Question Speculation: RDNA3 + CDNA2 Architectures Thread

[uzzi38]

Man I have been dying to make this one for a while now.

First rumours for RDNA3 are here so new thread time!

Just going to start off with this one for now: kopite7kimi on Twitter: "@VideoCardz Ah, I mean a simple mcm design with 10240 cores is not enough. Because the lift from RDNA2 to RDNA3 is much bigger than from RDNA1 to RDNA2. We should expect many big improvements in GFX11. 🤔" / Twitter

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

RX 7600 has less than 10% performance uplift over RX 6600 XT with the same CU count.

60CU N32 has to overcome a 12 CU (20%) advantage of the 6800XT, just to break even with it, which is about equal 4070.

Without some additional gains, it seems just breaking even with 6800XT/4070 would be the top end of expectations.

At best you have a slightly improved 6800XT. Then how do you price it?

RX 6800XT is only 16% faster in 4K raster and RT than RX 6800 despite having higher CU count and frequency according to TPU.
N32 has the same specs as RX 6800.
20% higher clockspeed or 2650MHz doesn't look unreasonable to me and then there is still a minor performance improvement from Dual-issue CUs.

I won't price It, so not my problem. $499 would be a good price, but $549 is more likely.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Yeah and If we kick the goal posts around like that then logically speaking no architecture can ever be "bad"

We're talking in context of modern AMD yea.

Yeah, they reached really ridiculous levels at some point.

Hopefully they'll be a lot more civil this time and won't try to strangle a dude over saying 4070ti was bad value.

After the whole debacle with RDNA3 hype train, subsequent derailment and commentators backtracking on what they said *ahem*:

Yes, get a waterblock or a chiller, clock it at 3.5 and see the intended performance.

 

[Heartbreaker]

RX 6800XT is only 16% faster in 4K raster and RT than RX 6800 despite having higher CU count and frequency.
N32 has the same specs as RX 6800.

That seems like a strange basis for an argument. 6800 XT didn't scale that well with Clock speed and CU growth, but you expect N32 to scale better without CU growth?

Using equal CU basis, 7600 gained about 7% at about equal clocks/CUs. Yay advanced Architecture!

Take 6800 as a 60 CU basis and 7% from architecture, and you might get 10% from clock speed so 17% total over 6800, landing you right back at 6800 Xt performance again.

Anyway I look at this, unless there some significant improvement over what N31/N33 has shown, N32 seems to max out around 6800XT level, so it will likely trade blows with it and 4070.

If that's all it is, it's hard to sell it for more than $500 that 6800XT has been available at, for months.

If they manage a significant bump over 6800xt/4070, then $550 might be feasible.

 

[Timorous]

Yes, get a waterblock or a chiller, clock it at 3.5 and see the intended performance.

Would have thought they would pair it with faster ram or stacked mcds for more infinity cache if it had hit 3.5Ghz to avoid memory bottlenecks.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Would have thought they would pair it with faster ram or stacked mcds for more infinity cache if it had hit 3.5Ghz to avoid memory bottlenecks.

Eh it would've done fine as is.
But yea stacked MCDs were planned as a higher end option.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

That seems like a strange basis for an argument. 6800 XT didn't scale that well with Clock speed and CU growth, but you expect N32 to scale better without CU growth?

Using equal CU basis, 7600 gained about 7% at about equal clocks/CUs. Yay advanced Architecture!

Take 6800 as a 60 CU basis and 7% from architecture, and you might get 10% from clock speed so 17% total over 6800, landing you right back at 6800 Xt performance again.

Anyway I look at this, unless there some significant improvement over what N31/N33 has shown, N32 seems to max out around 6800XT level, so it will likely trade blows with it and 4070.

N31 and N32 have better WGPs compared to N33, so It could be a bit higher than 7%, maybe 8-9%, but this is not that important.
According to TPU(Link , Link):
RX 6800 vs RX 6800XT
Average: 2205Mhz vs 2257MHz (+2.4%)
Median: 2218MHz vs 2249MHz (+1.4%)
As you can see, clockspeed is pretty much the same, so most of the performance Increase is coming from the extra 20% CU.

I can understand when you say that 20% higher clocks don't mean 20% higher performance, but you saying It will provide only 10% increase is surprising.
We don't even know If the average frequency will be only 2650MHz or they will aim higher at the cost of efficiency.

