AMD Radeon RDNA2 Navi (RX 6500, 6600, 6700, 6800, 6900 XT)

[Deleted member 13524]

Nah, real SLCs for APUs are coming.

Interesting...

But would it be for exclusive use by the GPU? Or are we talking about something that is seen as L4 cache for the CPU but L3 cache for the iGPU?
Don't the current APUs provide the Vega iGPUs with access to the CPU's L3?

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Interesting...

But would it be for exclusive use by the GPU? Or are we talking about something that is seen as L4 cache for the CPU but L3 cache for the iGPU?
Don't the current APUs provide the Vega iGPUs with access to the CPU's L3?

An actual SLC sits in front/beside the memory controllers and offers itself to the whole SoC.

And currently, the CPU L3 is only for the CPU... it's probably coherent and GPU might be able to get something out of it but that's about it.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

An actual SLC sits in front/beside the memory controllers and offers itself to the whole SoC.

And currently, the CPU L3 is only for the CPU... it's probably coherent and GPU might be able to get something out of it but that's about it.

So @Bondrewd's suggestion is that AMD will be introducing an APU with SLC that is similar to the ARM SoCs from Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple, which so far hasn't existed in the x86 domain?

 

[Bondrewd]

which so far hasn't existed in the x86 domain?

Ugh, Crystalwell bro.
Shit's ancient; same year as Apple's A7 SLC no less.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Ugh, Crystalwell bro.
Shit's ancient; same year as Apple's A7 SLC no less.

But Crystalwell was a separate and external pool of eDRAM memory which AFAIR required a dedicated memory controller. I thought @Nebuchadnezzar was talking about the SLC in the current high-end ARM SoCs that basically seems to provide a faster coherency between CPU, GPU, NPU, etc. without needing to go into the LPDDR. Its purpose is far from Infinity Fabric Cache's. (edited)

If what you're talking about is an APU with e.g. a HBM2 stack to the side, then It would indeed be closer to Crystalwell.

 

[Bondrewd]

But Crystalwell was a separate and external pool of eDRAM memory which AFAIR required a dedicated memory controller

No, CRW used basic OPIO (the ULV PCH link which is still alive and well on all ULV Intel parts) at higher datarates and was an L4$ before Skylake, with tags stored inside L3.

I thought @Nebuchadnezzar was talking about the SLC in the current high-end ARM SoCs that basically seems to provide a faster coherency between CPU, GPU, NPU, etc. without needing to go into the LPDDR

Well SLC's OG purpose to begin with was bandwidth amplification to drive highres panels off 64b LPDDR buses.
Not far off Crystalwell at all, and it was all the same year, too.
They're both ancient you know.
It's just that AMD always kinda lags in mobile innovation, mostly.

If what you're talking about is an APU with e.g. a HBM2 stack to the side, then It would indeed be closer to Crystalwell.

Oh noes that would be tiered memory aka neverever for now.

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I thought @Nebuchadnezzar was talking about the SLC in the current high-end ARM SoCs that basically seems to provide a faster coherency between CPU, GPU, NPU, etc. without needing to go into the LPDDR. Its purpose is far from Infinity Fabric's..

Mobile SoCs have had coherent interconnects since like 2014, the point of SLCs was power. What's your view of "purpose" of IF? I just view it as a NoC as any other and nothing else.

Well SLC's OG purpose to begin with was bandwidth amplification to drive highres panels off 64b LPDDR buses.

Again, not really. It was always about reducing system energy usage by avoiding going to DRAM. All the vendors had large generational battery improvements when they introduced SLCs.

I don't know what AMD will be doing but it can range from an IOD SLC / on-die SLC if they continue monolithic in laptops to exotic stuff like a dumb SRAM die stacked on the IOD. At least that's what I would do.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Mobile SoCs have had coherent interconnects since like 2014, the point of SLCs was power. What's your view of "purpose" of IF? I just view it as a NoC as any other and nothing else.

Sorry I meant Infinity Cache, not Infinity Fabric.

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Sorry I meant Infinity Cache, not Infinity Fabric.

Well yea IC is obviously performance focused - I doubt their APU SLC would be that aggressive, but you never know. If they can do both perf and power in a reasonable manner it's a win-win.

 

[PSman1700]

RDNA gpus supposedly have rt support now for the game CP2077.

Found the following video, lets hope Digital Foundry will cover this

 

[Malo]

RDNA gpus supposedly have rt support now for the game CP2077.

RDNA or RNDA2?

 

[PSman1700]

RDNA or RNDA2?

RDNA2 i suppose ,) Skimped through the video and seems he has tested 6700XT and upwards. The reviewer also noted that hey didnt use AMD's fidelityFX/CAS or NV's sharpening filter.
Anyway il wait for a through and through DF analysis, not to diss the reviewer i posted (he did a great job i think), but DF videos are my go-to these days for those kind of benchmarks.

 

[Rootax]

Multiples "reviews" already out, nothing out of the ordinary, it's not good. The lack of a DLSS equivalent is a big miss right now, but it's the same song since RDNA2 came out.

