NVIDIA's GeForce "Blackwell" generation of gaming GPUs will stick to being traditional monolithic die chips. The company will not build its next generation of chips as either disaggregated devices, or multi-chip modules. Kopite7kimi, a reliable source with NVIDIA leaks, says that the largest GPU in the generation, the "GB202," is based on a physically monolithic design. The GB202 is expected to power the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 (or RTX 4090 successor), and if NVIDIA sticking to traditional chip design for this, then it's unlikely that smaller GPUs will be any different.

In contrast, AMD started building disaggregated devices with its current RDNA 3 generation, with its top two chips, the "Navi 31" and "Navi 32," being disaggregated chips. An interesting rumor suggests that team red's RDNA 4 generation will see a transition from disaggregated chips to multi-chip modules—packages that contain multiple fully-integrated GPU dies. Back to the green camp, and NVIDIA is expected to use an advanced 4 nm-class node for its GeForce "Blackwell" GPUs.

AMD has quietly added some interesting codenames to its ROCm hardware support list. The biggest surprise is the appearance of "RDNA 4" and "Navi 44" codenames, hinting at a potential successor to the current RDNA 3 GPU architecture powering AMD's Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards. The upcoming Radeon RX 8000 series could see Navi 44 SKU with a codename "gfx1200". While details are scarce, the inclusion of RDNA 4 and Navi 44 in the ROCm list suggests AMD is working on a new GPU microarchitecture that could bring significant performance and efficiency gains. While RDNA 4 may be destined for future Radeon gaming GPUs, in the data center GPU compute market, AMD is preparing a CDNA 4 based successors to the MI300 series. However, it appears that we haven't seen all the MI300 variants first. Equally intriguing is the "MI300X1" codename, which appears to reference an upcoming AI-focused accelerator from AMD.

While we wait for more information, we can't decipher whether the Navi 44 GPU SKU is for the high-end or low-end segment. If previous generations are for reference, then the Navi 44 SKU would target the low end of the GPU performance spectrum. The previous generation RDNA 3 had Navi 33 as an entry-level model, whereas the RDNA 2 had a Navi 24 SKU for entry-level GPUs. We have reported on RDNA 4 merely being a "bug correction" generation to fix the perf/Watt curve and offer better efficiency overall. What happens finally, we have to wait and see. AMD could announce more details in its upcoming Computex keynote.

AMD on Monday said that its 2024 Computex Keynote address slated for June 3, will see a slew of next-generation product announcements. "Join us as Dr. Lisa Su delivers the Computex 2024 opening keynote and shares the latest on how AMD and our partners are pushing the envelope with our next generation of high-performance PC, data center and AI solutions," the brief release said.

AMD is widely expected to unveil its next-generation Ryzen 9000 "Strix Point" mobile processors for AI PCs capable of powering the recently announced Microsoft Copilot+, its next-generation Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors, its 5th Generation EPYC "Turin" server processors, and possibly even its next-generation Radeon RX RDNA 4 generation. At the heart of all its processor announcements is the new "Zen 5" CPU microarchitecture that's expected to introduce an over 10% IPC improvement with significant improvements in AVX512 performance over "Zen 4," which should benefit certain kinds of AI workloads.

AMD's future RDNA 5 graphics architecture will bear a "clean sheet" design, and may probably not even have the RDNA branding, says WJM47196, a source of AMD leaks on ChipHell. Two generations ahead of the current RDNA 3 architecture powering the Radeon RX 7000 series discrete GPUs, RDNA 5 could see AMD reimagine the GPU and its key components, much in the same way RDNA did over the former "Vega" architecture, bringing in a significant performance/watt jump, which AMD could build upon with its successful RDNA 2 powered Radeon RX 6000 series.

Performance per Watt is the biggest metric on which a generation of GPUs can be assessed, and analysts believe that RDNA 3 missed the mark with generational gains in performance/watt despite the switch to the advanced 5 nm EUV process from the 7 nm DUV. AMD's decision to disaggregate the GPU, with some of its components being built on the older 6 nm node may have also impacted the performance/watt curve. The leaker also makes a sensational claim that "Navi 31" was originally supposed to feature 192 MB of Infinity Cache, which would have meant 32 MB segments of it per memory cache die (MCD). The company instead went with 16 MB per MCD, or just 96 MB per GPU, which only get reduced as AMD segmented the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 GRE by disabling one or two MCDs.

AMD's next generation RDNA 4 graphics architecture is expected to feature a completely new ray tracing engine, Kepler L2, a reliable source with GPU leaks, claims. Currently, AMD uses a component called Ray Accelerator, which performs the most compute-intensive portion of the ray intersection and testing pipeline, while AMD's approach to ray tracing on a hardware level still relies greatly on the shader engines. The company had debuted the ray accelerator with RDNA 2, its first architecture to meet DirectX 12 Ultimate specs, and improved the component with RDNA 3, by optimizing certain aspects of its ray testing, to bring about a 50% improvement in ray intersection performance over RDNA 2.

The way Kepler L2 puts it, RDNA 4 will feature a fundamentally transformed ray tracing hardware solution from the ones on RDNA 2 and RDNA 3. This could probably delegate more of the ray tracing workflow onto fixed-function hardware, unburdening the shader engines further. AMD is expected to debut RDNA 4 with its next line of discrete Radeon RX GPUs in the second half of 2024. Given the chatter about a power-packed event by AMD at Computex, with the company expected to unveil "Zen 5" CPU microarchitecture on both server and client processors; we might expect some talk on RDNA 4, too.

Today, we have the latest round of leaks that suggest that AMD's upcoming RDNA 4 graphics cards, codenamed the "RX 8000-series," might continue to rely on GDDR6 memory modules. According to Kepler on X, the next-generation GPUs from AMD are expected to feature 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory, marking the fourth consecutive RDNA architecture to employ this memory standard. While GDDR6 may not offer the same bandwidth capabilities as the newer GDDR7 standard, this decision does not necessarily imply that RDNA 4 GPUs will be slow performers. AMD's choice to stick with GDDR6 is likely driven by factors such as meeting specific memory bandwidth requirements and cost optimization for PCB designs. However, if the rumor of 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory proves accurate, it would represent a slight step back from the 18-20 Gbps GDDR6 memory used in AMD's current RDNA 3 offerings, such as the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX GPUs.

AMD's first generation RDNA used GDDR6 with 12-14 Gbps speeds, RDNA 2 came with GDDR6 at 14-18 Gbps, and the current RDNA 3 used 18-20 Gbps GDDR6. Without an increment in memory generation, speeds should stay the same at 18 Gbps. However, it is crucial to remember that leaks should be treated with skepticism, as AMD's final memory choices for RDNA 4 could change before the official launch. The decision to use GDDR6 versus GDDR7 could have significant implications in the upcoming battle between AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel's next-generation GPU architectures. If AMD indeed opts for GDDR6 while NVIDIA pivots to GDDR7 for its "Blackwell" GPUs, it could create a disparity in memory bandwidth performance between the competing products. All three major GPU manufacturers—AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel with its "Battlemage" architecture—are expected to unveil their next-generation offerings in the fall of this year. As we approach these highly anticipated releases, more concrete details on specifications and performance capabilities will emerge, providing a clearer picture of the competitive landscape.