While we wondered and speculated about the conspicuously absent AMD Radeon RX 7800-series, we saw a simulated RX 7800 XT created using a Radeon Pro W7800. In the same article, I speculated that we might not see the RX 7800 XT hit the shelves for several months yet, though it turns out we might see it sooner rather than later.
ASRock has registered a pair of AMD graphics card models with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), as spotted by harukaze5719. Both cards confirm the existence and naming of the RX 7800 XT. Though we don't yet have confirmed specifications, the names suggest the cards will ship with 16GB of memory.
The two cards are the ASRock RX 7800 XT PG 16GO and the RX 7800 XT PGW 16GO. Apart from the confirmation of the RX 7800 XT name and 16GB of memory, it's safe to assume these cards will fall under ASRock's Phantom Gaming sub-brand. The PGW name doesn't correspond with any other Phantom Gaming model but it's surely a variant rather than something really different.
The existence of the RX 7800 XT isn't a surprise, though the timing of its release is more so. A typical GPU release cadence would see the high-end cards launch first, followed by mid-range ones and finally, entry level models. Yet this time around the RX 7600 was released before either RX 7800 or 7700 models.
It's not a hard and fast rule though; nothing is in the GPU world these days. AMD released the RX 7600 as an alternative to Nvidia's upcoming RTX 4060, but it's also possible the performance wasn't where it needed to be, or it needed a respin or bug fix before AMD was happy shipping the Navi 32 chip at its heart out to the public. But here I'm just speculating.
The RX 7800 XT should end up as a competitor for Nvidia's RTX 4070 series. Whether it competes with them in performance, price, or both is the million dollar question and one we all look forward to knowing the answer to.
