AMD introduced its fourth-quarter earnings yesterday, and the numbers had been principally rosy: $7.7 billion in income and a 51 p.c revenue margin, in comparison with $6.2 billion and 47 p.c a yr in the past. The largest winner was the information middle division, which made $3.9 billion because of Epyc server processors and Intuition AI accelerators, and Ryzen CPUs are additionally promoting effectively, serving to the corporate’s consumer phase earn $2.3 billion.
However when you had been searching for a darkish spot, you’d discover it within the firm’s gaming division, which earned a comparatively small $563 million, down 59 p.c from a yr in the past. AMD’s Lisa Su blamed this on each devoted graphics card gross sales and gross sales from the corporate’s “semi-custom” chips (that’s, those created particularly for recreation consoles just like the Xbox and PlayStation).
Different knowledge sources recommend that the response from GPU patrons to AMD’s Radeon RX 7000 collection, launched between late 2022 and early 2024, has been lackluster. The Steam {Hardware} Survey, a loud however broadly helpful barometer for GPU market share, reveals no RX 7000-series fashions within the high 50; solely two of the GPUs (the 7900 XTX and 7700 XT) are utilized in sufficient gaming PCs to be talked about on the record in any respect, with the others all getting lumped into the “different” class. Jon Peddie Analysis just lately estimated that AMD was promoting roughly one devoted GPU for each seven or eight bought by Nvidia.
However hope springs everlasting. Su confirmed on AMD’s earnings name that the brand new Radeon RX 9000-series playing cards, introduced at CES final month, can be launching in early March. The Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT are each aimed towards the center of the graphics card market, and Su mentioned that each would convey “high-quality gaming to mainstream gamers.”
A possibility, possibly
“Mainstream” may imply a whole lot of issues. AMD’s CES slide deck positioned the 9070 collection alongside Nvidia’s RTX 4070 Ti ($799) and 4070 Tremendous ($599) and its personal RTX 7900 XT, 7900 GRE, and 7800 XT (between $500 and $730 as of this writing), a fairly broad value unfold that’s nonetheless costlier than a complete high-end console. The GPUs may nonetheless rely closely on upscaling algorithms like AMD’s Constancy Tremendous Decision (FSR) to hit playable body charges at these resolutions, slightly than focusing on native 4K.
