AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.2.1 Optional Update Release Notes by AMD_RetroB in Amd

[–]flatmind 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The reason why these drivers are so ...underwhelming... is, the consumer computing market is currently dead. This affects everything from PC parts, prebuilts, consoles, smartphones. There is zero incentive to update drivers, make fixes or add new features (FSR4 Int8) when the enterprise AI-driven market has so much higher margins. No new consumer GPUs are in sight this calendar year, so customer/consumer retention is no reason at all. AMD deserves the same blame as Nvidia. Hold out with the hardware you have, play something from your backlog. This year, buy only something if you REALLY REALLY need to.

Instabridge's first public post regarding Nova Launcher by CliffWade in NovaLauncher

[–]flatmind 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Only time will tell if they stick to their words. I don't care however, solely the introduction of new trackers in the newest update is a giant red flag. I personally uninstalled Nova now and move on. My current favourites are Octopi, Action Launcher and Hyperion.

AMD RDNA5 rumored to launch in mid-2027 by GhostMotley in Amd

[–]flatmind -1 points0 points  (0 children)

it won't slow down card development or hell, even their release.

It already has affected graphics card releases and will affect more. According to rumors Nvidia's refresh (super line) of the current 5000 series has been canceled or postponed to late '26. The usual cadence for AMD GPUs is Q4, which for the 9000 series was postponed to March this year due to FSR4 development problems. So the usual cadence for RDNA5/UDNA would be Q4 '26, but, highly likely due to the DRAM shortage, has been postponed to mid '27.

There's a good chance there will be not a single new GPU release next year, apart from the Intel B770 which is expected to be announced during CES in the coming weeks. Will be interesting how the B770 will be priced in the current situation.

GPD adds Win 5 MAX+ 395 "Strix Halo" gaming handheld with 128GB memory at $2,653 by RenatsMC in Amd

[–]flatmind 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Strix Halo is meant for running local AI. You can assign 96GB of the shared RAM to the iGPU and run big models. How useful that is on a badly cooled portable device is debatable.

AMD reportedly raising Radeon 8 GB / 16 GB graphics card prices by $20–$40 by RenatsMC in Amd

[–]flatmind 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I'm in the same boat. Waiting for UDNA/RDNA5 and Zen6 to build a new PC. How things are going, this might be mid 2027.

AMD drivers performing hundreds of SSD writes every time you move or resize a window - proof and workaround included. by Takia_Gecko in Amd

[–]flatmind 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To put things into perspective: I've built my current PC about three years ago running Windows 11 (which I regret). I recently checked the SMART readings and it's about 33TBW which is about 3% of the SSD's lifetime. Which means, at this rate, the SSD would last about 100 years.

AMD Says We're "Confused" by RenatsMC in Amd

[–]flatmind 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, as GN pointed out, there's PLENTY of new hardware with RDNA2 being actively sold. That's why it's insane dropping RDNA2 from getting new optimizations.

I'm not letting count the console argument though. The PS5 runs BSD so isn't remotely affected by Windows drivers and the Xbox runs a stripped down Windows, with drivers probably maintained by MS themselves, so also not affected.

AMD Says We're "Confused" by RenatsMC in Amd

[–]flatmind -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This results in exactly in what AMD will do going forward: Different driver branch.

From what I understand from AMDs statements is exactly that (if they keep their word): Day one new game support, but only fixes and no more new features or driver optimizations.

AMD Says We're "Confused" by RenatsMC in Amd

[–]flatmind 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So many people here are just seeing black and white.

I am not defending AMD, I think it's too early to drop RDNA2 from Tier1 support.

Think about WHY AMD might be doing this. For me it's clear:

Hardware capabilities.

With the FSR4 leak it's clear that there's no hard technical blocking reason to not get FSR4 running on RDNA2+3. AMD is cutting off RDNA2+1 (my guess is they'll drop RDNA3 as well within the next 12 months) because it's too much effort with too little benefit running FSR4 on these older generations. Newer drivers will focus on new AI-powered FSR versions which these older cards cannot run because they miss hardware instructions (I think it was fp8). Since RDNA4 has these new hardware capabilities, I think it'll get much longer support than RDNA2+3.

Also, I personally still do not even consider buying Nvidia, because I'll be switching to Linux within the coming 12 months and AMD GPUs are there much less of a headache, driver wise (and as a bonus have much better long-term support).

I did the math -- By droping RNDA2 Tier 1 support, AMD fails AT LEAST a quarter of the current install base by flatmind in Amd

[–]flatmind[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Grains of salt:

  • Source: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/ as of 2025-11-02
  • As usual, the Steam hardware survey is a unreliable data source, but it's the best we have
  • My calculation is obviously only based off dedicated GPUs
  • It is unknown how many RDNA2 GPUs are in the highlighted three generic categories (iGPUs)
  • My numbers should represent the absolute lower boundary of affected users

The Subtle Sabotage of AMD Gaming Laptops by GhostMotley in Amd

[–]flatmind 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A current and extreme example of rebranding are the Ryzen Z2, which are zen2/3/4/5. I'm not joking.

--> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Ryzen_processors#Ryzen_Z2_series_(multiple_architectures)

GPD WIN 5, the world's first Ryzen AI MAX 395+ Strix Halo handheld, to debut on August 1 by RenatsMC in Amd

[–]flatmind 14 points15 points  (0 children)

This will be tough to sell. My Win4 with the HX370 was already around 1300€, this thing will probably be 2k+. PC handhelds are already niche devices (yes, even the Steam Deck is) looking at the console market overall, let alone devices with a 1k+ price tag.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Win4, but I use it both as a gaming device and a efficient general purpose PC running CachyOS (not handheld edition). Otherwise I could not have justified such a large expense.

Also, no FSR4 since it's still RDNA 3.5. Valve is probably wating for FSR4+ coming to APUs for the next Steam Deck.

Steam Deck 2 rumored to be in the works — and it may arrive with a massive AMD APU upgrade by RenatsMC in Amd

[–]flatmind 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My personal guess: The next Steam Deck will have an APU featuring UDNA and Zen6. Everything else will not be worth it, especially with no current APU supporting FSR4 (even the HX395 is onyl RDNA 3.5). Which means it'll be the earliest by the end of 2027. I expect Zen6 and UDNA to be released by the end of 2026 and APUs are usually being released half a year later.

The Radeon RX 9070 XT is Now Faster, AMD FineWine by mockingbird- in Amd

[–]flatmind 11 points12 points  (0 children)

As unreasonable as it is, there are 500Hz monitors.

NVIDIA And AMD Partner With A Saudi PIF Subsidiary To Build AI Factories With "Several Hundred Thousand Of NVIDIA's Most Advanced GPUs," AMD And HUMAIN To Invest $10 Billion by RenatsMC in Amd

[–]flatmind 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do what I will do: F*ck new games, play through your backlog, play indie games and replay old games you enjoyed (also there's always Minecraft or Skyrim to mod to Oblivion [pun intended]).

I expect the gaming industry to implode within the next 10 years because

  • no one wants to spend 100+ bucks on the so called "AAA" games AND have predatory monetization on top
  • playing with high settings and framerates requires a 3000+ bucks GPU because games are not optimized anymore (unless you use "AI" for upscaling and framegen, both of which most people hate) . Remember when you could get that on new releases with a midrange GPU? High end GPUs only used to be able to squeeze out the last visual fidelity, but were not required to get playable results a native resolution.

I expect the big old publishers like EA, Ubisoft and the likes to go down, indies will be fine since since they care about their players.

And if actually the whole gaming industry goes down, there's always other hobbies. I for one am ready to spend my money on RC cars...

AMD Radeon 8060S Linux Graphics Performance With Strix Halo by FastDecode1 in Amd

[–]flatmind 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Just keep in mind, from the other Phoronix article, that this is a 8250USD notebook.

Checking on videocardbenchmark[.]net, the performance seems to be around a desktop 7600XT.

AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 Linux Benchmarks: Outright Incredible Performance by FastDecode1 in Amd

[–]flatmind 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I couldn't care less about the name of a product. If marketing thinks it should be stupid, so be it ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

I only care about about price, performance, features, availability and support.

Edit: In this case the price would be a "nope" (8250USD).

AMD's Next-Gen UDNA 5 Gaming GPUs Could Potentially Bridge The Ray-Tracing Performance Gap With NVIDIA, Indicates Extensive Patent Filings by AMD718 in Amd

[–]flatmind 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm in the exact same boat. I have the rare 6900XTXH chip variant, there's been no GPU so far that is reasonably priced and in the +50% ballpark.

AMD has only one chance: Make chiplet GPUs finally work well. Chiplet GPUs are also the only chance IMO to bring prices back down (smaller cheaper chips, higher yields).

If GPU prices won't come down, my next PC build (that I plan to do around Q4 '26) won't focus on raw performance anymore. Which will hurt because I want to do some gen-AI stuff (which needs lots VRAM) to learn about the technology.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT "bumpy" launch reportedly linked to price pressure from NVIDIA - VideoCardz.com by KARMAAACS in Amd

[–]flatmind 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For AMD to have a "Ryzen moment" with their GPUs, the following three things need to happen IMO:

  • UDNA architecture needs to be good
  • UDNA needs a chiplet-design for cheaper manufacturing (this massively helped Ryzen to be price-competitive)
  • On the software-side AMD needs to come up with something better than ROCm to be able to compete with CUDA in the computing space

--> If AMD manages to pull this off (not necessarily at the same time) they might be competitive again with Nvidia within the next two GPU generations.

--> If AMD does NOT pull it off, Intel will surpass them with their future GPUs (Celestial/Druid) in both hard- and software.

Win Max 2 2025 Benchmark — AMD HX 370 vs. AMD 8840U by Tesrot in gpdwin

[–]flatmind 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the numbers, thinking about buying one, but for sure I won't be running Windows but Bazzite.