AMD Navi-based 7nm graphics card may release sooner than expected

AMD’s much-anticipated Navi-based graphics cards are set to debut at E3 2019 in June. However, new rumours have surfaced about the card's price and release date.

While we already know that the Navi-based GPUs will go head-to-head with Nvidia’s RTX 2070 and 2060, there’s no information on pricing or release with the last announcement from the company stating that it would reveal future gaming plans at E3 2019. However, recent leaks point to a release within a week and commercial availability by early July.

According to a report by Wccftech, a spokesperson for Sapphire (An official AMD hardware partner) claims that the upcoming Navi-based RX 3080 and RX 3070 will arrive sooner than expected. The spokesperson reportedly leaked the information to Chinese media with specific details about the 7nm GPUs based on Navi architecture.

Let’s start with the RX 3080, which will allegedly deliver slightly better performance than the RTX 2070 and come in at $499. While the performance claims seem to be in line with what we’re hearing, the RX 3080 was expected to carry a $399 MSRP, which would put it in a sweet spot between the RTX 2060 and 2070.

The possible RX 3070 is said to deliver slightly better performance than Nvidia’s RTX 2060 and will reportedly cost $399. Again, performance seems to be accurate with all rumours and leaks going around, but pricing is still far off. The RX 3070 was expected to launch somewhere between $250 to $300.

Since AMD hasn’t made any confirmations about the upcoming GPUs, we’d suggest you take this information with a pinch of salt. Unfortunately, however, the spokesperson also confirmed that the forthcoming AMD graphics cards wouldn’t feature any specific ray tracing hardware. The Sapphire spokesperson also referred to the two cards as the Navi XT (RX 3080) and Navi Pro (RX 3070).

One of the reasons why we feel this information may be accurate is because the article where these details were originally published has been taken down. So, let’s cross our fingers and wait till May 27th to see if the Sapphire spokesperson was spot on.