AMD Navi: RX 3080 XT is said to be as fast as RTX 2070 for $330

Navi is AMD’s mid-range answer to Nvidia’s RTX GPUs. The RX 3080 XT is supposed to beat the RTX 2070, but costs only 330 US dollars.

AMD Navi should actually reach the RTX 2070

With Navi, AMD is launching a new generation of graphics cards this year. We are already relatively close to the launch, which also makes the rumor mill almost boil over again and again. There is no really concrete, proven information yet. However, a lineup has recently been leaked again, which emphasizes both the prices and the approximate performance. A RX 3090 XT is supposed to be the flagship, but will not be launched on the market until 2020. The temporary flagship with Navi 10 GPU will be on the market this summer and allegedly bears the name RX 3080 XT. The price/performance ratio is supposed to be especially important.

Specifically, this is about a leak from AdoredTV that coincides with information from TweakTown. The first mentioned YouTuber had already posted the names and technical data of the new graphics cards in December. At that time the top model was still called RX 3080 and was supposed to reach the level of the RTX 2070 for 250 US dollars. These plans seem to have changed. The top model of the Navi 10 series is now allegedly called RX 3080 XT and comes with a slightly different price. Nevertheless, the performance should be the same as with the RTX 2070.

$330 price tag would be the end for Nvidia

Especially the price-performance ratio is amazing. With the Turing generation, Nvidia has significantly raised the price level for graphics cards. The performance difference is by far not as strong as when changing from Maxwell to Pascal, which many customers hold against the company. The RTX 2070 performs at almost the same price as the GTX 1080 or slightly above it.

This is exactly the point AMD wants to meet with the Navi 10 top model RX 3080 XT. The cheapest RTX 2070 currently costs a good 450 bucks. The leaked price of 330 US dollars would be a hard hit for Nvidia. The RTX 2060, which is also at this price level, would thus be virtually obsolete. High price discounts from Nvidia would be necessary to regain balance. The only argument would be raytracing support. Since the technology with the two “small” raytracing GPUs RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 runs rather moderately well and a broad support of the technology in general is not (yet) given, this is however not a real argument.

However, it is questionable whether this will actually happen. At the end of the day, AMD must also have a profitable graphics card business in order to survive permanently. To undercut the price range defined by Nvidia so drastically would be an absolute selling point, but simply not logical. Only a launch will show how it will be. This could take place either at E3 or on July 7th. At Computex 2019 we already expect at least a small outlook.