Graphics cards have been developed over the years so that they feature multi-level cache hierarchies. These levels of cache have been engineered to fill in the gap between memory and compute, a growing problem that cripples the performance of GPUs in many applications. Different GPU vendors, like AMD and NVIDIA, have different sizes of register files, L1, and L2 caches, depending on the architecture. For example, the amount of L2 cache on NVIDIA's A100 GPU is 40 MB, which is seven times larger compared to the previous generation V100. That just shows how much new applications require bigger cache sizes, which is ever-increasing to satisfy the needs.

Today, we have an interesting report coming from Chips and Cheese. The website has decided to measure GPU memory latency of the latest generation of cards - AMD's RDNA 2 and NVIDIA's Ampere. By using simple pointer chasing tests in OpenCL, we get interesting results. RDNA 2 cache is fast and massive. Compared to Ampere, cache latency is much lower, while the VRAM latency is about the same. NVIDIA uses a two-level cache system consisting out of L1 and L2, which seems to be a rather slow solution. Data coming from Ampere's SM, which holds L1 cache, to the outside L2 is taking over 100 ns of latency.

ASRock, the leading global motherboard, graphics card and small form factor PC manufacturer, has launched the ASRock Radeon RX 6900 XT OC Formula 16 GB graphics card. The graphics card features the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, 80 compute units, 5120 stream processors, hardware-accelerated raytracing, 16 GB of 256-bit GDDR6 memory and a host of additional features to deliver the ultimate 4K gaming experience.

The ASRock Radeon RX 6900 XT OC Formula 16 GB graphics card offers a 21-phase power design with high-quality components that maximize performance by delivering more power to the GPU. The all-metal cover with a triple-fan cooling system provides excellent heat dissipation. The card's exclusive Striped Axial Fan enhances airflow and minimizes noise, while the metal backplate protects the PCB from damage. The ARGB LED supports Polychrome SYNC, allowing users to customize lighting effects.

When AMD introduced RDNA 2 architecture and higher-end Navi 21 GPU SKUs, it was only a matter of time before the company launches these GPUs inside professional-grade graphics cards. Today, thanks to the Chiphell forums, we have pictures and some specifications of AMD's upcoming Radeon Pro workstation graphics card. Pictured below is a new RDNA 2 based design that features AMD's Navi 21 GLXL GPU SKU. The new GLXL GPU SKU is supposed to be rather similar to the Navi 21 XL GPU found inside AMD's Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card, judging by the number and arrangement of capacitors on the back of the card.

When it comes to memory, the upcoming Radeon Pro workstation card is featuring 16 GB of VRAM, likely a variant of GDDR6 found on gaming-oriented graphics cards from RDNA 2 generation. When it comes to cooler design, the Radeon Pro graphics card has a blower-type cooler helping tame the Navi 21 GLXL GPU. Given that blower-type coolers are suitable for situations with less airflow, the TDP of this card could be around or under 250 Watts. You can take a look at the card below, however, do note that it is an engineering sample and the final product can look a bit different.

AMD on April 1st published a new patent application that seems to show the way its chiplet GPU design is moving towards. Before you say it, it's a patent application; there's no possibility for an April Fool's joke on this sort of move. The new patent develops on AMD's previous one, which only featured a passive bridge connecting the different GPU chiplets and their processing resources. If you want to read a slightly deeper dive of sorts on what chiplets are and why they are important for the future of graphics (and computing in general), look to this article here on TPU.

The new design interprets the active bridge connecting the chiplets as a last-level cache - think of it as L3, a unifying highway of data that is readily exposed to all the chiplets (in this patent, a three-chiplet design). It's essentially AMD's RDNA 2 Infinity Cache, though it's not only used as a cache here (and for good effect, if the Infinity Cache design on RDNA 2 and its performance uplift is anything to go by); it also serves as an active interconnect between the GPU chiplets that allow for the exchange and synchronization of information, whenever and however required. This also allows for the registry and cache to be exposed as a unified block for developers, abstracting them from having to program towards a system with a tri-way cache design. There are also of course yield benefits to be taken here, as there are with AMD's Zen chiplet designs, and the ability to scale up performance without any monolithic designs that are heavy in power requirements. The integrated, active cache bridge would also certainly help in reducing latency and maintaining chiplet processing coherency.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today announced new AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card - AORUS Radeon RX 6700 XT ELITE 12G, powered by AMD RDNA2 gaming architecture. Inheriting the last-gen RGB three-ring design and light effect, the light source guides light internally so that it creates a brighter and natural RGB light effect. Thereby achieving a wonderful balance between cooling and RGB lights.