You said the top end of expectations should be parity with RX 6800XT/RTX4070. In my opinion, top end would be parity with RX 6900XT, which is 23% faster than RX 6800.
My personal expectation is somewhere in between 6800XT and 6900XT.

If that's all it is, it's hard to sell it for more than $500 that 6800XT has been available at, for months.
If they manage a significant bump over 6800xt/4070, then $550 might be feasible.

Even If raster was the same, you still have better RT and better power consumption, video stuff is also better than RDNA2. With newer drivers RDNA3 should see better improvement compared to RDNA2.
I personally don't consider saving $50 to be worth buying RX 6800XT over N32, If It really cost $549.
Of course then the question is If saving $50 is worth choosing N32 over RTX 4070 which has a lot better RT performance, but I find 12GB Vram too little.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Even If raster was the same, you still have better RT and better power consumption, video stuff is also better than RDNA2. With newer drivers RDNA3 should see better improvement compared to RDNA2.
I personally don't consider saving $50 to be worth buying RX 6800XT over N32, If It really cost $549.
Of course then the question is If saving $50 is worth choosing N32 over RTX 4070 which has a lot better RT performance, but I find 12GB Vram too little.

Additional problem with delivering something competitive with 6800 XT/4070 for a price that splits the difference, is that they have been available for months at those prices. I don't imagine that many people have been waiting for something that is kind of an average between those cards (Similar Raster, priced between them, and RT performance between them).

Arriving later seems to be a common issue for AMD. It lets NVidia capture much of the new generation market at that price, so when AMD does show up, there is less available buyers, plus at this point NVidia has made fat margins when AMD wasn't there, and could now drop pricing to make sales even more difficult for AMD.

The later they arrive, the worse it seems, so I would hope they arrive with a bang and not a whimper.

 

[Ajay]

N31 and N32 have better WGPs compared to N33, so It could be a bit higher than 7%, maybe 8-9%, but this is not that important.
According to TPU(Link , Link):
RX 6800 vs RX 6800XT
Average: 2205Mhz vs 2257MHz (+2.4%)
Median: 2218MHz vs 2249MHz (+1.4%)
As you can see, clockspeed is pretty much the same, so most of the performance Increase is coming from the extra 20% CU.

I can understand when you say that 20% higher clocks don't mean 20% higher performance, but you saying It will provide only 10% increase is surprising.
We don't even know If the average frequency will be only 2650MHz or they will aim higher at the cost of efficiency.

You said the top end of expectations should be parity with RX 6800XT/RTX4070. In my opinion, top end would be parity with RX 6900XT, which is 23% faster than RX 6800.
My personal expectation is somewhere in between 6800XT and 6900XT.

Even If raster was the same, you still have better RT and better power consumption, video stuff is also better than RDNA2. With newer drivers RDNA3 should see better improvement compared to RDNA2.
I personally don't consider saving $50 to be worth buying RX 6800XT over N32, If It really cost $549.
Of course then the question is If saving $50 is worth choosing N32 over RTX 4070 which has a lot better RT performance, but I find 12GB Vram too little.

If the top N32 competes with the 4070, why charge even a dime less than $600? As people have pointed out numerous times now - AMD is very focused on maintaining good margins - even at the cost of a bit of market share.

 

[Heartbreaker]

If the top N32 competes with the 4070, why charge even a dime less than $600? As people have pointed out numerous times now - AMD is very focused on maintaining good margins - even at the cost of a bit of market share.

Then it's $100 more than 6800 XT that already has that performance, and has been available for months...

Significantly worse perf/$ than what you are already selling, hardly seems like a formula for success.

 

[Mopetar]

Oh no, AMD is extremely careful on wafer allocation.

That would suggest the largely available RDNA2 products on the market aren't leftovers, but chips AMD would have been producing still this year.

The prevailing opinion so far is that they overproduced RDNA2 parts either in anticipation of demand that never materialized or perhaps as part of an effort to cash in on the mining boom.

 

[Joe NYC]

I am.

My optimistic side sees the very long delay, as time to make it better/incorporate more features.

If they are all the exact same tech, there isn't much reason the N32 would be so delayed, unless they really just had a ridiculous excess of N21/22 chips, and it was a strategy to clear the channel. But it's been so long, I really can't see this being the reason anymore.

