AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE review: Shrinkflation isn’t just for groceries anymore

In recent years, consumers have grown accustomed to the phenomenon of shrinkflation, where products appear similar but contain less than before. A stark example of this trend can be seen with AMD's latest graphics card, the Radeon RX 9070 GRE. Launched at the same price point of $549 as its predecessor, this new card offers significantly reduced specifications, raising concerns among gamers and PC builders alike. The RX 9070 GRE, which has been available in China for over a year, arrives in the U.S. market with only 85% of the GPU cores, 75% of the memory, and 66% of the memory bandwidth compared to the standard RX 9070. This cutback is disheartening, especially as prices in the GPU market have been climbing due to AI-related RAM shortages, making it increasingly challenging to build or upgrade PCs without breaking the bank. AMD's naming convention adds to the confusion; typically, additional letters in a product's name indicate enhanced capabilities. However, in this case, the GRE designation suggests a downgrade. Despite utilizing the same Navi 48 GPU architecture as the rest of the RX 9070 series, the GRE model features only 3,072 shader cores compared to the RX 9070’s 3,584 and the RX 9070 XT’s 4,096. The memory interface has also been reduced from 256-bit to 192-bit, and the memory capacity has dropped from 16GB to 12GB. While the RX 9070 GRE does not directly replace any previous Radeon model, its specifications are most closely aligned with the older RX 7700 XT, which debuted at a lower price of $449 in 2023. As AMD continues to navigate a challenging market, this release leaves consumers questioning the value of their investment in the latest technology.