AORUS Radeon RX 6700 XT ELITE not only keeps the design spirit of the last-gen, but also has a distinct product recognition in the hardware industry, perfectly expressing the art of gaming, and once again remixes the classic style. Furthermore, gamers have more DOF (degree of freedom) to mix unique RGB lights, customizing with up to 8 kinds of color patterns on the "Dazzling" light effect via RGB Fusion 2.0 software.

AMD is slowly preparing to launch its next-generation client-oriented accelerated processing unit (APU), which is AMD's way of denoting a CPU+GPU combination. The future design is codenamed after Van Gogh, showing AMD's continuous use of historic names for their products. The APU is believed to be a design similar to the one found in the SoC of the latest PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. That means that there are Zen 2 cores present along with the latest RDNA 2 graphics, side by side in the same processor. Today, one of AMD's engineers posted a boot log of the quad-core Van Gogh APU engineering sample, showing some very interesting information.

The boot log contains information about the memory type used in the APU. In the logs, we see a part that says "[drm] RAM width 256bits DDR5", which means that the APU has an interface for the DDR5 memory and it is 256-bit wide, which represents a quad-channel memory configuration. Such a wide memory bus is typically used for applications that need lots of bandwidth. Given that Van Gogh uses RDNA 2 graphics, the company needs a sufficient memory bandwidth to keep the GPU from starving for data. While we don't have much more information about it, we can expect to hear greater details soon.

AMD has just announced its Navi 22 RDNA 2 devices, spanning the middle-end gaming sector. The Radeon RX 6700 XT, which is the latest addition to the 6000 series of Radeon graphics cards, is carrying the Navi 22 chip inside it. However, AMD GPUs need to satisfy another sector in addition to the desktop market and that is the laptop/mobile market. With the past 5000 series of laptop GPUs, AMD has made a bit of a disappointing launch. Given the availability of the first-generation RDNA GPUs in mobile devices, many gamers were unable to find 5000 series Radeon GPUs in laptops, as it was rarely a choice. MSI and Dell have carried a few models with the Radeon RX 5500M and RX 5600M, and the highest-end Radeon RX 5700M availability was limited to Dell Alienware Area-51m R2 laptop.

During the announcement of Radeon RX 6700 XT, Scott Herkleman (CVP & GM AMD Radeon) has announced that AMD is preparing the launch of the next-generation RDNA 2 based RX 6000 series of graphics cards for mobile/laptop devices. While there should be a range of models based on Navi 22, Navi 23, and Navi 24, the availability is unknown for now. The only information we have so far is that it is "coming soon". The exact configurations of these chips remain a mystery until the launch happens, so we have to wait to find out more.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphics cards since 1997, today announced the new PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card. Powered by the groundbreaking AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture and featuring AMD Infinity Cache, AMD Smart Access Memory and other advanced technologies, the new graphics card delivers the ultimate in 1440p gaming performance.

The PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card is built upon 7 nm process technology and AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, designed to deliver the optimal combination of performance and power efficiency. AMD RDNA 2 based graphics cards are optimized to deliver real-time lighting, shadow and reflection realism with DirectX Raytracing (DXR). When paired with AMD FidelityFX, developers can combine rasterized and ray-traced effects to provide the ideal balance of image quality and gaming performance.

When AMD and Sony collaborated on making the next generation console chip, AMD has internally codenamed it Flute, while Sony codenamed it Oberon or Ariel. This PlayStation 5 SoC die has today been pictured thanks to the Fritzchens Fritz and we get to see a closer look at the die internals. Featuring eight of AMD's Zen2 cores that can reach frequencies of up to 3.5 GHz, the CPU is paired with 36 CU GPU based on the RDNA 2 technology. The GPU is capable of running at speed of up to 2.23 GHz. The SoC has been made to accommodate all of that hardware, and bring IO to connect it all.

When tearing down the console, the heatsink and the SoC are connected by liquid metal, which is used to achieve the best possible heat transfer between two surfaces. Surrounding the die there is a small amount of material used to prevent liquid metal (a conductive material) from possibly spilling and shorting some components. Using a special short wave infrared light (SWIR) microscope, we can take a look at what is happening under the hood without destroying the chip. And really, there are a few distinct areas that are highlighted by the Twitter user @Locuza. As you can see, the die has special sectors with the CPU complex and a GPU matrix with plenty of workgroups and additional components for raytracing.

