AMD gave us our first glimpse of their new Navi GPUs earlier at this time, exhibiting us the primary of their Radeon RX 5000 household of graphics card chips, the RX 5700, plus Navi’s all-new 7nm (nanometer) structure often called RDNA, or Radeon DNA. Announced throughout AMD high woman Dr Lisa Su’s Computex keynote speech, the RX 5700 can be launching this July, and can allegedly supply speeds which might be 10% quicker than Nvidia’s RTX 2070 graphics card – or at the least it is going to within the built-in benchmark for co-op shooter Strange Brigade, which AMD demoed on stage, however we’ll have to attend and see whether or not that efficiency hole holds up throughout different, extra demanding games as soon as it’s obtainable for benchmarking.
Still, at this time’s Computex reveal was solely meant as an early tease of AMD’s RX 5700 Navi GPU, and we’ll be listening to extra concerning the RX 5700 and the remainder of AMD’s Navi GPUs at their large Next Horizon Gaming occasion at E3 on June 10, together with their specs, worth and agency launch date. In the imply time, right here’s the whole lot we all know to date.
AMD Navi: what’s it?
Navi is the identify of AMD’s new household of Radeon RX 5000 graphics playing cards. Set to exchange AMD’s present Radeon RX Vega playing cards (however not the Radeon 7, which is able to proceed to co-exist with the brand new Navi playing cards, in line with AMD’s most up-to-date roadmap slide under), Navi will use a 7nm manufacturing course of, in addition to function a brand-new GPU structure often called RDNA, or Radeon DNA, which has been constructed from the bottom as much as make Navi extra environment friendly (and subsequently highly effective) than AMD’s current-gen graphics playing cards.
RDNA sounds prefer it’s going to be fairly the step up from AMD’s earlier GCN structure. It not solely has a model new compute unit design that’s centered on effectivity and doing heaps and plenty of issues concurrently whereas retaining energy and latency good and low, however it additionally has a brand new, streamlined graphics engine that ties the whole lot collectively, providing efficiency speeds which might be 1.5x or greater per watt in comparison with AMD’s present Vega GPUs.
Again, we’ll hear extra about the true, nitty-gritty particulars of RDNA at E3 – together with what kind of reminiscence Navi can be utilizing. So far, all AMD have stated is that Navi will include one thing often called ‘Next Gen Memory’, however whether or not that’s GDDR6 reminiscence, the following iteration of HBM2 (High Bandwidth Memory 2) that’s presently in AMD’s Vega playing cards or one thing else solely, no one is aware of.
AMD Navi launch date
The race for best graphics card is on. At one level, Navi was alleged to arrive by the tip of 2018. But then the 14nm model of Vega acquired pushed again (the Vega 56 and 64), which in flip bumped again the 7nm model of Vega. The latter lastly got here out earlier this yr within the type of the Radeon 7, however it additionally means this continuous shuffling again of launch dates has precipitated additional delays to the launch of AMD’s 7nm Navi GPUs.
Finally, nonetheless, we now know that the primary AMD Navi card – the RX 5700 – will arrive this July. We’ll be getting a correct date throughout AMD’s Next Horizon Gaming occasion at E3, which takes place on June 10 at 3pm PT (or 11pm within the UK), however present rumours level to a launch date of July 7 – or 7/7, in case you wanted a good deeper tie to their 7nm manufacturing course of.
This in all probability makes fairly a little bit of sense, because it’s a) not that lengthy after E3 ends, and b) AMD did an identical factor with their Radeon 7 launch earlier within the yr, utilizing CES firstly of January to unveil it earlier than launching it a month later in the beginning of February.
AMD Navi specs
At the chance of sounding like a damaged file, we’re going to be listening to much more concerning the particular specs of every new AMD Navi GPU at E3, together with reminiscence configurations, increase clock speeds and the kinds of show output they’ll assist. For now, although, that is what we do presently find out about AMD’s Navi GPU specs.
They’re going to be the world’s first gaming GPUs to assist the tremendous quick PCIe 4.zero normal, for instance, which massively will increase the quantity of bandwidth obtainable to your graphics card out of your motherboard. You’ll want a PCIe 4.zero motherboard to make the most of it, after all, however it is going to seemingly be the one method to take advantage of what AMD’s providing with their new Navi GPUs.
Plus, regardless of some hearsay mongers saying that AMD’s Navi GPUs received’t truly assist ray tracing, which is the flowery new lighting tech that’s presently the new subject of the day over on the brand new crop of Nvidia RTX playing cards, I’d be stunned if this was the case. After all, if the customized variant of AMD’s Navi GPU that’s going inside the brand new PlayStation 5 helps ray tracing, it stands to motive that their PC equivalents, such because the RX 5700, will assist it, too. Plus, why else would they tease us with an Radeon RX Vega 56-powered ray tracing demo again at GDC?
It’s nonetheless attainable, after all, that ray tracing can be a singular property of AMD’s customized Navi chips, however assuming ray tracing is going to be supported by the broader AMD Navi RX 5000 household, we are able to additionally make some educated guesses about another items of the puzzle.
For instance, we’ve already seen how a lot of a toll ray tracing takes on the efficiency of Nvidia’s RTX graphics playing cards when their proprietary DLSS tech isn’t enabled, and AMD have informed me themselves {that a} DLSS-esque expertise for Navi isn’t actually on the playing cards for them. That means they’re going to need to be fairly rattling highly effective or tremendous environment friendly to do it correctly with out taking a large hit on the previous body price.
“Our priority is going to be looking at SMAA and TAA [anti-aliasing techniques] and not proprietary technologies,” an AMD spokesperson informed me throughout a briefing for the Radeon 7. “For us, it’s about enabling technology across all three verticals [PC, console and cloud gaming] and ensuring the end user experience is going to be great across all three. DLSS is a proprietary technology supported in only a small number of PC games. SMAA and TAA offer a superior combination of image quality and performance that’s free of the harsh sharpening of DLSS.”
Fighting phrases, these, however it means that AMD’s extra involved about delivering some severe uncooked horsepower (which would definitely tally with the way in which they introduced the Radeon 7) as a substitute of counting on AI to choose up the slack – and from the sounds of issues, their new RDNA structure appears to be like set to ship simply that. The proof, after all, can be within the benchmark pudding.
AMD Navi worth: how a lot are they going to value?
The key piece of the puzzle we’re lacking proper now could be worth. Currently, the web is everywhere in the store on this one, with some hearsay mills going for top-end form of costs like $300+, whereas others are pegging them to be less expensive across the $160 mark. Personally, I don’t assume there’s a lot to be gained in any respect by making an attempt to guess stuff like this.
Instead, one of the best factor we’ve acquired to go on is Nvidia’s present pricing construction for his or her new RTX playing cards, and the value of AMD’s personal Radeon 7 graphics card. Since AMD’s Navi GPUs are going to include a whole household of playing cards, I’d think about we’ll see fairly comparable costs to their present Nvidia equal.
Indeed, as for the RX 5700, which AMD is positioning as an RTX 2070 rival, I’d think about its UK worth can be someplace between £450-600. £450 is what the RTX 2070 prices proper now, for instance, whereas £600 is how a lot you’ll need to pay for a Radeon 7, which is AMD’s RTX 2080 rival. As for US costs, I reckon someplace between $500-$680 utilizing the identical logic.
Much like Navi’s launch date, although, we’ll hear correct pricing data at E3. Until then, I’d recommend taking all different worth rumours with a pinch of salt.