AMD RDNA 3 graphics cards should be more efficient than RDNA 2, but the company's vice president has confirmed they will demand more power supply juice

AMD RDNA 3 is the red team’s answer to next-generation gaming PC graphics, but the souped-up Radeon lineup is set to guzzle more power. While the company claims its best graphics card range will be over 50% more efficient than RDNA 2, Radeon 7000 series specs seemingly come with an inevitable appetite.

Speaking to Tom’s Hardware, the company’s senior vice president, Sam Naffziger, confirmed that AMD RDNA 3 GPUs will feature increased power consumption. However, the firm apparently plans to offset future increases with “a multi-year roadmap of very significant efficiency improvements,” something that could put it ahead of competitors like Nvidia.

The AMD boss suggests “Performance is king” and touches on RDNA 3’s efficiency, but caveats that pushing power levels is necessary if “the competition is doing the same thing.” Industry whispers suggest competing graphics cards like the RTX 4090 could draw up to 900W, matched with specs that smash the gaming PC performance ceiling. While the red team isn’t shying away from hungrier configurations, Naffziger says Nvidia will have to push TDP “a lot higher than we will.”

If one thing is certain, it’s that next-gen GPUs will want more juice from your PSU. Kitting out your rig with the best power supply around should negate any snags, but AMD hasn’t confirmed whether AMD’s GPUs will use a PCIe Gen 5 power connector. That said, RTX 4000 and RDNA 3 are expected to show up in a few months’ time, so we’ll likely hear more about their system requirements soon.

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Phil longs for the bleeps and bloops of old gaming PCs but is happy to remove his retro-tinted glasses to cover the latest Nvidia, AMD, and Intel GPUs and CPUs. He also covers the Oculus Quest 2.