AMD is slowly preparing to launch its next-generation of mid-range graphics cards based on the RDNA 2 architecture. Following the launch of Navi 21 GPU SKUs, next in line comes the slower Navi 22 variant with fewer compute units (CU). Envisioned to compete against NVIDIA's GA104 and GA106 GPU SKUs, the Navi 22 based GPU is targeting 1440p gamers mainly. Today, thanks to Andreas Schilling from the German website HardwareLuxx, we got a few pieces of information regarding AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card. The source is claiming that we are getting this card sometime in the first half of this year, with the possibility to get it in Q1.

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card is designed for 1440p gaming as mentioned, and its VRAM configuration is interesting. It features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory, which is more than enough for the types of workloads this card is meant for. The memory communicates using 192-bit bus. The Navi 22 GPU is configured for 40 CUs in total, with 2560 cores maximum. The Radeon RX 6700 XT features the Navi 22 XT variant with the fully enabled die, while its smaller brother Radeon RX 6700 is featuring Navi 22 XL die that has possibly fewer CUs and smaller TDP. The pricing of the upcoming cards is unknown.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today announced new AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards powered by AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture. The AORUS Radeon RX 6900 XT MASTER 16G and Radeon RX 6900 XT GAMING OC 16G graphics cards are engineered to deliver ultra-high frame rate and 4K gaming.

The AORUS MASTER graphics card features MAX-Covered cooling, LCD edge view and RGB Fusion 2.0. It is recommended for enthusiasts who want the ultimate performance, a customizable display and colorful RGB lighting. The GAMING OC graphics card features the WINDFORCE cooling system and RGB Fusion 2.0, making it is the best choice for performance gamers.

AMD is always in development mode and just when they launch a new product, the company is always gearing up for the next-generation of devices. Just a few months ago, back in November, AMD has launched its Zen 3 core, and today we get to hear about the next steps that the company is taking to stay competitive and grow its product portfolio. In the AnandTech interview with Dr. Lisa Su, and The Street interview with Rick Bergman, the EVP of AMD's Computing and Graphics Business Group, we have gathered information about AMD's plans for Zen 4 core development and RDNA 3 performance target.

Starting with Zen 4, AMD plans to migrate to the AM5 platform, bringing the new DDR5 and USB 4.0 protocols. The current aim of Zen 4 is to be extremely competitive among competing products and to bring many IPC improvements. Just like Zen 3 used many small advances in cache structures, branch prediction, and pipelines, Zen 4 is aiming to achieve a similar thing with its debut. The state of x86 architecture offers little room for improvement, however, when the advancement is done in many places it adds up quite well, as we could see with 19% IPC improvement of Zen 3 over the previous generation Zen 2 core. As the new core will use TSMC's advanced 5 nm process, there is a possibility to have even more cores found inside CCX/CCD complexes. We are expecting to see Zen 4 sometime close to the end of 2021.

ASRock, the leading global motherboard manufacturer, has launched the ASRock Radeon RX 6900 XT Phantom Gaming D 16G OC graphics card. The new graphics card is built upon the groundbreaking AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture and 7 nm process technology, and features 80 compute units, 5120 stream processors, hardware-accelerated raytracing, 16 GB 256-bit GDDR6 memory and an HDMI 2.1 video port. It also supports the DirectX 12 Ultimate API and the PCI Express 4.0 bus standard, and provides a host of additional features to deliver the ultimate 4K gaming experiences.

AMD has launched its RDNA 2 based graphics cards, codenamed Navi 21. These GPUs are set to compete with NVIDIA's Ampere offerings, with the lineup covering the Radeon RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT graphics cards. Until now, we have had reviews of the former two, but not the Radeon RX 6900 XT. That is because the card is coming at a later date, specifically on December 8th, in just a few days. As a reminder, the Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU is a Navi 21 XTX model with 80 Compute Units that give a total of 5120 Stream Processors. The graphics card uses a 256-bit bus that connects the GPU with 128 MB of its Infinity Cache to 16 GB of GDDR6 memory. When it comes to frequencies, it has a base clock of 1825 MHz, with a boost speed of 2250 MHz.

Today, in a GeekBench 5 submission, we get to see the first benchmarks of AMD's top-end Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card. Running an OpenCL test suite, the card was paired with AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X 16C/32T CPU. The card managed to pass the OpenCL test benchmarks with a score of 169779 points. That makes the card 12% faster than RX 6800 XT GPU, but still slower than the competing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, which scores 177724 points. However, we need to wait for a few more benchmarks to appear to jump to any conclusions, including the TechPowerUp review, which is expected to arrive once NDA lifts. Below, you can compare the score to other GPUs in the GeekBench 5 OpenCL database.

