Thursday, September 12th 2019
AMD Updates Roadmaps to Lock RDNA2 and Zen 3 onto 7nm+, with 2020 Launch Window
AMD updated its technology roadmaps to reflect a 2020 launch window for its upcoming CPU and graphics architectures, "Zen 3" and RDNA2. The two will be based on 7 nm+ , which is AMD-speak for the 7 nanometer EUV silicon fabrication process at TSMC, that promises a significant 20 percent increase in transistor-densities, giving AMD high transistor budgets and more clock-speed headroom. The roadmap slides however hint that unlike the "Zen 2" and RDNA simultaneous launch on 7th July 2019, the next-generation launches may not be simultaneous.
The slide for CPU microarchitecture states that the design phase of "Zen 3" is complete, and that the microarchitecture team has already moved on to develop "Zen 4." This means AMD is now developing products that implement "Zen 3." On the other hand, RDNA2 is still in design phase. The crude x-axis on both slides that denotes year of expected shipping, too appears to suggest that "Zen 3" based products will precede RDNA2 based ones. "Zen 3" will be AMD's first response to Intel's "Comet Lake-S" or even "Ice Lake-S," if the latter comes to fruition before Computex 2020. In the run up to RDNA2, AMD will scale up RDNA a notch larger with the "Navi 12" silicon to compete with graphics cards based on NVIDIA's "TU104" silicon. "Zen 2" will receive product stack additions in the form of a new 16-core Ryzen 9-series chip later this month, and the 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper family.
Source:
Guru3D
The slide for CPU microarchitecture states that the design phase of "Zen 3" is complete, and that the microarchitecture team has already moved on to develop "Zen 4." This means AMD is now developing products that implement "Zen 3." On the other hand, RDNA2 is still in design phase. The crude x-axis on both slides that denotes year of expected shipping, too appears to suggest that "Zen 3" based products will precede RDNA2 based ones. "Zen 3" will be AMD's first response to Intel's "Comet Lake-S" or even "Ice Lake-S," if the latter comes to fruition before Computex 2020. In the run up to RDNA2, AMD will scale up RDNA a notch larger with the "Navi 12" silicon to compete with graphics cards based on NVIDIA's "TU104" silicon. "Zen 2" will receive product stack additions in the form of a new 16-core Ryzen 9-series chip later this month, and the 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper family.
103 Comments on AMD Updates Roadmaps to Lock RDNA2 and Zen 3 onto 7nm+, with 2020 Launch Window
Ever since Raja left I felt the RTG driver team has been slowly falling apart.
Still, having something faster out next year is what matters. Whether it's big Navi or something RDNA2 is not so important. Considering how much ground AMD's GPU team has to cover, iterating fast may be the better option after all.
Also, it's not like Raja scored major hits before he left ;)
That old FuryX I gave away is apparently having loads of stability issues with EVERY driver after 19.5.2, mostly with twitch streaming overlay corruption and stuff.
Makes me wonder if he left again or the Navi launch was way too rushed.
Also the R9700 was a sweet card. Even more so for the R9500 that unlocked into R9700 :D Unfortunately, that was also the last time ATI/AMD offered anything to catch my attention. They had some good cards wit their HD2000/3000 series, but, unfortunately for them, that was a time when I didn't feel the need to upgrade.
Lastly, just to put it out there, a second iteration of Navi may very well be some sort of professional version too, but we have no details on that.
RTG is merely a shadow of what ATi used to be.
hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/93941-amds-raja-koduri-design-team-celebrate-vega-10-milestone/
After all, why the heck not.So far, Nvidia has been going next gen 70 ~= previous gen ~=80 at nearly the same price.
Perhaps they'll go cheaper, since AMD is present there, we'll see.
Regardless, it means that AMD will still have products for sizeable chunk of the market, bar very top (which is a dubious investment for them at this point anyhow) in the worst case scenario.
Heck, actual expectations are for 7nm EUV GPUs to go well into 2080+ area.
Keep in mind Navi has was a major step forward for AMD, both perf/watt and perf/mm2 wise.
Last but not least, actual desktop market share is 2 nvidia cards vs 1 AMD card and not what you see on steam (as seen in the recent report by TPU).
We might witness lovely "can't continue to sell overpriced shit" hangover by NVidia, with The Leather Man torn between ceding market share, or profits or both.
And as an icing on a cake, it will be AMD dictating how RT development will go.
AMD have already spent this node shrink, while Nvidia still have it "in the bank". And generally speaking, more efficient architectures only get more advantageous from node shrinks.Only if you include APUs and computers in general. In the Steam survey you can see the market share among gamers is 15% (including APUs). It gets worse if you look at discreet graphics cards, and even moreso if you look at segment by segment of the market. If you compare GTX 1060 vs. RX 480 + RX 580, you see something like 7-10x favor of Nvidia. So in essence, AMD is only selling volumes in the low-end, and barely participating in the mid-range.
Of course your reasoning is that because AMD is in both the next XBox and PS5 they will dictate RT. Except that they were in there last round and it hasn't helped them at all. Microsoft will dictate RT, and they already have with DirectX Ray Tracing (DXR). RTX is already compatible with it (and Vulkan's version as well) and what ever form of RT hardware AMD uses will have to be compatible with it as well. It will all come down to the design of the hardware and drivers, and at this point there is no reason to believe that AMD will have any advantage.
AMD/ATI cards I've had that died or quit working properly:
Radeon 9590 (dead)
Radeon X800 (dead)
Radeon X1900 XT (memory failed, visual corruption)
Radeon 5950 (UVD unit failed, system crashes)
Radeon Vega 64 (unstable, system crashes)
AMD/ATI cards I've had that work fine:
Radeon AIW 9700
Radeon 2900 Pro
Radeon 3870
Radeon 4850
Radeon 5950 (replacement)
Radeon 6970
Radeon 270
Radeon 390
Radeon VII
I run my cards at stock.
But I have also been problem free for like a decade in the green camp. I used to game a lot (not AAA titles on release, that may be significant) yet my experience has been top-notch.