AMD is beginning to retire some of its current-generation RX 7000 series GPUs ahead of its rumored RX 8000 series launch next year. Tweakers reports that several AMD add-in board partners confirmed that the upper mid-range RX 7900 GRE has been declared "end-of-life" and is no longer being produced.
We can confirm this: the RX 7900 GRE has been discontinued by all U.S.-based outlets. Tweakers confirmed that the situation is also overseas, with one exception. If you desperately want one, the only way to get one now is to buy a used one or a new one that is overpriced on eBay.
Tweakers reported that AMD's partners did not reveal the reason for the RX 7900 GRE's unexpected production discontinuation, so it remains a mystery why AMD decided to discontinue this GPU so early.
We have some theories; however, there is a good chance that yields for AMD's flagship Navi 31 die (powering the entire RX 7900 series) have become much better over the past two years. If true, this would give AMD less supply of highly defective Navi 31 dies, only be good enough to run in the RX 7900 GRE. AMD has no reason to use perfectly healthy Navi 31 dies with the RX 7900 GRE when it can run those same dies in the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT, which are higher-tier cards priced higher than the GRE variant.
The good news is that AMD doesn't truly need the RX 7900 GRE to be competitive in the mid-range market. The RX 7900 GRE filled a relatively small hole in the $500-$600 price bracket when AMD decided to release the GPU worldwide (deleting its Chinese exclusivity). The RX 7900 GRE, despite sharing the same Navi 31 die as AMD's flagship RX 7900 XTX, performs very similarly to the Navi 32-based RX 7800 XT, making it almost a sidegrade option compared to the 7800 XT. In our 1440p rasterized benchmarks, we saw, on average, less than a 9% performance difference between the two GPUs.
The price drops on the RX 7000 series have made the RX 7900 GRE even less relevant. The RX 7800 XT is $100 below its original MSRP, and the faster RX 7900 XT is just $100 over it. So, while AMD might not have a full-blown replacement at the $550 mark, it has two very competitive GPUs $100 north and south of that price point.