AMD has just had quite an amazing year. From the launch of the Ryzen 5000 series CPUs based on Zen 3 architecture to RDNA 2 based graphics cards, the company has been delivering new solutions in a timely manner. With the upcoming tech conference being CES, we are wondering which companies are going to hold their keynotes virtually. Thanks to the official CES website, we have confirmation that AMD's CEO Dr. Lisa Su will hold a virtual keynote with the goal of "presenting the AMD vision for the future of research, education, work, entertainment, and gaming, including a portfolio of high-performance computing and graphics solutions." That could mean that we could possibly see some new directions for the company and how AMD plans to develop next-generation computing solutions, so stay tuned for more interesting information coming your way on January 11th, when CES kicks-off.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, today is announcing its new PowerColor Fighter RX 6800 based on AMD's latest RDNA2 architecture and with 16 GB of GDDR6, offering solid 4K gaming performance for the most price conscious gamers. Powered by AMD RDNA 2 architecture, PowerColor Fighter RX 6800 graphics card features 60 Compute Units, 128 MB of all new AMD Infinity Cache and 16 GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory, is engineered to deliver ultra-high frame rates and serious 4K resolution gaming.

PowerColor Fighter RX 6800 graphics card is designed for gamers on a budget but with powerful gaming performance in mind. Fighter RX 6800 is paired with effective triple cooling fan design, Mute Fan Technology, BIOS switch button, and reinforced back plate, so the Fighter can fight with you to enjoy exceptional gaming experiences.

SAPPHIRE Technology announces the eagerly awaited new NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 6800 Series Graphics Cards for enthusiast gamers seeking the full effect of smooth 4K graphics with vivid visuals and unrivaled quality cooling solutions. Equipped with high-quality components to drive the most demanding AAA game scenarios, the NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 6800 Series Graphics cards are the key component to push gaming performance to the maximum thresholds. The aesthetic designs of these cards are crafted to beautifully fit with any PC build.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today announces the launch of AMD Radeon RX 6800-series of graphics cards. Powered by AMD's new RDNA2 architecture, the latest RX 6800 series graphic cards are tailor made to run AAA games delivering ultra-high frame rates on a crisp 4K resolution gaming experience. Coming out in 2 models, the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT graphics cards are designed to be the best in the market with power to outperform its rivals with BIOSTAR's signature product durability.

The RX 6800 XT is the high-grade model of the two RX 6800 series graphics cards. With 72 powerfully enhanced compute units, 128 MB of all new AMD infinity cache technology, 16 GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory, a boost-clock speed of up to 2250 MHz on a TDP of 300 W, the new RX 6800 XT surely packs a serious punch when it comes to raw performance in any use case.

AMD is launching their next-generation RX 6800 series of graphics cards on November 18th, these will be the first cards from AMD featuring the new RDNA 2 architecture. To coincide with the launch of RDNA 2 in consumer graphics cards AMD is launching a new tech demo titled "Hangar 21", the new demonstration will highlight the power of RDNA 2 with real-time raytracing effects enabled by AMD FidelityFX and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate. The "Hangar 21" tech demo will be launching on November 19th and you can view a short trailer of the tech demo down below.

AMDComing November 19, the "Hangar 21" Technology Demo Video will let you see the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture in action, the foundation of the AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards that power the next generation of gaming with mind-blowing visuals featuring realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections enabled by AMD FidelityFX and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate.

The global leading motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, launched its AMD Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards, including Taichi, Phantom Gaming, and the Challenger product series. From the high-end Radeon RX 6800 XT Taichi X 16G OC, the mid-level Radeon RX 6800 XT Phantom Gaming D 16G OC and Radeon RX 6800 Phantom Gaming D 16G OC, to the mainstream Radeon RX 6800 Challenger Pro 16G OC, the complete product line gives users the most variety of choices.

ASRock's AMD Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards leverage 7 nm process technology and AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, and support the DirectX 12 Ultimate software standard and hardware-accelerated raytracing. The product line features 16 GB of 256-bit GDDR6 memory, and also supports the latest PCI Express 4.0 bus standard. It adopts ASRock's custom "Striped Axial Fan" and Polychrome SYNC ARGB LEDs, with outstanding pre-overclocked GPU clock settings and rich additional features. The performance of ASRock's AMD Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards provide gamers with an excellent 4K gaming experience.

