Question Speculation: RDNA3 + CDNA2 Architectures Thread

[uzzi38]

Man I have been dying to make this one for a while now.

First rumours for RDNA3 are here so new thread time!

Just going to start off with this one for now: kopite7kimi on Twitter: "@VideoCardz Ah, I mean a simple mcm design with 10240 cores is not enough. Because the lift from RDNA2 to RDNA3 is much bigger than from RDNA1 to RDNA2. We should expect many big improvements in GFX11. 🤔" / Twitter

 

[GodisanAtheist]

This is what some of us were expecting. AMD lets the partners take center stage and justify an upcharge for their version of the cards. The reference version is going to be popular in miniITX builds, me thinks.

- IMO I would love if AMD/NV used their reference designs to serve the more niche building communities like ITX/HTPC/High Efficiency while AIBs got to go balls to the wall with performance and gigantic cards, but perception is everything and unfortunately this approach would result in poor first impressions from the "performance uber alles" crowd.

Perhaps not vcache, but one of the disadvantages of HBM has always been the extra cost associated with the complex packaging needed. With RDNA3 AMD has already taken those costs by moving the memory controllers and cache off the main die. Is there a technical reason why they couldn't put a 2 or 4 high stack of of HBM2e for 4GB VRAM on top of every MCD? It would seem to be a natural progression, and would help lower board costs and smaller PCBs would help cooling.

- You have to pay another vendor for access to HBM, and all the supply constraints/licensing/etc that comes with it. With MCDs, AMD owns the design and is ordering them straight from TSMC. It allows for a ton of flexibility and can design multiple tiers of products while HBM would have to be reserved for the ultra high end. Their ultra high end and high end cards can retain higher margins for AMD, the board partner has to go find the GDDR6 RAM.

Why would AMD hide the name? Do they have something bigger planned down the road?

- OMG 7900XTX is N32 CONFIRMED!!!! N31 is still in the wings, the HYPE TRAIN RIDES AGAIN!

 

[Unreal123]

Some people do not notice that something has really went bad with AMD since RDNA launches.

AMD had best GPU team since 2009-2016 than it is only nosedive. AMD had more exclusive feature compare to Nvidia like Mental, DX12 performance, Async, Computing, which AMD was seriously ahead when DX12 ,however since than AMD has totally changed.

At that time AMD used to ahead of Nvidia in term of hardware ,however, now AMD is totally copying Nvidia apporach like FP32 X2 and Ray Tracing, DLSS, DLSS 3, Reflex etc.


AMD really needs a another CO CEO for GPU sagement because Lisu Simply cannot Jen Hang.


Bring back Raja as see how he made Ray Tracing on par with Nvidia.

 

[Joe NYC]

My question - What will happen with Navi 32?

Navi 31 has 1.6x compute units of Navi 32 (96 vs 60).
Navi 31 also has 1.6x raster perf of Navi 21 (according to AMD).

So, will Navi 32 be released on desktop? or 6900XT will just fill for it.

It is possible that AMD took the time delay of Navi 32 to fix some of the things back Navi 31 clock speeds.

Or, as an alternative, use up higher than expected power (~250 - 300 Watts) and increase clock speeds on Navi 32, making the performance drop from Navi 31 smaller than the drop in BOM costs.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

- IMO I would love if AMD/NV used their reference designs to serve the more niche building communities like ITX/HTPC/High Efficiency while AIBs got to go balls to the wall with performance and gigantic cards, but perception is everything and unfortunately this approach would result in poor first impressions from the "performance uber alles" crowd.

Not necessarily. With what we are reading about how difficult Nvidia makes it for board partners, not going to happen in that ecosystem. AMD is a different story. If everyone knows the reference design is the mild version, then that will check any expectations. You know I love memes, so here is how I see it.

 

[blckgrffn]

Some people do not notice that something has really went bad with AMD since RDNA launches.

AMD had best GPU team since 2009-2016 than it is only nosedive. AMD had more exclusive feature compare to Nvidia like Mental, DX12 performance, Async, Computing, which AMD was seriously ahead when DX12 ,however since than AMD has totally changed.

