Sapphire wants AMD to let them “go nuts” on their GPUs
Sapphire wants AMD to let them “go nuts” with their GPU designs
Ed Crisler, Sapphire Technology’s North American PR Manager, has openly stated that he would like GPU manufacturers to give their partners more freedom when building their graphics cards. Sapphire would like to “go nuts” when building graphics cards, but tight rules limit what they can do when creating new graphics cards.
Today, the difference between high-end and low-end GPU models is minimal. Performance gains from factory overclocks are limited, with very few exceptions. The differences between GPU models mostly come down to cooling performance and aesthetics. Ed Crisler would like to see GPU manufacturers become less strict and allow partners to have “fun” with their designs and enable a level of “differentiation”.
Sometimes, I really wish the chip makers would get out of the way and let us partners make our cards. Give us the chip. Give us the RAM. Tell us what what we have to provide to make it work with the board. Then let us make the cards. Let us have fun. Let us go nuts!
Let there be real differentiation. Sometimes it feels like this market has become too much the same.
In the interview, Sapphire confirmed that it considers bringing back its “Toxic” brand every generation. Sadly, with the RX 9070 XT generation, this isn’t a possibility. Sapphire needs to “go nuts” to make a TOXIC series GPU. It needs to push past the company’s Nitro+ series GPUs with crazy cooling, clock speeds, and bling. For the RX 9070 XT, Sapphire doesn’t believe a TOXIC-series GPU is worth the extra cost. That said, this could change for future Radeon generations.
With pricing pressures and strict control from GPU makers, it’s hard for manufacturers to make exotic graphics cards. Will this ever change? Who knows. Let’s hope so. Who doesn’t want to see more fun hardware designs?
You can join the discussion on Sapphire’s desire for more freedom when creating GPUs on the OC3D Forums.
