDA'd reviewers--even though the card has been in retail channels for a year now.
I'll eat my shoes if it ever appears and is sold in the USA for MSRP after the first month. Scalpers aside, retailers will sell it for at least +10-25%.That MSRP is all but certainly a subsidized promotional offer only, just like the fictive 9070 and 9070XT MSRP pricing.
I'll eat my shoes if it ever appears and is sold in the USA for MSRP after the first month. Scalpers aside, retailers will sell it for at least +10-25%.That MSRP is all but certainly a subsidized promotional offer only, just like the fictive 9070 and 9070XT MSRP pricing.
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Agreed. I warned all my friends back in December that if they were even thinking of an upgrade in the next 2 years, do it immediately before the prices jump again, otherwise be prepared to wait. I can't see myself either buying or recommending anyone else to buy upgraded components in the near term.
I've been using this as an opportunity to revisit old favorites, in terms of both software and hardware. I pulled my old Athlon Thunderbird and Voodoo 5 out of storage, re-boxed them into a Thermaltake Tower 600, and now have a Win98SE gaming rig in the living room. It might be the cleanest such build that has ever existed, thanks not to my own skills but to the advances in case design during the past 25 years. My daughter has been tearing up NFS2SE and Motocross Madness 2 (yes, with the mandatory Sidewinder Force Feedback joystick).
If you've kept any of your old hardware around, then now is a great time for a nostalgic re-build.
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Did the 9070XT and 9070 ever get down to MSRP in the US? At launch AMD did that scummy rebate trick where each store had a few models that were temporarily 'discounted' to MSRP for the launch and then every other model was $50+ more. Of course every MSRP model sold out immediately and only the more expensive models seemed to get restocked.
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I bet with a better RAM market this would have been $499 or $449 instead, but here we are.
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I think there may be a typo in the penultimate paragraph.
I believe
The RX 9070 has the RAM it needs to be a credible entry-level 4K GPU; the RX 9070 can struggle with this resolution due to its smaller RAM bank.
Should be
The RX 9070 has the RAM it needs to be a credible entry-level 4K GPU; the RX 9070 GRE can struggle with this resolution due to its smaller RAM bank.
I believe
The RX 9070 has the RAM it needs to be a credible entry-level 4K GPU; the RX 9070 can struggle with this resolution due to its smaller RAM bank.
Should be
The RX 9070 has the RAM it needs to be a credible entry-level 4K GPU; the RX 9070 GRE can struggle with this resolution due to its smaller RAM bank.
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They did for a brief period, I actually saw 9070xts under MSRP at my local Microcenter. Speaking of Microcenter they are currently selling the Powercolor Reaper 9070 for less than some of the 9070 GREs. If AMD put the GRE out at $450 or $475 it would have wiped the floor with the 5060ti.
If you're near a Microcenter I don't see how you could buy a 5070 or 5070ti over the 9070 and 9070xt unless you really need the CUDA cores
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I recently bought a 9060 with 16GB of VRAM, and honestly, it’s been just fine. I understand that Nvidia probably has better hardware in terms of performance per dollar, but the driver situation on Linux completely drives me away from them.
Nvidia has burned me too many times, especially when I’ve had to fix my system after a broken upgrade because the Nvidia drivers didn’t match the kernel, since they’re out-of-tree.
so yea, AMD cards are overpriced for what you get, but I’m willing to pay the money and put up with it if I don’t have to buy Nvidia.
Nvidia has burned me too many times, especially when I’ve had to fix my system after a broken upgrade because the Nvidia drivers didn’t match the kernel, since they’re out-of-tree.
so yea, AMD cards are overpriced for what you get, but I’m willing to pay the money and put up with it if I don’t have to buy Nvidia.
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I don't see the Nvidia or Intel cards in the charts. So it's hard to understand how the AMD cards can't keep up with the RTX 5070.
Oh wait, I see now. There are separate charts for the Nvidia and Intel cards for each game. These charts include the RX 9070 GRE, but not the other AMD cards. And they are not in sequence by (game, cards), but by (cards, game). A bit confusing, but I guess it's a compromise to avoid overly large charts. But since we have to click through the charts anyway, they might as well list all the cards for each game on a single chart. They would be twice as tall, but they blow up to fill the window anyway when clicking.
And I think the author is beating up on the GRE price/performance when it's an industry-wide problem right now. It's not shrink-flation, it's supply and demand. This won't end until the AI companies actually have to start turning a profit. Right now they are high on investor money and giving product away below cost to build market share. Once they start actually covering their operational costs and amortized capex costs, no one will be able to afford to use AI anyway. They are hoping to get everyone hooked on AI before the bills come due.