At that time AMD used to ahead of Nvidia in term of hardware ,however, now AMD is totally copying Nvidia apporach like FP32 X2 and Ray Tracing, DLSS, DLSS 3, Reflex etc.


AMD really needs a another CO CEO for GPU sagement because Lisu Simply cannot Jen Hang.


Bring back Raja as see how he made Ray Tracing on par with Nvidia.

Oh man, you nailed the satire! Good one!

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Some people do not notice that something has really went bad with AMD since RDNA launches.

AMD had best GPU team since 2009-2016 than it is only nosedive. AMD had more exclusive feature compare to Nvidia like Mental, DX12 performance, Async, Computing, which AMD was seriously ahead when DX12 ,however since than AMD has totally changed.

At that time AMD used to ahead of Nvidia in term of hardware ,however, now AMD is totally copying Nvidia apporach like FP32 X2 and Ray Tracing, DLSS, DLSS 3, Reflex etc.


AMD really needs a another CO CEO for GPU sagement because Lisu Simply cannot Jen Hang.


Bring back Raja as see how he made Ray Tracing on par with Nvidia.

- The hottest takes, only on ATGC

 

[exquisitechar]

Some people do not notice that something has really went bad with AMD since RDNA launches.

AMD had best GPU team since 2009-2016 than it is only nosedive. AMD had more exclusive feature compare to Nvidia like Mental, DX12 performance, Async, Computing, which AMD was seriously ahead when DX12 ,however since than AMD has totally changed.

At that time AMD used to ahead of Nvidia in term of hardware ,however, now AMD is totally copying Nvidia apporach like FP32 X2 and Ray Tracing, DLSS, DLSS 3, Reflex etc.


AMD really needs a another CO CEO for GPU sagement because Lisu Simply cannot Jen Hang.


Bring back Raja as see how he made Ray Tracing on par with Nvidia.

Huh? What a bizarre take. Almost everything AMD released after Hawaii until RDNA was mediocre to bad. RDNA was a turning point where things went...good, not bad. RDNA 3 is somewhat disappointing, but it has its merits and is a much better high-end GPU than Fiji and Vega, and it will be better in lower end GPUs and iGPUs.

AMD's "FP32 X2" is different from Nvidia's, and Nvidia "copied" things from AMD as well. Such as Ada having a massively increased cache after AMD showed it was a viable and relatively cheap way to deal with the ever-increasing need for more bandwidth with RDNA 2's IC.

 

[Joe NYC]

Looks like price/performance is very close to what current 6900XT/6800xt cards are selling for. So no improvements there :/

7900 XTX at $999
7900 XT at $899
6950 XT at $849
6900 XT at $679

I think RDNA3 is better performance / price

 

[Joe NYC]

I'm currently building a new rig. Should be finished by next week so what I have in my current sig is outdated

My system is even more outdated than yours, but Zen 4 V-Cache is the one I want, and it is worth the wait.

I never intended to get the top end GPU (likely xx8xx class), just the top end CPU (for some simulation type games).

 

[biostud]

7900 XTX at $999
7900 XT at $899
6950 XT at $849
6900 XT at $679

I think RDNA3 is better performance / price

The 6950XT is just a stupid buy, by all measures.

6900XT is ok and 6800XT is even better.

And I do think there reasonable priced, but nothing exceptional compared to 6900XT or 6800XT.

 

[Unreal123]

Huh? What a bizarre take. Almost everything AMD released after Hawaii until RDNA was mediocre to bad. RDNA was a turning point where things went...good, not bad. RDNA 3 is somewhat disappointing, but it has its merits and is a much better high-end GPU than Fiji and Vega, and it will be better in lower end GPUs and iGPUs.

AMD's "FP32 X2" is different from Nvidia's, and Nvidia "copied" things from AMD as well. Such as Ada having a massively increased cache after AMD showed it was a viable and relatively cheap way to deal with the ever-increasing need for more bandwidth with RDNA 2's IC.

GCN was pure gold. It was AMD software that lag behind and Graphic engine.

It was simply hardware marvel at that time and Nvidia simply had no answer.