If you look at RX 6000 series results on both Mindfactory and Steam, it's RX 6700 XT that was their volume part in at both. It's kind of the sweet spot of the lineup, so in that sense N32 should be their most important chip, so you really would want that chip to just go MIA for no reason.

So, all I am left with is, they decided to fix/improve N32 because it's so important, and that is the reason for the delay, whether that results in an increase perf/mm2, and/or some new features to be called RDNA 3.5 remains to be seen. Or it's just the worse case, being an epic screwup, with a massive delay delivering no improvements at all.

As someone mentioned, that apparently, N32 missed the chance to be in current round of notebook designs.

So if AMD was not doing anything to fix / improve with N32, then why not release mobile version for laptops, even while still withholding it from desktop to further drain the inventory?

Which is why I don't buy the "inventory of Navi 22/23 is too high" explanation at this point.

 

[adroc_thurston]

The prevailing opinion so far is that they overproduced RDNA2 parts either in anticipation of demand that never materialized or perhaps as part of an effort to cash in on the mining boom.

AMD exerts extreme levels of inventory management, see how they've been undershipping PC market for like 3 quarters now.

Which is why I don't buy the "inventory of Navi 22/23 is too high" explanation at this point.

yea it's bs.

 

[jpiniero]

As someone mentioned, that apparently, N32 missed the chance to be in current round of notebook designs.

So if AMD was not doing anything to fix / improve with N32, then why not release mobile version for laptops, even while still withholding it from desktop to further drain the inventory?

If there's no demand for N32 laptop, what would there be to release?

 

[adroc_thurston]

If there's no demand for N32 laptop, what would there be to release?

There's no demand for any laptops period but refreshes still went out just fine.

 

[Heartbreaker]

If there's no demand for N32 laptop, what would there be to release?

GPU cards.

There's really never been significant demand for AMD laptop chips, yet AMD still keep releasing GPU cards.

 

[Ajay]

There's no demand for any laptops period but refreshes still went out just fine.

This for sure. Due to the pandemic, companies and private individuals bought up laptops like crazy for remote work. Schools, with help from Federal and State funds also bought laptops/chromebooks like at a frenzied pace. That saturated the market till the next upgrade cycle starts (whenever that'll be).

 

[adroc_thurston]

There's really never been significant demand for AMD laptop chips

Cuz it's the market where you have to consistently execute, which they really haven't until RDNA's started.

That saturated the market till the next upgrade cycle starts (whenever that'll be).

Doesn't look good for PCs until 2025-ish.

 

[jpiniero]

GPU cards.

There's really never been significant demand for AMD laptop chips, yet AMD still keep releasing GPU cards.

To me it seemed like there was more OEM demand for N22 than N23.

 

[adroc_thurston]

To me it seemed like there was more OEM demand for N22 than N23.

Yea DRAM's dogshit cheap and there's more demand for bigger VRAM cards those days so...

 

[Heartbreaker]

To me it seemed like there was more OEM demand for N22 than N23.

More as a relative function compared to other AMD laptop GPU, which both have negligible numbers.

Check outlets like Best buy for Laptops by GPU family:

NVidia 3193 vs AMD 62.

That's less than 2% for AMD. AMD laptop GPU business is much worse than their GPU card business.

 

[adroc_thurston]

AMD laptop GPU business is much worse than their GPU card business.

It's a business where you have to consistently execute; a longer-term opportunity for AMD which they very much still care about.

 

[Tup3x]

Not sure if these are true or fake.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1680627401913683968

https://twitter.com/x/status/1680602112894566400

 

[Heartbreaker]

3Dmark timespy scores for quick comparison. Kind of in the expected range. A little above 6800xt/4070 but below 6900. More like a sidegrade than an upgrade:

 

[PJVol]

A little above 6800xt/4070 but below 6900

Guru3d don't really bother to retest GPUs in the chart. My ref. 6800XT with an air cooler and stock settings scored above 19,000 in Timespy a year ago (22.5.1 driver)
So, yeah... as I expected it's 6800xt territory with some bonus RT.

 

[Tup3x]

Guru3d don't really bother to retest GPUs in the chart. My ref. 6800XT with an air cooler and stock settings scored above 19,000 in Timespy a year ago (22.5.1 driver)
So, yeah... as I expected it's 6800xt territory with some bonus RT.

Basically almost the same performance for probably around the same price. After two years quite underwhelming to be honest. This generation is extremely disappointing.