Oh wait, I see now. There are separate charts for the Nvidia and Intel cards for each game. These charts include the RX 9070 GRE, but not the other AMD cards. And they are not in sequence by (game, cards), but by (cards, game). A bit confusing, but I guess it's a compromise to avoid overly large charts. But since we have to click through the charts anyway, they might as well list all the cards for each game on a single chart. They would be twice as tall, but they blow up to fill the window anyway when clicking.
And I think the author is beating up on the GRE price/performance when it's an industry-wide problem right now. It's not shrink-flation, it's supply and demand. This won't end until the AI companies actually have to start turning a profit. Right now they are high on investor money and giving product away below cost to build market share. Once they start actually covering their operational costs and amortized capex costs, no one will be able to afford to use AI anyway. They are hoping to get everyone hooked on AI before the bills come due.
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Instead of a technical review, you should have continued down the angering path of shrinkflation and the corporate race to the bottom. What we see here is not the end of this practice of getting less for the same, or possibly more money. Keep boosting those quarterly numbers guys, into and beyond infinity*
*obviously continued growth is something physically impossible but these guys refuse to understand the constraints of this rock we live on
*obviously continued growth is something physically impossible but these guys refuse to understand the constraints of this rock we live on
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I mean, yeah, but I think you're still thinking we operate in a universe where some PC components haven't doubled or tripled in price over the past 9 months. Prices for any component that involves memory or storage simply don't make sense anymore. But hey, at least Nvidia is "worth" (checks real quick) more than the GDP of the 3rd ranked country in the world (Germany), so that's cool I guess.
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Is there an enemy agent (or bloody team of them) working to destroy AMD's graphics division from within or something, or perhaps they have a self-humiliation kink?
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It's the other way around. On price v. performance, AMD is the leader.
I think the point is that everything is over priced. The 9070 GRE is just a symptom of that.
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I was dismayed to discover that popular sparkling beverage IZZE switched from 70% juice to 60% juice several years back. This doesn't simply feel bad; it tastes bad too! So in my book*, losing 3g is better than making the entire product worse.Andrew Cunningham said:
That's my
* not an actual book.
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It depends on what price you actually are able to pay. The 9070XT was a good middling card at the stated MSRP...that basically no one was able to buy it for. I was able to buy a 5080 for the $999 MSRP, last August, at BestBuy. There were 9070XTs priced at $850-900 then just as there were 5070 at that price too.
We live in an era where the MSRPs are fake, and availability is intentionally throttled into scarcity.
AMD doesn't want to win over customers with pricing...they want to compete with Nvidia on pricing. The result is a GPU market where Nvidia is all but a monopoly now. And will continue to be, even if they only pretend to sell new cards and pretend to make new drivers. Which isn't a sure thin at all--the writing is on the wall that Nvidia doesn't care about gaming anymore which is nothing but opportunity cost for them now. And AMD--well they only care about AI shovels too--which is why they just re-released the 9070GRE that was on sale in China a year ago, and extended AM5 support for 3 years.
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The flame wars between the two GPU makers is long and storied.
My experience with GPU's across hundreds of computers goes back 30 years. For a lot of that time, Nvidia was objectively better. It ran hot, but it wasn't buggy. Their driver updates were usually good, but how much they actually improved the average gamer experience could be argued. They ran, most of the time.
AMD was less expensive, but it had a lot of issues, and I eventually went to Nvidia as my go-to.
Fast forward to Windows 11 coming out and people hating it and when they upgrade, they're going Linux. Nvidia drivers in Linux suck for gaming. I mean, it will, but if you're the bleeding edger type, it's going to run hot and you'll get issues here and there. For the most part, gaming is better in Linux with AMD, unless you only run undemanding games. If you run Steam games, AMD is the only way to go for many of them.
So, it really depends on what you roll with for the best experience from a strictly functional point of view. Personally, I tend to think unless one has superhuman abilities, if you told someone that GPU A was X good and GPU B was Y good, they couldn't tell them apart running side by side and it's all in their heads as to the specs. When it takes benchmarks that go FAR beyond the ability of humans to perceive a noticeable difference, you're not talking a lot of subjective improvement or difference. But you COULD be talking a hell of a lot of money.
To ME, at least, the way I "benchmark" a GPU is, "Does this thing work substantially better than what I had?" It's an inexact, non-benchmarked, subjective assessment, as are most of them that people generally use.
If not, I get pissed. If so, I'm pleased. And it's been a while since I got pissed.
So comparing it to what you had, if it's subjectively "better", then it's a step up regardless of the performance of the thing compared to others that you don't have, or can't afford.
Subjectively, this is probably better than what I have, though mine's a 12gb card, but older tech. Will I rush out to get one? Fuck no. They're horribly overpriced, and what I have is "good enough" for what I do.
