AMD RDNA2 Graphics Architecture Detailed, Offers +50% Perf-per-Watt over RDNA

[ARF]

It looks absolutely terrible, and changes the prefix from a series prefix (i.e. a name) to somehow being a count of something. Either it's counting the generation of the GPU (which the model number already does, i.e. it's redundant and only confusing - why is 11 (XI) the same as 6(xxx)?) or it's counting something else entirely, in which case the question becomes what?

RX is an equivalent of GTX for Nvidia, which is currently simply the prefix to what all their gaming-focused GPUs are named (there is also the entry-level, mobile-only MX series). RTX is then of course an extension of this - a gaming card with Ray tracing support. Or do you think Nvidia's X also stands for 10?

I think the X comes from eXtreme.

Previously, they had GT and GTS which were lower than GTX.

AMD also needs something to clarify that Ray-tracing support.

The "I" in RXI can come from Intersection.

Then AMD went from HD 8000 to R0 200.

 

[Valantar]

Ok, now I see that R5 230 was a direct rebrand of HD 8450.

Then AMD went from HD 8000 to R0 200.

The HD 8000 series was pretty much OEM only. OEMs sadly tend to demand new product names each year regardless of whether there are new products available, which has led to a lot of silly midrange-to-low-end rebrands for both Nvidia and AMD across the years. Regardless, there have always been lower-tier R7 and R5 cards to the higher end, consumer-facing R9 cards.

I think the X comes from eXtreme.

Previously, they had GT and GTS which were lower than GTX.

AMD also needs something to clarify that Ray-tracing support.

The "I" in RXI can come from Intersection.

Intersection? Seriously? How is the average uninformed GPU buyer supposed to understand anything at all from that? At least R (for Nvidia) is the first letter in the actual feature it seeks to describe. "RXI" is a terrible idea. Period.

And you're right about X - in most product naming! - coming from extreme. That's likely why AMD fell back to it as well, as the letter X has become a sort of shorthand (much ridiculed, but still) for something cool/good/performant.

 

[ARF]

The HD 8000 series was pretty much OEM only. OEMs sadly tend to demand new product names each year regardless of whether there are new products available, which has led to a lot of silly midrange-to-low-end rebrands for both Nvidia and AMD across the years. Regardless, there have always been lower-tier R7 and R5 cards to the higher end, consumer-facing R9 cards.

Intersection? Seriously? How is the average uninformed GPU buyer supposed to understand anything at all from that? At least R is the first letter in the actual feature it seeks to describe. "RXI" is a terrible idea. Period.

And you're right about X - in most product naming! - coming from extreme. That's likely why AMD fell back to it as well, as the letter X has become a sort of shorthand (much ridiculed, but still) for something cool/good/performant.

The "I" can also invoke memories of Intel's "i" series CPUs and the customers may say "oh cool, this is I like iPhone and i7" ....." cool, man "

 

[Valantar]

The "I" can also invoke memories of Intel's "i" series CPUs and the customers may say "oh cool, this is I like iPhone and i7" ....." cool, man "

Except that's a lowercase, single-letter prefix directly attached to a number. Does "RXI 6700" look like "i7-6700" to you? It sure doesn't to me. And besides, why would AMD try to sell products based on the naming of Intel CPUs when their own CPUs are kicking Intel's butt these days to such a degree that even people who don't care about PC hardware are picking up on it? Oh, and Apple got so much flack for their "it's pronounced iPhone ten, but we write it X" nonsense that anyone ought to understand that suddenly mixing in roman numerals into a series of non-roman numerals is a really bad and confusing idea. AFAIK most people still call it the iPhone "ex" (and even "ex eye" and especially "ex arr").


It's also worth mentioning that it's likely that part of why AMD abandoned the Rx naming was that they had long since seen that explicitly naming tiers like that has a detrimental effect on sales and marketing (you're very clearly telling your buyers that "this product is worse than something else", which isn't a good way of making people happy with their purchase), as Nvidia also saw and thus moved to all-over GTX branding. That's on top of it being redundant, of course. When your naming scheme consists of R[adeon][numbered tier] [space] [generation][numbered tier again?][0/5 if there's a new card/refresh] [X or no X depending if there's not enough room for a higher number] it doesn't take much brain power to tell that this scheme needs simplification. RX (named prefix, like "HD") [generation][three digits indicating performance level] [XT for higher end SKUs] is quite a lot simpler.