 

[Lightman]

I've posted my experience few days ago in this topic, works perfectly fine, finally can get dips below 30FPS on my OC 6800XT in QHD and ultra everything. Impressive performance hog
Saying that, without any form of CAS or DLSS, FullHD gaming is absolutely acceptable on my card if it's paired with AdaptiveSync monitor. 40-60FPS in most cases is not a bad experience at all.

 

[sonen]

I've posted my experience few days ago in this topic, works perfectly fine, finally can get dips below 30FPS on my OC 6800XT in QHD and ultra everything. Impressive performance hog
Saying that, without any form of CAS or DLSS, FullHD gaming is absolutely acceptable on my card if it's paired with AdaptiveSync monitor. 40-60FPS in most cases is not a bad experience at all.

Glad that AMD users are getting the taste of good RT. Cyberpunk 2077 is by far the best implementation so far.
The genie is out. There is no going back.

 

[Lightman]

Glad that AMD users are getting the taste of good RT. Cyberpunk 2077 is by far the best implementation so far.
The genie is out. There is no going back.

That's the thing, with only one vendor support, RT pickup was never going to be as fast as when there is a broad support from all vendors. It doesn't matter if at this moment AMD is substantially slower, as long as all the RT effects are working and the game offers customisable levels of them to dial it in for your cards capabilities it will only push more game studios to put some real development time into supporting RT in their games (consoles are also a huge help).
New RTX series is a much more potent RT card than AMD's RDNA2, but RDNA2 is still quite acceptable as it offers RTX20xx performance minus DLSS. This last bit is important to be addressed as I have a feeling, I would be re-playing CP2077 at QHD + RT on if it was already available.
If I really feel the need for it, I will grab my RTX 3080 from the home server (which is working hard there to pay for itself) and put it into my main rig just for CP2077

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That's the thing, with only one vendor support, RT pickup was never going to be as fast as when there is a broad support from all vendors. It doesn't matter if at this moment AMD is substantially slower, as long as all the RT effects are working and the game offers customisable levels of them to dial it in for your cards capabilities it will only push more game studios to put some real development time into supporting RT in their games (consoles are also a huge help).
New RTX series is a much more potent RT card than AMD's RDNA2, but RDNA2 is still quite acceptable as it offers RTX20xx performance minus DLSS. This last bit is important to be addressed as I have a feeling, I would be re-playing CP2077 at QHD + RT on if it was already available.
If I really feel the need for it, I will grab my RTX 3080 from the home server (which is working hard there to pay for itself) and put it into my main rig just for CP2077

I think it's more that consoles now support at least some form of RT. PC GPUs that support RT are still just a tiny drop in the bucket of PC GPU install base and will be for a few years still (especially with the damn coin miners). However every single console from MS and Sony from this point on can support some form of RT (even if RT might get disabled on the XBS-S).

Considering that in general, consoles represent ~2/3 of all AAA games sold (some games sell more than that on console while some sell more on PC), there's far more incentive for game developers to experiment with RT than before.

Regards,
SB

 

[Kaotik]

I think it's more that consoles now support at least some form of RT. PC GPUs that support RT are still just a tiny drop in the bucket of PC GPU install base and will be for a few years still (especially with the damn coin miners). However every single console from MS and Sony from this point on can support some form of RT (even if RT might get disabled on the XBS-S).

Considering that in general, consoles represent ~2/3 of all AAA games sold (some games sell more than that on console while some sell more on PC), there's far more incentive for game developers to experiment with RT than before.

Regards,
SB

According to NVIDIA about 10% of their user base has RTX, not sure if it was just gamers or did it include professional cards too

 

[PSman1700]

According to NVIDIA about 10% of their user base has RTX, not sure if it was just gamers or did it include professional cards too

Wow thats actually alot. Theres alot of geforce users out there in the pc gaming space, NV has been around for awhile.

In contrast, how many % of PS console users have a 'ray tracing enabled' console? With still over 100 million PS4 users, and even millions of PS3 users, it cant be 10%. 'Ray tracing' has a kinda wide definition, aswell. The PS5 is already now offering the lowest end form of ray tracing.
Also, since everything AMD and NV have to offer since Ampere/RDNA2 does have ray tracing abilities, these numbers wont go down.

Scalpers and miners dont help console or pc gaming though.

 

[Kaotik]

Wow thats actually alot. Theres alot of geforce users out there in the pc gaming space, NV has been around for awhile.

In contrast, how many % of PS console users have a 'ray tracing enabled' console? With still over 100 million PS4 users, and even millions of PS3 users, it cant be 10%. 'Ray tracing' has a kinda wide definition, aswell. The PS5 is already now offering the lowest end form of ray tracing.
Also, since everything AMD and NV have to offer since Ampere/RDNA2 does have ray tracing abilities, these numbers wont go down.

Scalpers and miners dont help console or pc gaming though.

RTX 10% in 2½ years vs PS5 4% in 2 months (pretty sure it's at this point safe to assume active PSN-users cover the userbase, Sony sold 4.5m consoles in 2 months, which is 3.95% of 114 million PSN users)
But this is going pretty offtopic already, should there be another thread for this?