AMD revealed RDNA 2 graphics in Ryzen 7000 processors - AV1 hardware decoding, 4K support at 60 FPS and more

All AMD Ryzen 7000 processors feature an integrated graphics core based on RDNA 2 architecture.
Now the manufacturer has revealed the features of this embedded graphics, naming the main characteristics and features.Image source: AMDThe company has confirmed that the RDNA 2 embedded graphics core of Ryzen 7000 processors uses two Compute Units (Compute Units), that is has 128 stream processors.
iGPU itself is part of the new chipset IOD (chip with input-output interfaces), which is produced according to the norm 6-nm process technology.Built-in graphics RDNA 2 processors Ryzen 7000 has the ability to hardware accelerate encoding and decoding of most popular video formats.
It is declared to support H.264 and H.265 encoding, as well as AV1 decoding.
It should be mentioned that AV1 decoding is also supported by Ryzen 6000 mobile processors and Radeon RX 6000 graphics gas pedals.
It also claims to support HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.0 and USB Type-C with alternative DisplayPort mode for Ryzen 7000 embedded graphics.
AMD also claims the ability of the \"embedded\" to output 4K resolution images at 60 frames per second.
Features of AMD Ryzen 7000 Processor IOD ChipletThe Ryzen 7000 Processor IOD Chiplet claims to support DDR5-5200 RAM without overclocking.
For comparison, current competing Intel Alder Lake processors support DDR5-4800 memory as standard.
Also, the new AMD processor chipset provides support for 28 PCIe 5.0 lanes, which can be used by next-generation SSDs and graphics cards.All AMD Ryzen 7000 processors have the same IOD chipset with RDNA 2 graphics running at 2.2 GHz.
It provides theoretical performance in single precision operations at 0.563 Tflops.
In other words, it is 1/3 of the performance of Steam Deck game console graphics.

AMD introduced 6nm Mendocino mobile chips with Zen 2 cores and RDNA 2 graphics for affordable notebooks

AMD today introduced not only the Ryzen 7000 series desktop processors, but also entry-level notebook solutions.
In the fourth quarter, AMD will release 6nm Mendocino mobile processors combining the Zen 2 architecture and integrated RDNA 2 graphics.
Image source: AMDIn view of the scale of AMD's assault on its main competitor's position in the processor segment, even such bizarre combinations of innovations should be received favorably by the market.
Laptops based on Mendocino processors will be able to get into the $399 to $699 price segment, offering Zen 2 computing architecture, RDNA 2 graphics architecture and a combination of four processing cores with eight threads.
The Mendocino processor crystals will be manufactured using TSMC's 6nm technology.AMD now offers Dali and Picasso processors based on the Zen and Zen+ processor architectures and Vega graphics in the entry-level mobile segment.
The novelty also offers not the most recent processor architecture (Zen 2 came out in 2019), but still it has a much higher performance.
Also to the benefit of performance will be the presence of modern integrated graphics RDNA 2.
AMD does not specify exactly how many graphics cores will have new products, hardly 12, as in the Radeon 680M senior chips Ryzen 6000.
Note also that the chips Mendocino will offer support for LPDDR5 memory, which has a very high speed, which also will benefit productivity.Notebooks based on Mendocino processors will be able to offer more than ten hours of battery life for mixed use scenarios.
Both Microsoft Windows and Google Chrome OS will be offered as the operating system.
Characteristically, AMD already offers a combination of Zen 2 computing architecture and 6nm manufacturing technology, as Van Gogh hybrid processors are produced with this recipe and are used in Valve's Steam Deck gaming consoles.

AMD no longer believes that 4 GB of video memory is not enough for gaming - the company changed its mind before the release of Radeon RX 6500 XT with 4 GB

After the wide publicity in the western press the page with the post described in the news was again available on the site of AMD. What was the reason for its absence & ; is unknown. Original news: AMD has removed from its official AMD Community blog the statement that having only 4 GB of video card memory is not enough for modern games. This was brought to the attention of KitGuru, which found that one of the entries from 2020, in which the manufacturer claimed this, has completely disappeared from AMD's website.

