Sunday, December 19th 2021
AMD Radeon "Navi 3x" Could See 50% Increase in Shaders, Double the Cache Memory
AMD's next generation Radeon "Navi 3x" line of GPUs could see a 50% increase in shaders and a doubling Infinity Cache memory size, according to some educated-guesswork and intelligence by Greymon55, a reliable source with GPU leaks. The Navi 31, Navi 32, and Navi 33 chips are expected to debut the new RDNA3 graphics architecture, and succeed the 6 nm optical-shrinks of existing Navi 2x chips that AMD is rumored to be working on.
The top Navi 31 part allegedly features 60 workgroup processors (WGPs), or 120 compute units. Assuming an RDNA3 CU still holds 64 stream processors, you're looking at 7,680 stream processors, a 50% increase over Navi 21. The Navi 32 silicon features 40 WGPs, and exactly the same number of shaders as the current Navi 21, at 5,120. The smallest of the three, the Navi 33, packs 16 WGPs, or 2,048 shaders. There is a generational doubling in cache memory, with 256 MB on the Navi 31, 192 MB on the Navi 32, and 64 MB on the Navi 33. Interestingly, the memory sizes and bus widths are unchanged, but AMD could leverage faster GDDR6 memory types. 2022 will see the likes of Samsung ship GDDR6 chips with data-rates as high as 24 Gbps.
Source:
Greymon55 (Twitter)
The top Navi 31 part allegedly features 60 workgroup processors (WGPs), or 120 compute units. Assuming an RDNA3 CU still holds 64 stream processors, you're looking at 7,680 stream processors, a 50% increase over Navi 21. The Navi 32 silicon features 40 WGPs, and exactly the same number of shaders as the current Navi 21, at 5,120. The smallest of the three, the Navi 33, packs 16 WGPs, or 2,048 shaders. There is a generational doubling in cache memory, with 256 MB on the Navi 31, 192 MB on the Navi 32, and 64 MB on the Navi 33. Interestingly, the memory sizes and bus widths are unchanged, but AMD could leverage faster GDDR6 memory types. 2022 will see the likes of Samsung ship GDDR6 chips with data-rates as high as 24 Gbps.
44 Comments on AMD Radeon "Navi 3x" Could See 50% Increase in Shaders, Double the Cache Memory
Rather, the strategy is to postpone as many changes as possible to later generations, if the economic reality allows for such a thing. Look at GCN's development - you can conclude there weren't funds for targeted development, or you could say the priority wasn't there because 'AMD still had revenue'... and they still pissed away money. Look at the features that got postponed from Maxwell to Pascal - Nvidia simply didn't have to make a better 970 or 980ti and Maxwell was already a very strong gen 'in the market at the time' - but they had the Pascal technology on shelf already. Similarly, the move from Volta > Turing > Ampere, is a string of massively delayed releases. Its no coincidence these 'delays' happened around the same years for both competitors. Another big factor to stall is the console release roadmap - Nvidia is learning the hard way right now, as they gambled on pre-empting the consoles with their own RTX. In the wild, we now see them use those tensor/RT cores primarily for non-RT workloads like DLSS because devs are primarily console oriented, especially on big budget/multiplatform. So we get lackluster RT implementations on PC.
So no... both companies are and will always be balancing on the edge of what they must do at the bare minimum to keep selling product. They want to leave as much in the tank for later, and rather sell GPUs on 'new features' that are not hardware based. Software for example. Better drivers. Support for new APIs. Monitor technology. Shadowplay. Low Latency modes. New AA modes. Etc etc. None of this requires a new architecture, and there is nothing easier than just refining what you have. Its what Nvidia has been doing for so long now, and what kept them on top. Minor tweaks to architecture to support new tech, at best, and keep pushing the efficiency button.
The obvious counterpoint to this would be Intel and their stagnation for the near-decade between the release of Sandy Bridge and the competitive changes that arrived with Ryzen, but even that isn't an example of what you claim. Intel was working in an environment where their more advanced 10 and 7 nm process nodes were MASSIVELY delayed, throwing off their entire design cycle. The result was engineers laboring under and entirely different set of constraints, with one of those being Intel's profit margin, but again, this isn't what you have been describing. It represents a ceiling for cost, but engineers do whatever they can within that constraint. The trimming and compromising comes as you move down the product stack where that same sort of margin must be maintained and you have other competitive concerns than "this is what we thought was possible given the constraints we are under." IF is only really expensive in terms of power when being pushed over the substrate. Utilizing an interposer or other technology like EFB (which is what will actually be used) reduces those power requirements tremendously.
