Wednesday, April 20th 2022
AMD Radeon RX 6400 Launched at $159
AMD formally launched the entry-level Radeon RX 6400 graphics card. At an MSRP of $159, this is the most affordable graphics card from the Radeon RX 6000 series. It is based on the same RDNA2 graphics architecture as the rest of the RX 6000 lineup, and the smallest silicon of them all, the "Navi 23." This chip is built on the TSMC N6 (6 nm) silicon fabrication process.
The RX 6400 shares the "Navi 23" silicon with the RX 6500 XT launched earlier this year. AMD enabled 12 out of 16 RDNA2 compute units on the silicon, resulting in 768 stream processors, 48 TMUs, 12 Ray Accelerators, and 32 ROPs. The memory configuration is similar to the RX 6500 XT, with 4 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 64-bit wide memory bus. This is the same 16 Gbps-rated memory, which means 128 GB/s bandwidth on tap. There's also 16 MB of Infinity Cache. The engine clocks (GPU clocks) are set at 2039 MHz (game) and 2321 MHz (boost). With its given specs, the RX 6400 has a typical graphics power (TGP) of just 53 W, and so cards can do without any power connectors.
The RX 6400 shares the "Navi 23" silicon with the RX 6500 XT launched earlier this year. AMD enabled 12 out of 16 RDNA2 compute units on the silicon, resulting in 768 stream processors, 48 TMUs, 12 Ray Accelerators, and 32 ROPs. The memory configuration is similar to the RX 6500 XT, with 4 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 64-bit wide memory bus. This is the same 16 Gbps-rated memory, which means 128 GB/s bandwidth on tap. There's also 16 MB of Infinity Cache. The engine clocks (GPU clocks) are set at 2039 MHz (game) and 2321 MHz (boost). With its given specs, the RX 6400 has a typical graphics power (TGP) of just 53 W, and so cards can do without any power connectors.
81 Comments on AMD Radeon RX 6400 Launched at $159
:)
- The Navi 24 RX 6500 XT exists.
- TSMC's 7nm yields are so good that AMD's cut-down SKUs have consistently been in short supply for the past two years, including CPUs. (Also note the complete absence of <6-core Ryzen CPUs that aren't based on APUs - this tells us that from the millions of Zen3 dice produced, the number with 3 or more broken cores is so low as to not warrant making a product out of them.
- TSMC's 6nm process is a refinement on 7nm, and yields are likely comparable.
- It is extremely rare for chipmakers to bin a higher end chip for a SKU below one using a lower end chip. It has happened - Nvidia's 2060 KO was an example - but it's exceedingly rare. And when it happens, there are typically well documented reasons. I can't think of a single case where this has been done on anything but a very large high-end die (such as the TU104), but I might be wrong. Still, we know of no such reasons for this.
The aforementioned logic:
We have so far seen zero evidence to suggest Navi 24 has any more I/O than what we know of. It is thus safer to assume that it has no such I/O, even if this isn't technically known. There's also a fab supply crunch going on, and AMD really needs a contender for budget gaming laptops, which sell in massive volumes. That incentivises tiny die sizes to increase per-wafer die counts. Cutting I/O directly impacts die sizes, and Navi 24 is indeed quite tiny. Narrow interfaces also save power, which supports another perspective on this die: Its lack of a media engine strongly suggests that this is designed specifically for pairing with an APU, in a mobile device, which would make such hardware redundant - and cutting it again brings down die size. It is thus extremely likely that in terms of design goals, all non-mobile implementations of Navi 24 are secondary. Note that the 6500M and 6300M were launched well before the 6500 XT. Both have 64b+4x interfaces.
So: while we don't know that Navi 24 is strictly 64b+4x, all evidence available points this way, with zero evidence suggesting otherwise. All signs point towards this being a small-size-and-low-power-above-all-else, mobile-first design, with the ridiculously clocked 6500 XT being where all less efficient dice are shunted to. The 25W 6300M and 35-50W 6500M are the point of this die, and everything else is just a way to sell off remaining or non-qualifying stock. Which means there is no reason to expect it to have yet-to-be-enabled I/O. I agree, but it's still a weakness. You might note that I'm not one of the people shouting "this lacks a media engine, it's trash!", I'm simply pointing it out as one of its weak points. I wouldn't care, but if you're building a low-cost media center off an old CPU, it would obviously be a deal-breaker. But for the type of gaming it's aimed at? Not at all.
www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/amd-radeon-rx-6400#product-specs
wccftech.com/amd-navi-24-rdna-2-gpu-for-radeon-rx-6500-xt-designed-primarily-for-laptops/amp/
videocardz.com/newz/amd-employee-confirms-navi-24s-primary-use-is-in-laptops-with-rembrandt-apus