It seems that the company no longer believes that the graphics gas pedal's 4 GB of memory is not enough for gaming. Curiously enough, the entry from the AMD blog disappeared before the official launch of sales of the new Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming model equipped with just 4 GB of GDDR6 memory. Recall that sales of this graphics card start today. An old AMD blog post from 2020 claimed that next-gen games require more video memory to load textures, especially when it comes to using high image quality settings. Having a small amount of memory can lead to errors, low framerate and «stutter» picture. «AMD leads the industry on the issue of providing gamers with graphics solutions with high VRAM capacity for its entire product range. Competitive entry-level and similarly priced products are only willing to offer up to 4 GB of video memory, which is insufficient for today's games. Radeon RX series graphics gas pedals are ready to offer 6 or 8 GB of memory, allowing to run games at maximum image quality settings» & ; wrote AMD in June 2020.

The old entry referred to a promotional campaign related to the launch of the Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics card equipped with 8GB of video memory. Its successor on the new RDNA 2 architecture offers half the memory and half the memory bus bit, which is 64 bits instead of 128 bits of the previous generation model. The recommended price Radeon RX 6500 XT is $200. However, the card will not be sold in a reference design. Some AMD partners have already announced the recommended price of the novelty in its design & ; from 300 euros.

AMD unveiled Radeon RX 6400 graphics card, which you can't buy at retail

AMD unveiled a number of new products today at CES 2022. In addition to the affordable Radeon RX 6500 XT gaming graphics card, which has a recommended price of only $199, the «red» released an even more affordable and lower performance graphics gas pedal called Radeon RX 6400, which will not be available from retailers.

Radeon RX 6400 graphics card will be supplied only to OEM-computer manufacturers, that is, you can buy it only as part of a complete system. In contrast to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which has 16 calculation blocks with RDNA 2 architecture, the Radeon RX 6400 will be only 12 such blocks. Note that the same number of RDNA 2 graphics cores has built-in graphics older mobile Ryzen 6000 processors. It turns out that the Radeon RX 6400 offers 768 stream processors, and the maximum reference GPU frequency is 2039 MHz. A useful feature for many new items is that it requires only 53 watts of power. The Radeon RX 6400 is equipped with 4 GB of memory with a bandwidth of 16 Gbps. As mentioned above, the graphics card can not be purchased at retail, at least officially they will not be sold that way. However, this may be for the best, because graphics gas pedals are now sold at a price many times higher than the recommended. And here is a computer with Radeon RX 6400 for a relatively low price may well be a way out for an unpretentious gamer in the current difficult times.

An image of AMD Navi 24 GPU, the most compact chip on RDNA 2 architecture, has appeared

VideoCardz portal obtained an image of Navi 24, the low-end GPU, which is going to form basis for Radeon RX 6000 entry-level desktop and, most likely, mobile graphics. This is the most compact graphics chip, based on AMD RDNA 2 architecture.

According to the source, the Navi 24 has an area of 141 mm2. In other words, it is smaller than the Navi 14 generation RDNA 1 with an area of 158 mm2, which was used in models such as the Radeon RX 5500 XT and Radeon RX 5300. The published image of Navi 24 confirms that the processor has half as many Compute Units as the Navi 23 chip used in the Radeon RX 6600. Each such unit contains 64 stream processors. Thus, their total number is 1024 pieces. The size of Infinity Cache of Navi 24 is reduced to 16 MB, and it has a memory controller with 64-bit bus bit rate support. If we believe the rumors, Navi 24 & ; this is the first GPU based on 6nm production processor. AMD is expected to unveil the new and probably the last member of the RDNA 2 graphics family as early as next week. The chip will be used in Radeon RX 6500 XT and Radeon RX 6400 graphics cards. The first card is to be launched on January 19. The second will be distributed exclusively through PC OEMs and will be available later.

