Yesterday, a report suggested that AMD could be preparing an RX 9070 GRE SKU that will be placed somewhere between the RX 9070 series and the upcoming 9060 series. Since there were no specification details at the time, we speculated that the card might have 16 GB VRAM if AMD decided to re-use the same GPU die as the 9070 and 9070 XT.
Today, a new report from Chinese outlet BenchLife claims that AMD will, in fact, be using the same Navi 48 GPU die as the 9070 series, but the memory configuration is changing with the 9070 GRE. The company will purportedly be equipping the GPU with four fewer gigabytes of memory. Thus, the rumored 9070 GRE will have 12 GB VRAM.
What this also means is that the memory interface will be reduced too from 256-bit on the RX 9070 (XT) to 192-bit on the RX 9070 GRE. And a reduced memory interface will consequently mean lower bandwidth with the 9070 GRE sporting 480 GB/s compared to 640 GB/s on the 9070 and XT models.
In our review, we found that the 9070 XT's 16 GB frame buffer was sufficient for titles at 1440p (AMD says it can do 4K too, but we won't recommend it for AAA 4K gaming). The supposed 9070 GRE with 12 GB of memory could struggle at this resolution since we did see modern games consuming more than 9 GB of the available buffer.
However, memory alone is not the factor, as there is also the processing power aspect of this. Unfortunately, the new report also does not have any details regarding the number of compute units or stream processors the GRE may have.
And there is the pricing aspect too, since it is unlikely for 12 GB VRAM to be something to complain about at a price point of, say, around $350-400. So we will have to wait to see how AMD specs and prices this thing.
The report does add that the launch, at least initially, will be China-focused, but this is hardly surprising considering most GRE SKUs do land in the east first before going west.
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