AMD’s head of Radeon graphics, Scott Herkelman, has announced he will be leaving his role at the company by the end of 2023. Herkelman is currently senior VP and general manager of the Graphics Business Unit at AMD, a role he has had since joining the company from Nvidia in 2016.
The news came via Herkelman’s own Twitter/X account, where he tweeted/Xed:
‘After seven years at AMD and launching three increasingly competitive generations of RDNA graphics architectures, I have decided to leave AMD at the end of this year. Godspeed
I will miss every single one of you, fighting shoulder to shoulder in the trenches together, the excitement we shared during new product launches, and the joy of being in the arena for this wonderful, vibrant industry. May you continue to punch above your weight class and one day… beat the final boss.’
The final boss reference would presumably refer to Nvidia, given it’s AMD graphics biggest opponent. This would seem to suggest Herkelman won’t immediately be returning to Nvidia, but as yet his next move is unknown.
Having previously been general manager of Nvidia’s GeForce business unit, a return wouldn’t be a surprise move but the tone of that tweet would suggest otherwise. Another possible move would be for Herkelman to move to Intel to boost its Arc GPU business, ahead of the launch of Intel Battlemage – its next generation of Arc cards.
Under Scott’s stewardship, AMD has seen a return to much greater competitiveness on the graphics cards front, with its RDNA 1 (RX 5000), RNDA 2 (RX 6000), and RDNA 3 (RX 7000) GPUs all providing solid performance for their price. With its RDNA 3-based RX 7900 XTX, AMD has even managed to go toe-to-toe with Nvidia for the fastest graphics card in the world, which is a race AMD hasn’t been in for many years. Meanwhile, the likes of the RX 7800 XT represent excellent value, even if Nvidia’s competing cards still have the edge for ray tracing performance and the advantage of DLSS 3.
AMD hasn’t yet announced a replacement, for Herkelman, with him set to stay with the company for several more months yet.
Is Herkelman’s leaving AMD a sign of a downturn in focus on GPUs at AMD or is it a natural move for someone who has been with the company for seven years and is ready for a new challenge? Let us know your thoughts on the Custom PC Facebook page, via Twitter, or join our Custom PC and Gaming Setup Facebook group and tap into the knowledge of our 420,000+ members.