 

[ARF]

Except that's a lowercase, single-letter prefix directly attached to a number. Does "RXI 6700" look like "i7-6700" to you? It sure doesn't to me. And besides, why would AMD try to sell products based on the naming of Intel CPUs when their own CPUs are kicking Intel's butt these days to such a degree that even people who don't care about PC hardware are picking up on it? Oh, and Apple got so much flack for their "it's pronounced iPhone ten, but we write it X" nonsense that anyone ought to understand that suddenly mixing in roman numerals into a series of non-roman numerals is a really bad and confusing idea. AFAIK most people still call it the iPhone "ex" (and even "ex eye" and especially "ex arr").


It's also worth mentioning that it's likely that part of why AMD abandoned the Rx naming was that they had long since seen that explicitly naming tiers like that has a detrimental effect on sales and marketing (you're very clearly telling your buyers that "this product is worse than something else", which isn't a good way of making people happy with their purchase), as Nvidia also saw and thus moved to all-over GTX branding. That's on top of it being redundant, of course. When your naming scheme consists of R[adeon][numbered tier] [space] [generation][numbered tier again?][0/5 if there's a new card/refresh] [X or no X depending if there's not enough room for a higher number] it doesn't take much brain power to tell that this scheme needs simplification. RX (named prefix, like "HD") [generation][three digits indicating performance level] [XT for higher end SKUs] is quite a lot simpler.

I agree that it is simpler.
But AMD graphics division is not doing good and new image might become helpful.

For example, Navi 21 could be called Radeon iRT 900.
Navi 23 could be called Radeon iRT 700.
i just a cool letter, while RT from ray-tracing.

 

[Valantar]

I agree that it is simpler.
But AMD graphics division is not doing good and new image might become helpful.

For example, Navi 21 could be called Radeon iRT 900.
Navi 23 could be called Radeon iRT 700.
i just a cool letter, while RT from ray-tracing.

But "i" still has zero relation to AMD's brand, and is already strongly related to both one of AMD's main competitors (Intel) and possibly the biggest brand on earth regardless of business (Apple). AMD adopting that would then just make them look like they're copying others to look cool, which will inevitably backfire. That's the type of marketing clueless rebranding shops do, not serious businesses, and the only reaction from the press if they did so would be to ask "...but why?". Of course RX is already very close to Nvidia's RTX, but at least in that case AMD had used the name for several years before Nvidia started using theirs, and Nvidia had a reasonable reason to switch.

As for replacing "RX" with "RT" ... why? That would suddenly make it AMD that's going after Nvidia's naming scheme rather than the other way around (which is a bad look, especially for an underdog), and they wouldn't gain much. While Nvidia's reason to switch from GTX to RTX was that they were adding RTRT and keeping both series alive, that is looking to be a single-generation thing - I don't think the GTX 16 series is getting a follow-up. For AMD to change their naming due to adding RTRT would then necessitate a wholesale name change for all RDNA 2-based cards, in which case "RT" or "iRT" would both be very poor choices (again, due to the resemblance to competitors' and other large brands' naming). Continuing with the established and relatively respected Radeon RX branding makes much more sense.

 

[ARF]

But "i" still has zero relation to AMD's brand, and is already strongly related to both one of AMD's main competitors (Intel) and possibly the biggest brand on earth regardless of business (Apple). AMD adopting that would then just make them look like they're copying others to look cool, which will inevitably backfire. That's the type of marketing clueless rebranding shops do, not serious businesses, and the only reaction from the press if they did so would be to ask "...but why?". Of course RX is already very close to Nvidia's RTX, but at least in that case AMD had used the name for several years before Nvidia started using theirs, and Nvidia had a reasonable reason to switch.

