Wednesday, October 28th 2020
AMD Radeon RX 6000 "Big Navi" RDNA2 Graphics Card Launch Liveblog
After thoroughly appetizing us with its "Where Gaming Begins: Episode 1" event announcing the Ryzen 5000 series "Zen 3" processors that offer up to 19% IPC gains, in the second Episode, we see the company announcing its next-generation Radeon RX 6000 "Big Navi" graphics cards based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture that introduce full DirectX 12 Ultimate readiness, including real-time raytracing hardware. In the run up to the RX 6000, NVIDIA is already reportedly preparing product-stack updates. In this liveblog, we uncover what has NVIDIA riled up, and whether AMD can pull off better pricing and availbility than the RTX 30-series.
Update 15:59 UTC: It is time! Welcome to the Radeon RX 6000 Series live blog.
Update 16:01 UTC: AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su takes centerstage, fresh off a good quarterly results announcement, and that big Xilinx acquisition announcement.
Update 16:03 UTC: FarCry 6 seems like an AMD optimized title.
Update 16:03 UTC: Possibly the flagship product.
Update 16:04 UTC: AMD is where gaming begins because next-gen consoles trust it. - Dr Su
Update 16:05 UTC: 50% generational improvement in perf/W.
Update 16:06 UTC: 26.7 billion transistors, almost as big as GA102
Update 16:07 UTC: RDNA2 has a breakthrough high-speed design.
Update 16:08 UTC: AMD RDNA2 compute unit 30% more energy efficient.
Update 16:09 UTC: InfinityCache works to significantly improve memory bandwidth, based on the Zen L3 cache. More than 2.17x bandwidth gain despite 256-bit.
Update 16:10 UTC: 30% higher frequencies on the same 7 nm node.
Update 16:10 UTC: DirectX 12 Ultimate and DirectStorage support.
Update 16:11 UTC: Over 2X performance gain over RX 5700 XT.
Update 16:11 UTC: The RX 6800 XT!
Update 16:12 UTC: 4K Gaming from AMD is here! Matches RTX 3080!!!
Update 16:13 UTC: Hello competition!
Update 16:14 UTC: Welcome back ATI Rage, as the AMD Rage Mode.
Update 16:15 UTC: When paired with Ryzen, you get a gaming performance boost, 13% perf increase.
Update 16:15 UTC: AMD introduces its take on the NVIDIA Reflex, announcing latest Radeon Lag and Radeon Boost. No special API needed.
Update 16:16 UTC: Full DX12 Ultimate support, including ray-tracing. Woirking on a DLSS-rival.
Update 16:18 UTC: AMD is leveraging studios working on Xbox Series X / PS5 devs to integrate its Radeon features on the PC.
Update 16:18 UTC: FarCry 6, DiRT 5, WoW Shadowlands (which gets raytracing), RiftBreaker, are AMD-optimized.
Update 16:21 UTC: Available Nov 18, starts, $649
Update 16:21 UTC: Also announcing RX 6800 : faster than RTX 2080 Ti, 4K + raytracing ready
Update 16:22 UTC: $579, November 18 availability for the RX 6800.
Update 16:22 UTC: Lisa gets ready for a "one more thing"
Update 16:23 UTC: Radeon RX 6900 XT: 80 CUs, 65% perf/Watt over 5700 XT.
Update 16:25 UTC: RTX 3090 BEATEN!!!!
Update 16:26 UTC: December 8 for the RX 6900 XT, priced $999.
Update 16:26 UTC: OOF, we cannot wait to test these cards out!
Update 17:08 UTC: The press-release can be found here.
Update 17:19 UTC: The complete AMD slide deck follows.
Update 16:03 UTC: Possibly the flagship product.
Update 16:05 UTC: 50% generational improvement in perf/W.
Update 16:15 UTC: AMD introduces its take on the NVIDIA Reflex, announcing latest Radeon Lag and Radeon Boost. No special API needed.
Update 16:18 UTC: FarCry 6, DiRT 5, WoW Shadowlands (which gets raytracing), RiftBreaker, are AMD-optimized.
Update 16:21 UTC: Available Nov 18, starts, $649
Update 16:21 UTC: Also announcing RX 6800 : faster than RTX 2080 Ti, 4K + raytracing ready
Update 16:22 UTC: Lisa gets ready for a "one more thing"
Update 16:23 UTC: Radeon RX 6900 XT: 80 CUs, 65% perf/Watt over 5700 XT.
Update 17:08 UTC: The press-release can be found here.
Update 17:19 UTC: The complete AMD slide deck follows.
351 Comments on AMD Radeon RX 6000 "Big Navi" RDNA2 Graphics Card Launch Liveblog
whats proprietary is how Nvidia handles the processing within its own hardware, no different from AMD really.
An API like DX12 is an abstraction layer. It translates. Nothing more, and green and red are both looking at the same translation service.
The custom hardware in consoles is.... custom so not quite the same as a Navi discrete GPU. Shared memory, fixed storage speeds... On top of that... history has certainly not provided proof of any sort of better optimization for AMD GPUs.
Nvidia has been in the market by themselves for quite a while.
Anyhow I agree AMD left the high end open to Nvidia, because there priority was to get ZEN out successfully. Now they have RDNA2 that competes well.
They probably do have more cards than nvidia. Also nVidia had in their plan to ship at least a couple of 100K cards by November but rumors say that they cut that in half because they need to restructure their line and segmentation.
Forgive me, I appreciate AMD can do no wrong.
I have a feeling Nvidia cards will suddenly be in abundance when AMD cards hit the market.
People hated these overpriced cards, now even AMD fans are happy to open their wallets.
What elses comes out towards the end of November???
Hell the Microcenter here in Denver had around 100 3070 FE cards and over 10 MSI Ventus 3s. And several other Evga yesterday. Still had some into the afternoon. If you wanted a 3070, it was pretty easy to get one from the sounds of it. Trying to get one online wasn't the way.
Yes, Microcenter is also selling FEs now.
AMD has issued a statement right after, calling it all BS.
But if you are looking for more refined details on how this works, I think AMD is keeping that quiet, keep the competition from learning how this works perhaps? I remember AMD filed several Patents back in 2017 or 2018 about Infinity Cache and some other memory utilization thingies? :D
I am also sure both new PS5's and Xbox Series X will also be utilizing SAM for sure.
I almost got an FE card on Best Buy, but was too slow to hit check out lul. Didnt even notice i got one in the cart until like 5 minutes later and they were gone. Best Buy was releasing them in waves.