FEATURE/ ANALYSIS
A
MDisnolongerundergoinga
resurgence.Havingrecently
releaseditsnew3rd-gen
RyzenCPUsandRadeonRX
5700-seriesGPUs,AMDhasaccelerated
pastIntelontheprocessorfrontandis
aggressivelyrenascentwhenit comesto
graphics.Theone-twopunchoffresh
architecturaladvancementsforbothCPUs
andGPUs,alongwithmassproductionon
leading-edgefoundrytechnologythat’syet
tobetappedbyitskeycompetitors,hasput
thefirmbackonthecompetitivemap.
RYSSOMMEFELDTLIFTSTHELIDONAMD’SFIRSTNEW
GPUARCHITECTURESINCE 2012
TheNavi10GPUunderneaththeRX
5700 Seriesproductsismadeusing
TSMC’sexcellent7nmprocesstechnology,
allowingthedesigntobesmallerand
consumelesspower,butwiththesame
performancecomparedwithbeing
madeoneither16nmor12nmnodes.
However,advancedfoundrytechnology
isn’tthewholestory.AMDalsomade
significantchangestothemicroarchitecture
andconnectedI/OwithwhichNavi10is
built,whichAMDcallsRDNA.It’sbeena
processofreimagining,rethinkingandAMD RDNA
THE DEEP DIVE
reimplementing AMD’s vision of how a
competitive GPU design should look in 2019.
Many years in the making, let’s take a
trip down the RDNA pipeline to explore
what’s new, and look at it in the context
of AMD’s prior GPU design, Vega,
to see where the new performance
efficiency really comes from.
The basic summary is that AMD
remembered that the ‘G’ in GPU stands
for ‘graphics’ rather than ‘general’, but
where’s the fun in reading that without
understanding why? Let’s dive right in.