AMD: Navi Speculation, Rumours and Discussion [2019-2020]

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Frenetic Pony said:
It's definitely looking like it wasn't just PR that Raja was terrible at, and based on that initial Xe presentation it seems he's straight back to his old bad habits of vastly overpromising and pumping up tons of new, untried technologies in extremely optimistic timelines. Focusing on things like HBCC instead of good execution anyone?

Also, entirely expected note but Lisa Su has explicitly confirmed RDNA2 for this year

Been easy to assume, but nice to have it stated officially and without any wiggle room. The exact wording of the statement is weird though. Why would you "refresh" "Navi" and have a "next generation RDNA architecture" launch in the same year?
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By refresh they presumably just mean higher clocks from the same chips with a new product name.
Because taping out a new die is expensive, and supply on 7nm+ might be quite restrictive.
It is what AMD have done most generations since GCN1. 7800->R9 270->R7 370, RX 480->RX 580->RX 590, etc.
 
Frenetic Pony said:
It's definitely looking like it wasn't just PR that Raja was terrible at, and based on that initial Xe presentation it seems he's straight back to his old bad habits of vastly overpromising and pumping up tons of new, untried technologies in extremely optimistic timelines. Focusing on things like HBCC instead of good execution anyone?
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Yeah, Lisa had to seed Zen people there and clean the house.
Now they have a real damn problem, software.
And tight deadlines for it to boot.
Frenetic Pony said:
Also, entirely expected note but Lisa Su has explicitly confirmed RDNA2 for this year
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They'd even talk more of it at Analyst Day.
Lovely.
Frenetic Pony said:
Why would you "refresh" "Navi" and have a "next generation RDNA architecture" launch in the same year?
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They can tape out only so many expensive bleeding edge foundry GPU dies per year.
So it's like 3/4 dGPU dies yearly, so bi-yearly full lineup die replacement cadence.
 
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Frenetic Pony said:
It's definitely looking like it wasn't just PR that Raja was terrible at, and based on that initial Xe presentation it seems he's straight back to his old bad habits of vastly overpromising and pumping up tons of new, untried technologies in extremely optimistic timelines. Focusing on things like HBCC instead of good execution anyone?

Also, entirely expected note but Lisa Su has explicitly confirmed RDNA2 for this year

Been easy to assume, but nice to have it stated officially and without any wiggle room. The exact wording of the statement is weird though. Why would you "refresh" "Navi" and have a "next generation RDNA architecture" launch in the same year?
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The question is, is AnandTech quote right?
Seeking Alpha, which provides transcripts of these calls, has small but significant differences:
Yes. So, in 2019, we launched our new architecture in GPUs, it’s the RDNA architecture and that was the Navi based products. You should expect that those will be refreshed in 2020 and will have next generation RDNA architecture that will be part of our 2020 lineup. So we are pretty excited about that and we will talk more about that at our Financial Analyst Day. And on the data center GPU side, you should also expect that we will have some new products in the second half of this year.
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https://seekingalpha.com/article/43...-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single

The way it's worded at AnandTech suggests one would be RDNA2 and rest refreshes of RDNA, even if it could be read also as refreshes will be RDNA2.
Seeking Alphas quote leaves little room for anything but refreshes being RDNA2 too.
 
I fully expect that RDNA2 will have a new graphics architecture, which is something AMD couldn't do for RDNA(1). Navi's graphics core is essentially unchanged from Vega, which was a bit behind the curve even when it launched. So RDNA2 chips are going to be quite a big change from RDNA(1), even if the compute architecture itself isn't changing.
 
Tom's Hardware has some clarification from AMD: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amds-navi-to-be-refreshed-with-next-gen-rdna-architecture-in-2020
Due to reports of both Navi refresh cards and a new lineup of cards based on next-gen RDNA, we followed up with AMD's communications team.

AMD responded that it would introduce new GPUs with the next-gen RDNA architecture this year, which makes sense given recent statements that the company will compete in the high end of the graphics market.