And the trimming certainly happens even on the top of the stack! Even now Nvidia is serving up incomplete GA102 dies in their halo product while enterprise gets the perfect ones. Maxwell, same story - and we know the 980ti was juuuuust a hair ahead of Fury X. Coincidence? Ofc not.
And in terms of delays... you say Intel. I say Nvidia (post-)Pascal. Maxwell had Pascal features cut and delayed... then Turing took its sweet time and barely moved price/perf forward... while AMD was still rebranding GCN and later formulating an answer to 1080ti performance. Coincidence?! ;)
I still stand by what I said. If the improvement is more then 50% at 4K from a 6900 XT to a 7900 XT, I'll be shocked (and so will almost everyone else).
Like I said earlier, I don't know and neither does any one else. It would be highly unlikely.
This comparison makes absolutely no sense and has zero relation to the discussion of per-gen improvements. Rather, compare to the same tier GPU like a 6700 XT... and there's your 27%.
As for your general statement you're absolutely correct, and if 6900XT > 7900XT is >50% I'll eat a virtual shoe.
It is 251 sq. mm vs 335 sq. mm.
You have to compare either old 250 sq. mm N7 Navi 10 to new 250 sq. mm N5 Navi 33,
or 335 sq. mm old N7 Navi 22 to a new 335 sq. mm N5 Navi 32.
Oddly enough, I was looking through price rumors were for RDNA2 to see how close they were to reality to see what the odds of the RDNA3 rumors on prices being correct are.
What are the odds that AMD will pull an nVidia and show case the cards at 4k and say "see 2x improvement!"? Probably pretty good.
I mean when you aren't printing money ,the machine is off and not using power but start printing money and it will use power ,no?!.
Where can I get a money printer anyway?!.
I need one to buy my next GPU anyway, clearly.
100% is not 40% more than 60%, it's 66% more. The HD 4870 is 40% slower than the HD 5870, which means the HD 5870 is 66% faster than the HD 4870. Scaling isn't perfect of course, but much of the reason is because it's limited by memory bandwidth. If the HD 5870 had twice as much bandwidth than the HD 4870 rather than only 30% more, it would be closer to 80-90% faster. Navi 31 might have a similar issue to an extent, but the much larger infinity cache can make up for at least part of the bandwidth deficit, and Samsung's got new 24Gbps GDDR6 chips (50% faster than on the 6900 XT) . Because AMD is doing the exact same thing again. The top dual-die Navi 31 card will be several tiers higher than the RX 6900 XT, just as the RX 6900 XT was several tiers higher than the RX 5700 XT. I'll eat a virtual shoe if it isn't. AMD would have to be very stingy with their product segmentation for that to happen, for example using a single Navi 32 die or a heavily cut-down Navi 31.
And if the top RDNA 3 card (which might be called "RX 7950 XT", "RX 7900 X2", or possibly a completely new name similar to Nvidia's Titan series) isn't >50% faster than the 6900 XT, I'll eat a literal shoe. I expect it to be well over 100% faster, though 150% faster is debatable.
Honestly, I don't understand you guys. AMD is going to approximately double the die area (by using two dies of approximately the same size as Navi 21) while shrinking to N5. How is it not going to double performance? Why is this even a question? The top RDNA3 card is likely to have an MSRP of $2500, possibly even higher, but even if you're talking about performance at the same price point, 50% better is not unrealistic at all.
Its not like we havent been at that notion before lmao
Be careful with the mix up of 'same price point' versus same tier. An important difference. Last time we saw +50% is when Nvidia introduced a price hike in the Pascal line up. As for unobtanium 2500 dollar GPUs, those are of zero relevance for a 'normal' consumer gaming stack. As are those of 1K.
I supect they will both just design GPU made to be sell at those price without the current markup. This way they can continue their performance wars. We will see if it will lead to increase performance at lower end of the price range...
So... it would be a first to see AMD compete aggressively to steal market share from Nv. So far I havent seen the slightest move in that direction since post-Hawaii.
Most gamers will probably not spend 2k+ on a graphic cards, but i am sure that there are many that would pay that if not more just to get the best of the best. I don't know exactly how many of those people there are, but i suspect there are now enough for making cards for that market specifically.
That do not change the fact that cards right now are over inflated, but that won't last forever and when this will be over, there will still be plenty of people buying 2K+ cards.
And in the end, it wouldn't really matter if the top card is now sell at those price if at a reasonable price point like 250$ we had real performance gain.
I recall hearing that Nvidia was surprised on how many Titan RTX were in the hands of gamers. They made the 3090 and gamer still ask for more. So why not pleasing the people with way too much money (Or way not enough other Hobbies than PC gaming....)