Monday, June 29th 2020
Apple MacOS "Big Sur" Beta Driver Code Points to AMD "Navi 31" GPU
AMD's "Navi 20-series" GPUs implementing the RDNA2 graphics architecture are barely close to launch (September 2020 unveiling expected); and there's already talk of the "Navi 30-series." When digging through the driver code for AMD Radeon graphics that ships with Apple's MacOS "Big Sur" developer beta 1, Hardware Leaks (_rogame) uncovered pointers to an AMD "navi31" GPU. This could be the very first indication that AMD will codename successors of the RDNA2-based "Navi 2#" GPUs, such as the "Navi 21," under the "Navi 3#" series. It remains to be seen if these chips implement the RDNA3 graphics architecture, or are a refresh of RDNA2-based chips on a newer process.
10 Comments on Apple MacOS "Big Sur" Beta Driver Code Points to AMD "Navi 31" GPU
Apple always had Intel cpu's for everything and AMD gpu's.
We know Intel cpu's are going to be replaced with ARM, but are they also going to make ARM based gpu's for themselves?
However, I don't think Apple would push for Apple-designed GPUs exclusively anytime soon.
What does surprise me is that Apple would be adopting RDNA2 so quickly. Cutting edge adoption of hardware is not usually Apple's style, as they seem to let a product mature a bit before implimentation, but maybe it's not a big enough departure from Navi that they are confident it will work as expected. It might also be a deep collaborative (and another exclusive) product that Apple helped design.
Edit: Also, there would be nothing stopping Apple from using their GPUs for most tasks, with AMD GPUs in sleep mode until needed.