AMD may introduce Radeon RX 6000S mobile graphics cards on 6nm chips in early January

In addition to the announcement of new Radeon RX 6500M and Radeon RX 6300M mobile graphics cards, AMD, according to unconfirmed information, is going to update the existing mobile graphics gas pedals. According to VideoCardz, citing several sources, the updated graphics processors NAVI 2X on RDNA 2 architecture will be released in a series of Radeon RX 6000S.

It is indicated that the updated NAVI 2X mobile chips will be based on TSMC's 6nm process technology. The density of transistors in the updated GPU will increase by 18% compared to the current mobile GPUs in video cards Radeon RX 6000M-series. The new chips will provide higher performance per watt than current models. It is also noted that the clock frequency of Radeon RX 6000S graphics processors will be higher than the current models. The announcement of updated Radeon RX 6000S graphics, most likely, will be held at the same time with the announcement of new Ryzen 6000H mobile processors codenamed Rembrandt. In addition to new AMD mobile graphics cards, at the beginning of next year we also expect to see GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, GeForce RTX 3070 Ti from NVIDIA, as well as discrete graphics cards from Intel's Arc Alchemist series. So, the beginning of next year promises to be very interesting. About all these novelties, most likely, we will find out during the international electronics exhibition CES 2022, which will be held in January.

Samsung Exynos processor with AMD graphics is featured in Geekbench

The famous Geekbench 5 benchmark has revealed information about Samsung's next-generation flagship mobile platform equipped with AMD graphics processor based on RDNA 2 architecture.

The chipset hiding behind the codename SM-S906B is supposedly the expected Exynos 2200 mobile solution with AMD's most advanced mobile GPU.

Data Geekbench indirectly confirm this assumption, the test data flashes a reference to the AMD driver with API Vulkan, as well as mentioning  Samsung Voyager EVTA1 & ; previously sources reported that the Exynos 2200 will be the fruit of cooperation Samsung and AMD, and under the codename Voyager concealed GPU developed by the latter.

Samsung Exynos 2200 will get an eight-core processor with four cores up to 1.73 GHz, three & ; up to 2.5 GHz and one & ; up to 2.59 GHz. The frequencies are even lower than the Exynos 2100 model. Presumably, the Geekbench database gives information about the engineering sample & ; such are usually weaker than the final versions. There is no data about the graphics gas pedal in the benchmark. According to rumors, the GPU model Exynos 2200 will get 384 stream processors combined into 6 computing modules.

The main processor scored 1072 points in the single-core test and 3389 points & ; in multi-core. By comparison, the results of the Exynos 2100 & ; 1112 and 4073 points, respectively. The Samsung Exynos 2200 platform is expected to be used to build the company's latest flagship smartphones in early 2022.

AMD introduced Radeon RX 6600 XT, a 1080p graphics card that outperforms GeForce RTX 3060

AMD, as expected, today unveiled a new graphics processor-based graphics card with RDNA 2 architecture. We are talking about a mid-priced model Radeon RX 6600 XT, which is positioned as a solution for quality gaming in 1080p resolution (1920 1080 dots).

The Radeon RX 6600 XT is based on the Navi 23 GPU, which has 32 Compute Units (CUs). This means 2048 stream processors and 32 ray tracing units in real time. 

The reference gaming clock speed of the GPU is claimed to be 2359 MHz. The graphics card features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, as well as a fast 32 MB Infinity Cache buffer. 

There is also support for Smart Access Memory technology, which boosts FPS by giving the CPU direct access to the entire memory array of the graphics card. 

Radeon RX 6600 XT power consumption is claimed to be 160W, one 8-pin slot is enough for additional power. AMD noted in the presentation that 2/3 of gaming monitors displays in 2020 had the resolution of 1080p, so the novelty is aimed at the most mass market segment.

 AMD also notes that most players would be worth upgrading their old graphics card, pointing out that the most popular gas pedal among Steam users  GeForce GTX 1060, which no longer gives the cherished 60 FPS in modern games. In fact, AMD also compares Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card with GeForce GTX 1060, noting the superiority of new items more than twice. 

Compared to its predecessor Radeon RX 5600 XT, AMD novelty provides 1.4–1.7 times performance gain, which makes it a faster offering compared to Radeon RX 5700 as well. AMD considers GeForce RTX 3060 to be a direct competitor to Radeon RX 6600 XT. 

