AMD Big Navi launch looks imminent — watch out, Nvidia RTX 3080

News
By published

Nvidia RTX 3080 could soon face an AMD Big Navi challenge, thanks to a Fortnite teaser

AMD Radeon chip
(Image credit: AMD)

With Nvidia having taken the covers off the GeForce RTX 3090, RTX 3080, and RTX 3070, AMD is due to counterattack with its Big Navi graphics card. And it looks like it will be revealed soon. 

That’s going by an Easter egg spotted by streamer GinaDarling in Fortnine, which claims:  “Something big is coming to the AMD battle arena.” Given a lot of rumors have been pointing towards an upcoming launch of a powerful next-generation GPU from AMD, and the use of the term ‘big’, we reckon this is a teaser for the reveal of Big Navi. 

Our colleagues over at Tom’s Hardware found that if a passcode is entered into the in-game terminal where the Easter egg is located, the number ‘6000’ is displayed. This is likely a reference that Big Navi will usher in a Radeon RX 6000 series of graphics cards, to sit above or replace the RX 5000 series, which are based on the older first-generation RDNA architecture. 

For a while now, AMD has been tipped to have an “Nvidia-killer” graphics card in the works called Big Navi. Big Navi is expected to use AMD’s second-generation RDNA graphics architecture. That’s the same RDNA 2 GPU tech inside the PS5 and Xbox Series X .

Big Navi will have a GPU based on the 7-nanometer process node, promising more power and efficiency. And previous leaks have it tipped to be up to 50 percent faster than Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. 

However, Nvidia’s new GeForce lineup has a trio of graphics cards that all outperform the RTX 2080 Ti. This means that AMD Big Navi now has new Nvidia graphics cards to take on, and ones that are considerably more powerful than expected. 

As such, Big Navi might need to pull something very special out of the GPU hat to take on Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 3000 series. Or it could offer a high-performance graphics card at a much cheaper price than Nvidia’s new GPUs, making it a compelling purchase for people who might not need the huge amounts of power a GeForce RTX 3080 promises. 

AMD has long been a competitor in terms of bang-for-your-buck going up against Nvidia on graphics card front and Intel in the processor arena. So Big Navi could do the same for next-gen graphics cards. 

We’re expecting Big Navi to be revealed this fall. And this Easter egg might indicate that the launch will happen sooner than later. Either way, the close of 2020 looks like a very interesting time for PC games, even in the face of the launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. 

Roland Moore-Colyer
Roland Moore-Colyer

Roland Moore-Colyer a Managing Editor at Tom’s Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes about gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he’s also got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face.