As for replacing "RX" with "RT" ... why? That would suddenly make it AMD that's going after Nvidia's naming scheme rather than the other way around (which is a bad look, especially for an underdog), and they wouldn't gain much. While Nvidia's reason to switch from GTX to RTX was that they were adding RTRT and keeping both series alive, that is looking to be a single-generation thing - I don't think the GTX 16 series is getting a follow-up. For AMD to change their naming due to adding RTRT would then necessitate a wholesale name change for all RDNA 2-based cards, in which case "RT" or "iRT" would both be very poor choices (again, due to the resemblance to competitors' and other large brands' naming). Continuing with the established and relatively respected Radeon RX branding makes much more sense.

Or maybe it's the best to allow the users to vote about how they want their cards to be christened?
Nvidia christened its graphics cards GeForce because the people said so.

As for AMD being backfired, they are backfired from the very start to begin with, have always been very bad in everything.
Look at one example - why is it reporting 6-bit colour when Radeon Settings is installed and 8-bit when it's uninstalled?

 

[Valantar]

Or maybe it's the best to allow the users to vote about how they want their cards to be christened?
Nvidia christened its graphics cards GeForce because the people said so.

As for AMD being backfired, they are backfired from the very start to begin with, have always been very bad in everything.
Look at one example - why is it reporting 6-bit colour when Radeon Settings is installed and 8-bit when it's uninstalled?

View attachment 148797

Why hold a naming contest? Radeon is a well established and respected brand name. Nobody ever suggested "GT/GTS/GTX (and now RTX)" in a naming contest. Besides, that was in 1999.

Also, you would do well to look up the meaning word "backfire" and how it's used, as you can't say that someone/something "is backfired". That something backfires means that it has the opposite (or at least a very different) effect than what was intended. As for AMD's drivers being buggy, apparently YMMV there, as I have yet to have any serious issues across quite a few generations of AMD GPUs. I might be lucky, but serious bugs seem limited to an understandably vocal minority - but still a minority.

 

[Dyatlov A]

Will it support Windows 7?

 

[ARF]

Prayers for July-September 2020 release.

AMD Big Navi Will Be 50% Faster Than RTX 2080 Ti According To Latest Leaks

AMD Big Navi Will Be 50 Percent Faster Than RTX 2080 Ti According To Latest Leaks

Long-awaited and hotly discussed AMD Big Navi GPU is still not out yet to beat the competition this year. Last strong leaks about Big Navi Graphics chip was

ownsnap.com

 

[EarthDog]

AMD Big Navi Will Be 50% Faster Than RTX 2080 Ti According To Latest Leaks

If that is true... huuuuuuuuuuge. But not holding my breath.

Clicked play... heard it was Adored... stopped imediately.

 

[Master Tom]

Will it support Windows 7?

What about Window 3.1?

 

[WeeRab]

I'm just glad AMD is getting their $hit together GPU wise again finally. They have already done VERY well with their CPUs, now if they can get closer to what Nvidia delivers, it's gonna be another game changer. (Pun intended)

When the R9's came out I was stoked. I still have my R9 290 from 2013 and it still can handle most games at 1440p with some settings turned down. I was very disappointed with the Polaris architecture. All they did was make them more power efficient with the same performance as my 290. Hell, my 290 still beats the RX580 in some benchmarks... I am looking forward to getting a 5700XT when the new cards drop though

Oh I don't know. Their current mid-tier cards stack up well value wise against Nvidia. I recently bought an RX5700 for less than £300. Best bang-for-buck period.

 

[Master Tom]

I am interested in Big Navi.

 

[ECC_is_best]

Using one of these can we assign a GPU per VM?

 

[Valantar]

Using one of these can we assign a GPU per VM?

I guess we'll know when the cards arrive in... 6-8 months?

 

[ECC_is_best]

I guess we'll know when the cards arrive in... 6-8 months?

Well I figure their specs would say what it supports... But I'm not sure what the current AMD-branded technology is for this... DirectGMA?