Kepler was a real turd and GCN was a marvel ,however, Nvidia is ahead of AMD in term hardware and compute.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

It will be interesting to see if the new streaming, recording, encoding, and transcoding stack up better against Nvidia.

 

[Unreal123]

My system is even more outdated than yours, but Zen 4 V-Cache is the one I want, and it is worth the wait.

I never intended to get the top end GPU (likely xx8xx class), just the top end CPU (for some simulation type games).

If was him i will go AMD CPU. Intel CPU 13xxx is too hot. 3DX AMD CPU is best bang.

 

[Rekluse]

The disappointment in this launch stems from RDNA2 being proudly compared to Maxwell's Top end on launch by AMD, being a genuine threat to Green Teams top cards.

This launch has barely a mention of the 4090 outside of a few snide remarks on form factor and power draw.

A disappointing step back, and a far cry from the consistent progress of the Zen series in comparison to intel.

Rationally though, my disappointment is tempered when looking at the lengths nVidia has had to go to, just to definitively stay on top.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The disappointment in this launch stems from RDNA2 being proudly compared to Maxwell's Top end on launch by AMD, being a genuine threat to Green Teams top cards.

This launch has barely a mention of the 4090 outside of a few snide remarks on form factor and power draw.

A disappointing step back, and a far cry from the consistent progress of the Zen series in comparison to intel.

Rationally though, my disappointment is tempered when looking at the lengths nVidia has had to go to, just to definitively stay on top.

CPU and GPU are not comparable. Intel rested on their proverbial laurels. I have opined for quite a while about how much they remind me of the old IBM. I saw a good article also made that comparison of late. Nvidia OTOH, has had the pedal to the medal. They have demonstrated laser focus, and made good decisions to strengthen their brand.

And this may be disappointing for those that wanted to see the same parity we have in the CPU market. For myself, this launch was damned good. Gen over gen improvements are solid. They are adding new features and software support. There will be cards in the price range I am interested in, that only need one connector but are as fast or faster than the 2 connector cards of this gen. And best of all, pricing didn't go full derp.

 

[Unreal123]

The disappointment in this launch stems from RDNA2 being proudly compared to Maxwell's Top end on launch by AMD, being a genuine threat to Green Teams top cards.

This launch has barely a mention of the 4090 outside of a few snide remarks on form factor and power draw.

A disappointing step back, and a far cry from the consistent progress of the Zen series in comparison to intel.

Rationally though, my disappointment is tempered when looking at the lengths nVidia has had to go to, just to definitively stay on top.

The problem is redactednot the company. The Company has told you what you can expect from their products ,however, it is the people who want to hype the products by any means is the issue.

AMD has this problem forever it seems. Always i mean always AMD pre launch hype is train crash by fanboys ,moreover, Nvidia is totally opposite with limited data and accurate performance assumptions.






use of the term fanboy isn't allowed.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[linkgoron]

You forget that RTX 4080 Ti and RTX 4090 Ti will launch next year . RTX 4090 is not even the full die that is the issue and RDNA RX 7900XTX is full die so it means that Nvidia has not even launch the real flagship and AMD has clearly shown the white flag for this generation.

The 4090 is already melting some PCs, I'm not sure what the 4090TI would do. The 4080TI will probably be more expensive than the 4080.

It is clear, however, that the Radeon 7900XTX is a step backwards with regards to performance vs Nvidia's flagship. To AMD's benefit I will say that it's much smaller than AD102 on an inferior process (6nm MCD and 5nm GCD vs 4nm Nvidia and ), with probably better perf/watt and appropriate IMO pricing. It also definitely has saner defaults with regards to power usage. I've already stated before that I'm disappointed with its performance, and I'm pretty sure that AMD expected better results from RDNA3.

 

[Asterox]

I am going to take it there was some real blowback. That, or more likely, they got the views they were looking for by throwing out the red meat title. Then changed the title to something more professional when the spike subsided. The latest video is much more subdued and positive. Maybe Steve needed the sleep and was crabby before? LOL

A person talks too much, or rants unnecessarily, this is a classic problem that many people have.

His test tables are very poorly designed, and again same thing GamerNexus but in most CPU tests he uses only four games.

