AMD’s upcoming plan for GPU releases have been called into question recently, and now, there’s some more evidence that the company’s GPUs are beginning to lose momentum.
As pointed out by Hardware Unboxed on X (formerly Twitter), MSI is slowly removing listings of AMD Radeon GPUs, specifically the 7000 series, from online retailers. Additionally, all existing products have been discontinued and the company never managed to release models for the Radeon RX 7700 XT and the 7800 XT.
Did I miss this story? MSI has been completely removed from AMD's Radeon 7000 series, all existing products have been discontinued and they never released a 7700 XT/7800 XT. This all seems to have happened very quietly.
— Hardware Unboxed (@HardwareUnboxed) April 26, 2024
MSI has been a prominent player in the gaming hardware arena, and by the looks of it, the company has made a decisive move toward embracing Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards.
This wasn’t just an observation, though. Hardwareluxx, a German tech site, reached out to MSI and received a response regarding their focus. MSI stated: “When it comes to graphics cards, our focus at the moment is actually more on RTX cards. Nevertheless, the collaboration with AMD is essential and extremely relevant for us. We see a very positive development, particularly in the area of mainboards.”
Although the statement does not explicitly state a discontinuation of Radeon graphics cards, MSI’s recent actions imply otherwise. The move also significantly departs from MSI’s long-standing commitment to AMD and could mean more trouble for Team Red in its fight against Nvidia.
If we look at the recent Steam hardware survey from March 2024, AMD is not even close to competing with Nvidia’s RTX 40-series GPUs. Interestingly, the expensive and oversized RTX 4090, which is one of Nvidia’s most niche consumer-grade graphics cards on the market, is more popular than any other GPU from AMD. What that means is a majority of consumers are willing to spend upwards of $1,500 instead of buying a cheaper Radeon graphics card.
Some of the potential factors driving MSI’s decision could be the competitive advantage offered by Nvidia’s RTX series GPUs, particularly ray tracing, DLSS, and overall performance metrics. Another reason could be wanting to adapt to market trends and technological advancements.
Whatever may be the case, if MSI really does intend to completely pull out from making Radeon GPUs, it’s certainly an ominous sign for AMD.