 

[ARF]

Added preliminary support for upcoming Navi 21 and Navi 22 | in HWInfo

 

[ARF]

New data and educated expectations:

AMD Big Navi and RDNA 2 GPUs: Release Date, Specs, Everything We Know

AMD Big Navi and RDNA 2 GPUs: Everything We Know

The AMD Big Navi / RDNA 2 architecture powers the latest consoles and high-end graphics cards.

www.tomshardware.com

According to a Chinese source, one card will be 80% faster than the RX 5700 XT.

Big Navi would bring a huge increase in revenue for AMD

We have news from China: the improvement in performance that will be offered by "Big Navi" will be quite big. Inside we explain the details. Rumors about

optocrypto.com

7nm Navi接受度高于Vega 高端显卡big Navi将成杀手锏 性能提升80%

从去年7月7日与锐龙3000系列CPU一道首发算起，AMD的7nm Navi显卡发布也有9个月了，目前已经覆盖了RX 5700/5600/5500系列，市场区间在1000-3000元内。由于使用了7nm工艺及全新的RDNA架构，RX 5

news.mydrivers.com

 

[ARF]

Exclusive:

AMD's Big Navi 7nm GPU Flagship Allegedly Features 505mm² Large Die And RDNA2 - Suggests 2x The Performance Of The RX 5700XT

Details about AMD's upcoming 7nm 'Big Navi' GPUs have leaked out. The Navi 21 flagship will feature a GPU with 505mm² die size.

wccftech.com

 

[EarthDog]

Dew et, AMD... Dew et!

 

[ARF]

More news today:

High-end Navi 21 will support ray-tracing, while lower-grade Navi 23 won't and will target GTX 1600 series.

AMD Raytracing Allegedly Exclusive To High-End RDNA 2 Navi 2X GPUs, Low-End RDNA 2 GPUs Focus on Power Efficiency And Compete Against Turing GeForce 16 Series

A rumor has stated that AMD might keep its hw-level raytracing feature exclusive to high-end RDNA 2 GPU based Radeon RX Navi 2X cards.

wccftech.com

 

[Master Tom]

More news today:
High-end Navi 21 will support ray-tracing, while lower-grade Navi 23 won't and will target GTX 1600 series.

That sounds like a good plan.

 

[EarthDog]

More news today:

High-end Navi 21 will support ray-tracing, while lower-grade Navi 23 won't and will target GTX 1600 series.

AMD Raytracing Allegedly Exclusive To High-End RDNA 2 Navi 2X GPUs, Low-End RDNA 2 GPUs Focus on Power Efficiency And Compete Against Turing GeForce 16 Series

A rumor has stated that AMD might keep its hw-level raytracing feature exclusive to high-end RDNA 2 GPU based Radeon RX Navi 2X cards.

wccftech.com

Seems familiar and logical...expected, even.

 

[Valantar]

More news today:

High-end Navi 21 will support ray-tracing, while lower-grade Navi 23 won't and will target GTX 1600 series.

AMD Raytracing Allegedly Exclusive To High-End RDNA 2 Navi 2X GPUs, Low-End RDNA 2 GPUs Focus on Power Efficiency And Compete Against Turing GeForce 16 Series

A rumor has stated that AMD might keep its hw-level raytracing feature exclusive to high-end RDNA 2 GPU based Radeon RX Navi 2X cards.

wccftech.com

I read that, and while I agree with @Master Tom above that it sounds like a good plan, I think WCCFTech's interpretation of it - that only Navi 21 is likely got get RTRT - sounds unlikely. After all we know that the XSX supports RTRT on its ~350mm2 die (which includes an 8-core CPU cluster), as does the PS5 on its even smaller die. Why, then, would a 240mm2 Navi 23 not include RTRT hardware? WCCFTech seems to assume "enthusiast and flagship" would mean "only Navi 21 gets RTRT", while I would say it sounds more likely that only Navi 21-23 get RTRT (given that the reported die sizes are in the right ballpark) with anything smaller not getting it. After all the 251mm2 Navi 10 competes with the RTX 2060 Super or 2070 (and is close to the 2070 Super in some cases), so their framing (non-RTRT RDNA 2 cards competing with GTX 1600 series, yet only Navi 21 gets RTRT?) doesn't make sense when comparing with current performance levels, let alone what we can expect for RDNA 2.