 

[Joe NYC]

The 6950XT is just a stupid buy, by all measures.

6900XT is ok and 6800XT is even better.

And I do think there reasonable priced, but nothing exceptional compared to 6900XT or 6800XT.

Looking at your profile, I have a similar system (except 5930 CPU, plus NVidia 780 Ti), so I will be upgrading an archaic system.

At this point, the 5800x3d + 6750 XT bundle on amd.com looks great at $778.

Or wait another ~3 months for 7800x3d + 7800 XT, hopefully for ~ $,1000

As far as 6800 XT, I think this one is really discontinued, and stocks are running down. The xx50 cards are still being produced, but not in stock in overwhelming quantities. So, it looks like AMD is managing to clear its inventories, and quite aggressive pricing on RDNA 3 cards will not be interfering that much with the RDNA 2 cards - as is the case currently with NVidia's cards.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

It is clear, however, that the Radeon 7900XTX is a step backwards with regards to performance vs Nvidia's flagship.

They are fortunate not to get lapped, like the way it used to be. Wasn't long ago there was a lot of green product stack looming over their best card. I wouldn't call it a step backwards, I'd call it - getting out sprinted.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Something I'm not seeing discussed a whole bunch is... drivers. We're back to a software scheduler with AMD and that means AMD is going to have to stay on top of its launch day drivers and dev relations to make sure their cards don't review poorly on those new game performance reviews.

I also wonder what it means for more potential finewine down the line. Any time AMD has had a significant departure from prior archs, it generally means crappy stability and sub-par performance until the software team can "figure out" the hardware.

AMD has admittedly done a pretty bang up job with the RDNA 2 drivers (solid in terms of stability and performance, + fixing long outstanding performance issues in older DX11 and OGL games). I'm curious to see what the learning curve is here with such massive changes in physical design.

On a sidenote: People wonder why AMD launches are always so hyped. NV is iterative: you sort of know what they're going to do and where they're going to land. AMD has always got to be this squirrelly underdog coming up with some off the wall stuff to balance the two ends of their business.

I suspect RDNA3 is going to be the wildcard of the decade here. Even NV decided to push off any sort of chiplet design until the generation after Blackwell (according to current rumors). We know its the future from the hardware perspective, but AMD is bringing it to us now, warts and all.

 

[Joe NYC]

If was him i will go AMD CPU. Intel CPU 13xxx is too hot. 3DX AMD CPU is best bang.

I agree.

But after quite a bad availability and prices in last 2 years, some people may just finally want to get an upgrade for the Christmas. And Zen 4 V-Cache is missing it. In which case 13600 or 5800x3d are good substitutes.

For gaming system, getting Zen 4 now and not wait for Zen 4 V-Cache around the corner seems like a sub-optimal choice.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

His test tables are very poorly designed, and again same thing GamerNexus but in most CPU tests he uses only four games.

That's a discussion for another thread. I have been on my soapbox for a couple years now, about how limited in utility their gaming focused reviews are.

 

[blckgrffn]

On a sidenote: People wonder why AMD launches are always so hyped. NV is iterative: you sort of know what they're going to do and where they're going to land. AMD has always got to be this squirrelly underdog coming up with some off the wall stuff to balance the two ends of their business.

Plenty of hype on the nvidia side as well, imo. I don't find it to be that much different, except the crowd seems to be willing to gobble down whatever they are given. FX 5800 fiascos happen but are certainly far from the rule.

Haha, oh 2003 and that darned card suggesting a 200W PSU. 200W PSU!!!! They've been melting power connectors forever

TBF, it was losing to the 9700 Pro at the time.

I find the hype fun and I am not really disappointed in the cards at all. RT performance of *only* a 3090/3080 that has a ton of dedicated hardware for just that purpose? Nope, not sad about it.

 

[Joe NYC]

So the consoles will be useless on the next gen graphics engines?

If you think that the "floor" for being useful in 600 mm2 of N4 die without even having a CPU, then, they will be useless.

But I can see AMD making a cost effective silicon for consoles, with either RDNA 3 (after a couple of re-spins) or RDNA 4.