AMD's latest graphics cards are not very good value, according to AMD In a blog post (opens in new tab) purporting to explain why there is no better time to buy an AMD GPU, the company shows just how bad a value proposition the latest RDNA 3 era graphics are It accurately demonstrates.

In a graph incorrectly titled "Average 1080p Performance vs. $/FPS for 6 Games," AMD's new Radeon RX 7900 XTX (opens in new tab) and RX 7900 XTX (opens in new tab) in terms of FPS per dollar, have been shown to offer by far the worst returns.

Both the RX 7900 XT and XTX deliver less than half the frames per dollar of AMD's best value GPUs. Of course, these new RDNA 3 models are high-end boards. And the best value GPUs are usually not at the top of the GPU range.

But what is really disconcerting for AMD is how badly the new RDNA 3 boards compare to the previous generation of RDNA 2 GPUs: according to AMD's own figures, the RX 7900 XTX delivers 0.373 frames per dollar and the RX 7900 XT 0.395 frames. [However, the previous generation Radeon RX 6800 (open in new tab) recorded 0.655 frames per dollar, and even the 6950 XT (open in new tab) recorded 0.484 frames per dollar. However, if AMD had set the RX 6950 XT's initial MSRP at $1,099, it would have been much worse than any of the RDNA 3 cards.

While it is inevitable to some extent that new generations of graphics hardware will be more expensive, in our opinion, it is absolutely wrong for new hardware to perform poorly for the money spent. That is the exact opposite of how technological progress is supposed to work.

Looking at the rest of the chart, it is no surprise that by far the best overall value proposition at 0.726 frames per dollar is the Radeon RX 6700 XT (open in new tab) The 6700 XT was not the strongest value play when it first launched but with a current price of $369 and actual street prices in similar territory, it has come into its own and absolutely stands out in a marketplace crowded with aggressive, overpriced GPUs.

Incidentally, according to AMD's bylaws, the performance per dollar figures in the published graph are Apex Legends, Valorant, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, The Callisto Protocol, GTA V, Overwatch 2, and are based on a series of games including Overwatch 2. All GPUs were tested at the maximum setting of 1080p, but the RX 6400 was generously allowed a "Medium" preset and should be virtually ignored; according to AMD, the figure of 0.849 frames per dollar is very misleading; the RX 6400 is a "medium" preset, which means that the GPU is capable of running at a higher resolution.

On a similar note, our benchmarks are in perfect agreement with AMD's figures; the RX 6700 XT is certainly the best value for money AMD has to offer. But if AMD's carefully controlled numbers make the new RDNA 3 board look like a poor value, independent third-party testing is unlikely to make a better story.

It is also worth noting that Nvidia's new Ada generation of graphics cards do not look any better when looking at their own suite of benchmarks. In fact, both the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 have worse frames per dollar than AMD's latest GPUs when comparing our own internal numbers. Nevertheless, the RTX 4070 Ti is somewhat inevitably the best value among the five new generation cards released, if one can add the concept of "value" to a $799 GPU.

All of this leads to a depressingly familiar narrative about PC graphics pricing all over again. This situation sucks and I strongly hope it improves soon.