Images claimed to be of AMD's next-gen show off a massive cooler and only two 8-pin power connectors.
If two new leaked images of AMD's new reference design for an upcoming Radeon RX 7000-series graphics card is to be believed, AMD's RDNA 3 cards will look absolutely gorgeous.
The two images purported to show an AMD RX 7000-series graphics card have been posted by leaker 9550pro on Twitter, and they stack the card up against today's top performer from the red team, the Radeon RX 6950 XT.
????Source: QQ pic.twitter.com/FhYix70RXPOctober 31, 2022
The card looks to be a touch longer than the RX 6950 XT, which suggests it's set to be the RX 7900 XT or some similarly beefy GPU. While the new card is also a triple-fan design, it also appears the fans may be a little larger. Looking to the side of the alleged card and you'll find a chunky heatsink with a touch more room to breathe than the RX 6950 XT.
Though what's notable is the inclusion of two 8-pin power connectors.
AMD's Scott Herkelman confirmed that AMD would not be using the newer 12VHPWR connector found on the RTX 4090 last week. That announcement came after reports of the 12VHPWR connector melting for some unlucky users, which Nvidia has since said it is investigating.
These leaked photos would suggest that AMD will stick to just two 8-pin power connectors at the high-end, at least on its own reference cards. From that decision we can infer that AMD is aiming for a similar TDP for its high-end RDNA 3 cards as the current RDNA 2 generation, as greater power consumption would almost certainly require at least another 8-pin connector. The RX 6950 XT has a 335W TDP.
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That said, we don't know which model this is, if it is indeed a real AMD sample, nor whether a higher-end card exists above it. There's no visible way to stuff another power connector on this cooler design, however, which suggests this might be the top number at launch. It's also a massive cooler, but that doesn't preclude an even bigger GPU as proven by Nvidia's colossal RTX 4090.
These images do look to be in some way genuine, notably matching the design teased by AMD earlier in the year, and at the top of this story. Though the red PCB and extra pins on the top (and lack of backplate) suggest this is an engineering sample, not a finished design.
There's not long to wait for official confirmation of the AMD RDNA 3 graphics cards. AMD has a livestream event called "together we advance_gaming" set for November 3, so tune in for more later this week.
