It’s been a long time since the best graphics cards offered by AMD and Nvidia were on the same level. For better or worse, Nvidia has been leading the charge for a few generations, and even when AMD tried to keep up, its graphics cards often fell short of the halo card produced by Nvidia. This generation, AMD chose to stick to the midrange, leaving Nvidia to rule the market on its own.
However, a new leak tells us that things might be about to change. AMD is said to be working on a powerful GPU for RDNA 5, and if proven true, this could be great news for several reasons.
AMD’s future flagship might be a massive upgrade
What’s this all about? As is often the case with GPU launches, we’re dealing with a juicy leak here. This time, the information comes from Kepler_L2, who is one of the most prominent leakers in the GPU market. As usual, do take the following with a grain of salt, but as far as leaks go, this is as reputable a source as it gets.
The leaker shared mockup diagrams revealing RDNA 5 (also known as UDNA) architecture for GPUs ranging from the ultra high-end AT0 to the entry-level AT4. We’re seeing architectural changes, upgrades, and most of all, a sign that AMD might not be shying away from the high-end in the upcoming generation.
The best GPU in the lineup is the AT0, which some speculate might be called the RX 10070 or 10090 XT, but who knows what AMD will really go with. In any case, the card — according to the leak — might feature up to 96 Compute Units (CUs), separated into eight shader arrays.
That’s a high number to begin with, but outlets like Wccftech speculate that the actual number of cores might be much higher. The design implies that we’ll get twice the CU count that’s been reported, as these are housed within work group processors (WGP), and in RDNA 4, each WGP packed two CUs.
Compared to the current flagship, the RX 9070 XT, even if we take that 96 CU number at face value, we’re getting a big upgrade. The 9070 XT maxes out at 64 CUs, after all.
Beyond the increase in raw graphics power, the rumored AMD flagship might have a beastly memory interface, as it’s said to sport a 512-bit bus, which is the same as Nvidia’s RTX 5090. With a likely shift to GDDR7 memory, this implies that the RX 10090 XT could be insanely fast in more ways than one.
A major change from RDNA 4
The last time AMD tried to make a high-end GPU was in the previous generation, RDNA 3, with the RX 7900 XTX. This was a true 4K GPU that could stand its ground in AAA titles; unfortunately, it still wasn’t powerful enough to outpace the RTX 4090, which was the Nvidia flagship in that gen.
This time around, AMD scaled back. We’ve only seen four RDNA 4 graphics out in the wild so far, and all of them are more midrange than high-end.
The RX 9070 XT is a fantastic GPU — in fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s my favorite to launch this year — but it’s in no danger of beating Nvidia’s current-gen flagships. It can just about catch up to the RTX 5080 on a good day and with an overclock, but its real rival is the RTX 5070 Ti.
This leaves Nvidia all alone at the top, and while that’s great news for Nvidia, it’s bad news for us. Some healthy competition would be great — but I fully understand why AMD chose to bide its time here.
RDNA 3, while solid in its own right, couldn’t keep up with Nvidia, not just in pure rasterization, but also in tasks like ray tracing. AMD worked on improving ray tracing in RDNA 4, and it has succeeded for the most part, all the while sticking to the more affordable segment of the GPU market.
If these rumors are true, however, then AMD might be getting ready to strike back — and I couldn’t be more excited
Competition in the GPU market? Yes, please
If we could finally, for once, get to a place where we have two rivaling brands at the top of the food chain in the GPU market, I’d be happy. More than that, I dare say that most gamers would be happy.
It’s true that most of us don’t need high-end GPUs, but it’s impossible to deny that, for better or worse, they set the pace for the rest of the lineup. Just take a look at Nvidia’s RTX 5090. Launched at $2,000 and often sold closer to $3,000, the GPU drags the price cap up, and other cards follow suit.
GPU prices are high right now, and they’ve been high this whole year. But if we had some steady competition from AMD pushing back against Nvidia’s pricing strategies, we might be in a slightly better place in that regard.
If AMD can truly rival Nvidia in RDNA 5, everyone will win. Gamers will have more choices, and those options might be more cost-effective than whatever Nvidia decides to cook up this time around. Buying a GPU would be easier if we had options; right now, GPUs in the $1,000 price range are all Nvidia.
RDNA 5, or UDNA, is unlikely to make its debut before 2026. Nvidia is also rumored to launch the RTX 50-series Super refresh either this year or next, so we’re looking at an exciting time for the GPU market as a whole. Stay tuned — we’ll keep you posted.