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I had thought about possibly upgrading my desktop GPU or my gaming laptop this year, but that plan flew entirely out the window and now it's so far gone one couldn't see it even with a satellite. I'm not into retro-gaming or retro-PCs or such, but given that I will probably not be able to upgrade any of my PC-hardware for years to come, I resorted to investing in my other hobbies, namely 3D-printing and my electronics workbench.
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That seems to be a trend with AMD... Producing GPUs that would be highly recommended if they were priced a bit lower. The idea that they're priced specifically to not generate a huge demand because they just want to use up the steady supply of slightly defective chips makes a lot of sense there.
Like with the 9070/9070XT launch. If they'd managed to lock things in so they were sold at MSRP and stayed there (and had the supply to ensure they stayed in stock consistently across all markets. They did better than NVIDIA's last launch, but still had problems), they would have done awesome. If they could have shaved 5-10% off the MSRP at launch (and kept it off the prices afterwards), they would have dominated.
I honestly think this is really the absolutely best "benchmark." I already know I can't afford a 5090, there's lots of cards that might do better, and for whatever reason, are out of reach (price, availability, restrictions, etc). What I really absolutely need is something that is better than what I have at the time of purchase, and has a sufficiently significant "feels like it works a lot better" to justify the price. If it does that, then awesome, it's a win. Oh, and it needs to not break. I don't care the reason, if a cable melts or the magic smoke came out, it's an automatic fail.
Like with the 9070/9070XT launch. If they'd managed to lock things in so they were sold at MSRP and stayed there (and had the supply to ensure they stayed in stock consistently across all markets. They did better than NVIDIA's last launch, but still had problems), they would have done awesome. If they could have shaved 5-10% off the MSRP at launch (and kept it off the prices afterwards), they would have dominated.
I honestly think this is really the absolutely best "benchmark." I already know I can't afford a 5090, there's lots of cards that might do better, and for whatever reason, are out of reach (price, availability, restrictions, etc). What I really absolutely need is something that is better than what I have at the time of purchase, and has a sufficiently significant "feels like it works a lot better" to justify the price. If it does that, then awesome, it's a win. Oh, and it needs to not break. I don't care the reason, if a cable melts or the magic smoke came out, it's an automatic fail.
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Practically, for a gaming card, there really needs to be a bang for your buck evaluation. What's the best dollar per fps right now? I bought a 9070XT at $579 in February and even then I wasn't sure it was a good deal. At $770? its 100% not worth it for most. Heck, console gaming is getting out of hand too and will likely plummet if the stock market tumbles and we get a real recession. A card like this? I don't think it moves the needle much - there's little out there that's worth buying at these prices.
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Price point is a moving target and a significant issue, but I think this is getting to be out of date; it's becoming pretty common to find deals on 9070 XTs in the $620-$650 range recently (currently Walmart and Amazon have one from Gigabyte for $650, and it's actually been in stock for more than a day).
With AMD prices seeming to step down a little bit recently it really puts the GRE version in an even worse light - it just doesn't make sense anywhere near the MSRP.
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I have a 7900 GRE and it sat nicely between the 7800XT and the 7900XT both in performance and cost. It was an odd duck but I was able to get it for about $50 more than a 7800XT while still being nearly $200 less than the 7900XT. It was argued then that it was designed to find a use of the worst bins of the 7900XT chips and this one feels no different.
The fact that this new GRE card can't even beat it's prior generation predecessor (outside of certain RT tests) for the same launch price just makes me sad and shows how messed up the current hardware market currently is.
The fact that this new GRE card can't even beat it's prior generation predecessor (outside of certain RT tests) for the same launch price just makes me sad and shows how messed up the current hardware market currently is.
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Fruit snacks, K-Cups recently went from 12 to 10 in a box (plus a price increase, natch!), and now this.
Might I suggest the alternate moniker, "RX 9070 GREedmaxxing"?
Remember when tech always got better and cheaper over time? Sigh...
Might I suggest the alternate moniker, "RX 9070 GREedmaxxing"?
Remember when tech always got better and cheaper over time? Sigh...
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Out of curiosity isn't the biggest driver of cost increases memory?
If so, why did they kneecap the processor too? Or was it a case where dropping the memory resulted in gpu being essentially wasted, so might as well throw a worse chip in there too?
Or is that attributed to tariffs which hit the whole cost of the card?
The fact that it's even less energy efficient is particularly galling, especially with the giant increase in energy prices. Your electric bill is higher, your gpu is worse, and you pay the same.
If so, why did they kneecap the processor too? Or was it a case where dropping the memory resulted in gpu being essentially wasted, so might as well throw a worse chip in there too?
Or is that attributed to tariffs which hit the whole cost of the card?
The fact that it's even less energy efficient is particularly galling, especially with the giant increase in energy prices. Your electric bill is higher, your gpu is worse, and you pay the same.
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