So, apparently AMD backtracked on their statement about putting RDNA1 and 2 into "maintenance mode" and ensured and pointed out that we will continue to get game optimizations. This seems like backtracking, but it also seems aligned with my interpretation of their statements from yesterday. Basically, AMD is splitting off the drivers. RDNA3 and 4 will get new tech like FSR 4 due to having the AI stuff in the GPUs to accelerate it, while RDNA1 and 2 will not. This isn't surprising. While RDNA2 is a very capable and relevant architecture (also their most popular one between the PS5/XBSX/Steam deck and the fact that some of the most popular GPUs in steam's hardware survey are stuff like the RX 6600 and 6700 XT), it just doesn't have the AI stuff for AMD's new tech. This doesnt mean it should be abandoned driver wise; RDNA2 is otherwise extremely capable and has all the modern tech for modern games, but yeah, given future upscaling tech is likely going to require AI, RDNA2 is probably stuck on FSR3. I'm okay with that, btw. Again, I don't care about AI and fancy upscaling tech, as long as the games run and support SOME form of upscaling (FSR 2/3 is acceptable to me).
But yeah, right now the real debate is whether this was a miscommunication or a flat out backtrack. I think it's a combination of both. AMD has abandoned drivers on older GPUs after only a few years. They were REALLY bad about this back in the day, although a lot of Vega owners felt burned too. RDNA1 is still supported even though that's aged like milk (seriously, that one DOES lack of lot of modern features necessary just to make the games RUN in the first place), but again, dropping RDNA2 seems weird for the following reasons. First of all, it's not that old. The architecture is only 4-5 years old, with most cards being closer to 4 years of age. And it was still sold regularly until THIS YEAR. Seriously, I was recommending RX 6600s to people until the 5050, 5060, and 9060 XT came out this past summer, and cards like the 6650 XT, 6700/6750 XT, and 6800 were pretty common cards for people to buy and existed along side RDNA3 products until very recently. If anything, RDNA3 seemed very skippable and forgettable itself. It provided no real performance uplift over RDNA2 in practice outside of the high end, and AMD was more competing against itself with that one. With that said, even for AMD it makes ZERO SENSE to drop RDNA2 yet. RDNA1, I can see. It is a bit deprecated. But 2? No, that's still modern and quite performant. The 9060 XT 16 GB is still comparable to a 7700 XT or 6800, for only like $30-50 less than those were sold for. That's how little the market has really moved since in the past few years.
With that said, putting RDNA2 on ice seems kinda ridiculous. While AMD is known to just ditch old architectures when it has something newer, again, ditching its most successful architecture since polaris seems...premature. Normally when it does this the cards have been out of circulation for at minimum 2 years, and that's if you get screwed. AMD CAN offer support as long as 6 and even as long as 8-9 in the card of the HD 7000 series if youre lucky. So ditching a 4 year old architecture that's still being sold is crazy even by their standards.
At the same time, does it make sense to split the drivers off between RDNA3 and 4 vs 1 and 2? Yeah, yeah it does. I mean, look, RDNA2 is great and all, but for AMD to really catch up to nvidia, it needs to invest in AI powered tech and RDNA2 just wasnt designed for that. it was designed for more open source upscaling methods that are a bit inferior (and a huge reason people dont buy AMD is BECAUSE it's inferior in this department), and it doesnt have the tech on board for AI powered stuff like nvidia has. FSR4 is intended to play catch up with Nvidia's DLSS, and you need a newer architecture that can run that. As long as AMD still supports the older standards along side the newer, again, I don't care. And that's where I'm at. FSR 2/3 is "good enough" for me. Sure, it aint great, it is blurry, it has artifacts, etc., but again, I'll use it to hit my target framerate. I just wanna run games and use this thing for a reasonable amount of time before upgrading. I was probably gonna upgrade in 2027-2028 or so, when the NEXT generation comes out, given I want roughly 2x performance for the same price range ($250ish), and I would like more than the same 8 GB VRAM.
So...which one is it? Backtracking or clarification? A little of A, a little of B. I believe the thing about the split driver paths, but it seemed like AMD was looking to cut off RDNA2 to a much greater extent, no longer providing game specific optimizations, but offering really basic driver support. Now they're backing off and saying they'll support the cards more or less in full while simply splitting the driver paths. I think that they got roasted so hard by the internet (given all the big techtubers and the community was LIVID at them over this; again, RDNA2 is like their most successful and widely sold GPUs, dropping it seems very premature).
Just to make a point about that, here's AMD most popular GPUs according to the steam hardware survey:
AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics- 2.23%
AMD Radeon Graphics- 2.04%
AMD Radeon RX 6600- 0.92%
AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT- 0.75%
AMD Radeon RX 580- 0.69%
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT- 0.65%
AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP- 0.62%
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT- 0.61%
You get the idea. Ignoring the top 2 (IGPs), we get 2 RDNA2 cards, 1 RDNA3 card, 1 RDNA1 card, and 2 polaris cards. Nvidia is massively more popular on the whole, but yeah. And if you go down beyond these GPUs, you get mostly a mix of RDNA2 and 3 GPUs. That's what's been the most popular over the past 3 years or so and what's most widely sold. AMD is shooting themselves in the foot by cutting off RDNA2. It's arguably among their most successful architecture. Also, those IGP people using "Radeon graphics" are probably Steam deck and other PC handheld users, which are mostly powered by...you guessed it, RDNA2. So yeah, AMD would basically be destroying their GPU brand by ditching those customers. And as one of those guys, if AMD did drop us...let's just say I'd highly consider paying the nvidia tax next time given longevity is important to me, and we're no longer in the 2022 market where Nvidia products were 50% more for the same tier of product. Now they're closer to 10-20%. So yeah...watch yourself AMD. You burn me and you lost yourself a customer. Of course, that's why they backtracked, they kinda realized the internet was PISSED at them for dropping a widely sold and used relatively modern architecture.
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