AMD's Executive Vice President Rick Bergman in an interview with The Street shed some light on the company's future plans for Zen 4 and RDNA 3, even as we are still reeling from (or coming in to) Zen 3 and RDNA 2's launches. Speaking on RDNA 3, Rick Bergman mentioned the company's commitment to achieve the same 50% performance-per-watt increase they achieved with RDNA 2, and had some interesting takes on the matter of why this is actually one of the most important metrics:

Rick BergmanIt just matters so much in many ways, because if your power is too high -- as we've seen from our competitors -- suddenly our potential users have to buy bigger power supplies, very advanced cooling solutions. And in a lot of ways, very importantly, it actually drives the [bill of materials] of the board up substantially. This is a desktop perspective. And invariably, that either means the retail price comes up, or your GPU cost has to come down. We focused on that for RDNA 2. It's a big focus on RDNA 3 as well.

AMD has just recently announced its next-generation Radeon RX 6000 series GPU based on the new RDNA 2 architecture. The architecture is set to compete with NVIDIA Ampere architecture and highest offerings of the competing company. Today, thanks to the well-known leaker TUM_APISAK, we have some Geekbench OpenCL scores. It appears that some user has gotten access to the system with the Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT GPUs, running Cinebench 4.4 OpenCL tests. In the tests, the system ran on the Intel platform with Core i9-10900K CPU with 16 GB DDR4 RAM running at 3600 MHz. The motherboard used was ASUS top-end ROG Maximus XII Extreme Z490 board.

When it comes to results, the system with RX 6800 GPU scored anywhere from 347137 points to 336367 points in three test runs. For comparison, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 scores about 361042 points, showcasing that the Radeon card is not faster in any of the runs. When it comes to the higher-end Radeon RX 6800 XT GPU, it scored 407387 and 413121 points in two test runs. Comparing that to GeForce RTX 3080 GPU that scores 470743 points, the card is slower compared to the competition. There has been a Ryzen 9 5950X test setup that boosted the performance of Radeon RX 6800 XT card by quite a lot, making it reach 456837 points, making a huge leap over the Intel-based system thanks to the Smart Access Memory (SAM) technology that all-AMD system provides.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, is tackling today the high end gaming market with its new RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 based on the AMD's RDNA2 architecture and with 16Gb of GDDR6, PowerColor RX6800 stakes gaming to a new level of visual immersion and graphics performance.

AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture was designed to deliver the optimal combination of performance and power efficiency. AMD RDNA 2 architecture is the next generation enthusiast gaming platforms. Designed for the most demanding gaming enthusiasts looking to game on the highest possible settings PowerColor RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 come with boost clock up to 2250 MHz and 2105 MHz respectively and makes use of 16 GB of ultra-fast GDDR6 for no performance compromises.

Just a few days ago AMD has announced its Radeon RX 6000 series of graphics cards based on the new RDNA 2 architecture. While AMD has given out the "Big Navi" chips to its partners to design custom boards and give users designs with better cooling and possibly higher overclocking capabilities, that doesn't seem to extend to the highest-end parts. So far, we have seen custom designs from companies like ASUS, MSI, etc., and all of them have one thing in common - they only do designs for Radeon RX 6800 or RX 6800 XT. So one would wonder where are the highest-end custom Radeon RX 6900 XT designs.

The first wave of the "custom" cards will be on November 18th, when manufacturers will release designs that are MBA (Made-by-AMD), meaning that the PCB is a reference design, just with a custom cooler installed. When it comes to the custom RX 6900 XT cards, AMD is now in talks with its partners whether to keep the biggest "Big Navi" design available for custom designs, or to keep it as AMD exclusive, with the most likely scenario being the AMD exclusivity. AMD partners could carry the models in their stores and offerings, however, the PCB and cooler design would be AMD's. The situation is yet unresolved so we have to wait and see what comes out of it and if we are getting any custom designs of the Radeon RX 6900 XT model.

Microsoft has today published another article on its Xbox Wire blog, dedicated to all the news regarding the Xbox consoles and its ecosystem. In the light of yesterday's launch of AMD Radeon RDNA 2 graphics cards, Microsoft has congratulated its partner and provider of processors SoCs for their next-generation consoles. Besides the celebrations and congratulations, Microsoft has proceeded to show off what the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles are capable of, and how they integrate the RDNA 2 architecture. The company notes that there are hardware accelerated DirectX Raytracing, Mesh Shaders, Sampler Feedback, and Variable Rate Shading units built-in, so game developers can take advantage of it.

Another interesting point Microsoft made was that "Xbox Series X|S are the only next-generation consoles with full hardware support for all the RDNA 2 capabilities AMD showcased today." What this translates into is that Microsoft is the only console maker that uses the full RDNA 2 potential. This could leave Sony out in the dark with its PlayStation 5 console, meaning that it does not support all the features of AMD's new GPU architecture. There are not any specific points, however, we have to wait and see what Sony has left out, if anything.