As to Su's reference to a Navi refresh, we're told she was speaking in terms of new additions to the product stack, and not stating that refreshed Navi cards would come with the next-gen RDNA architecture.
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In the context of Su's statement, it doesn't appear that she was referencing a "refreshed" lineup of Navi cards analogous to the tech community's typical understanding of the term. Instead, we will see new products based on the next-gen RDNA architecture come to market, ostensibly to address the high end of the GPU market (Big Navi).
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Ryan Smith said:
I fully expect that RDNA2 will have a new graphics architecture, which is something AMD couldn't do for RDNA(1). Navi's graphics core is essentially unchanged from Vega, which was a bit behind the curve even when it launched. So RDNA2 chips are going to be quite a big change from RDNA(1), even if the compute architecture itself isn't changing.
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Couldn't do because of lack of technical ability or because of the need to allow flexibility to behave like GCN as needed for Console backwards compatibility?
 
entity279 said:
AMD phrased it rather Series X is RDNA 1.5ish, iirc
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I'm pretty sure AMD has said nothing of the sorts, they've been really careful not to say anything their semi-custom customers haven't said themselves before.
Currently the assumption is that both PS5 and XSX are RDNA2 simply because they have RT-acceleration and it would be odd if they came over a year after RDNA using RDNA with things bolted on rather than already also out (by the time consoles launch) RDNA2
 
Kaotik said:
I'm pretty sure AMD has said nothing of the sorts, they've been really careful not to say anything their semi-custom customers haven't said themselves before.
Currently the assumption is that both PS5 and XSX are RDNA2 simply because they have RT-acceleration and it would be odd if they came over a year after RDNA using RDNA with things bolted on rather than already also out (by the time consoles launch) RDNA2
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The consoles aren’t coming over a year after RDNA. I imagine features and apis were locked down a long time ago to give developers sufficient time with the new hardware.
 
trinibwoy said:
The consoles aren’t coming over a year after RDNA. I imagine features and apis were locked down a long time ago to give developers sufficient time with the new hardware.
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The console are coming to market for holiday 2020, that's over a year after RDNA. Yes, features etc get locked down long before launch, but that's just as much true for PC GPUs (clocks etc, no matter if it's PC GPU or console, can be adjusted late)
 
Bondrewd said:
Series X is RDNA2, and it works just fine in BC.
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You are all setting yourself up for disappointment. No one ever said this officially in any way. Almost all evidence (except the dubious "hardware accelerated" definition historically used by Microsoft for any rendering being DirectX accelerated) point to XSX being regular RDNA1.
 
Globalisateur said:
"hardware accelerated" definition historically used by Microsoft
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So you seriously consider RT and VRS could be GPU software solutions?
Doubt it. "Hardware accelerated raytracing" was pretty much the first sentence in Scarlet reveal trailer. Why would they put such a misleading statement in front?
And second: MS has discontinued development of DXR software fallback layer, indicating they have no current interest in compute RT.

Edit: What would be an example of a feature that DX enabled without underlying HW support?
 
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Kaotik said:
The console are coming to market for holiday 2020, that's over a year after RDNA. Yes, features etc get locked down long before launch, but that's just as much true for PC GPUs (clocks etc, no matter if it's PC GPU or console, can be adjusted late)
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I doubt the lead times for pc AIB cards are anywhere close to the lead times for custom console hardware. Especially when those cards aren’t bringing any new features to the table. Point is that next gen console hardware could have been finalized before rdna 2 was ready given the long lead times.
 
JoeJ said:
So you seriously consider RT and VRS could be GPU software solutions?
Doubt it. "Hardware accelerated raytracing" was pretty much the first sentence in Scarlet reveal trailer. Why would they put such a misleading statement in front?
And second: MS has discontinued development of DXR software fallback layer, indicating they have no current interest in compute RT.
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Were they ever interested in compute RT beyond a proof of concept? DirectX primarily provides apis not implementations.
 
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