Raising the bar this time around, AMD says it has pulled in learnings from its Zen CPU division. Original RDNA is no frequency slouch as partner RX 5700 XT cards routinely boost to 2GHz. These are lofty but necessary goals if AMD is to challenge the latest Nvidia Ampere-based graphics hardware where it is strongest.Īppreciating it can't make grounds-up architecture changes in just over a year, AMD's RDNA 2 leverages the same base Compute Unit (CU) flow but extracts more by leaning heavily on three key pillars: high-speed design, Infinity Cache, and what it terms advanced features.

The latter is necessary as AMD doesn't automatically gain energy efficiency from the usual process shrink. It is important to understand that AMD's aim with RDNA 2 is to improve performance by 2x over the best of the last generation, Radeon RX 5700 XT, whilst also improving performance per watt. Bigger and more efficient than its silicon progenitor yet still on ostensibly the same 7nm process, let's explain how AMD got here. As the name intimates, it builds upon the first-generation RDNA present on the Radeon RX 5000 Series released in July 2019. RDNA 2Īiming for a knockout blow, the architecture behind Big Navi is known as RDNA 2. In the green corner, Ampere struts its stuff as the current undisputed heavyweight champ. In the red corner, RDNA 2 comes out swinging with next-gen console GPU credentials. Unveiled to gaming enthusiasts as Radeon RX 6000 Series, AMD makes no bones about going toe to toe with the best that Nvidia has to offer. Conspicuous by its absence whilst rival Nvidia has made hay - and lots of cash - with GeForce RTX, today the burden of GPU responsibility falls squarely on much-hyped Big Navi. Much has been discussed this year with regard to AMD's fortunes in the high-performance graphics card market.

RDNA 2 Architecture, Infinity Cache and Speed

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