According to the manufacturer, the novelty surpasses the competitor in many modern games, as well as providing a higher frame rate in massively competitive games. And due to the support of FidelityFX Super Resolution technology the graphics card is able to provide even more impressive FPS level in compatible games. 

In some cases due to this technology almost triple frame rate growth is promised. AMD also mentioned its Radeon Boost technology, which provides increasing FPS by dynamically changing resolutions. AMD will not release Radeon RX 6600 XT reference graphics card.

 Instead there will be a lot of versions from the company's partners on the market. Sales are scheduled to begin on August 11. The recommended price of novelty  $379.

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics cards will be introduced next month

AMD has been promising to expand its range of graphics solutions with RDNA 2 architecture for a long time, but difficult market situation and pandemic prevented the company to introduce new models in Radeon RX 6000 family by the middle of the year. Now there is information that Radeon RX 6600 XT will be announced in August, and more affordable Radeon RX 6600 will be released even later.

The usual activity in the field of AMD novelty announcement timing was demonstrated today by VideoCardz site, which accumulated fresh revelations of video-bloggers on the subject of Radeon RX 6600 XT announcement timing. Channel Coreteks, in particular, suggested to expect the debut of this graphics card in August this year. AMD will not release a reference version of novelties & ; this graphic solution will be offered only in versions by partners. More or less accurately we know about 32 MBytes of high-speed Infinity Cache memory and 8 GBytes of GDDR6 memory. We managed to check information about Radeon RX 6600 XT announcement date through our own channels; the debut of this product is indeed scheduled for August, but Radeon RX 6600 will be presented in a more distant indefinite future. It makes no sense to speculate on the recommended retail price of the new RDNA 2 architecture representative, though the source mentioned above mentioned $399 as a reference point. The market prices so far tend to be much higher than the recommended ones, the video card manufacturers simply are not able to influence the situation. The other day the inevitability of the appearance of new models of video cards in the second half of the year, and confirmed the Taiwanese site DigiTimes, referring to the manufacturers of cooling systems.

AMD released Radeon RX 6800 XT Midnight Black - exclusive reference graphics card with custom design

AMD, as expected, today released Radeon RX 6800 XT Midnight Black & ; a new graphics card based on Navi 2x graphics processor with RDNA 2 architecture. Novelty is a special version of Radeon RX 6800 XT, and differs from her appearance & ; it is completely in black color, instead of silver-black coloration of the original model.

Radeon RX 6800 XT Midnight Black graphic card is now available exclusively at AMD's brand store at amd.com. Surprisingly, the novelty turned out to be priced at the same amount as the original model & ; its recommended price in the U.S. was $649.

Previously, it was reported that the Radeon RX 6800 XT Midnight Black will be a limited edition. By the time this news was written all of the video card's stock had of course been sold out. Whether AMD plans to release new batches & ; is unknown. Recall that both the usual Radeon RX 6800 XT and the new Radeon RX 6800 XT Midnight Black are based on the Navi 21 XT GPU. It has 4608 stream processors. The base clock speed is 1825 MHz, the average gaming frequency is declared at 2015 MHz, and the maximum Boost frequency is 2250 MHz. The graphics card is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory with an effective frequency of 16 GHz.

AMD confirmed the upcoming announcement of Radeon RX 6000 mobile graphics cards

AMD's RDNA 2 graphics architecture is coming soon to laptops. During an event where the Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card was unveiled, Scott Herkleman confirmed that graphics cards with the new architecture are coming to the mobile segment. One of the slides showed a laptop very similar to the MSI Bravo, which was labeled as the RX 6000 carrier.

The release of laptops based on Radeon RX 5000M graphics cards was not entirely successful. Only a few laptops with first generation RDNA GPUs were released. Mobile computers with discrete Radeon RX 5500M and RX 5600M are difficult to find on sale, because the choice is usually limited to models by MSI and Dell. It is even harder to find a device with the older Radeon RX 5700M mobile graphics gas pedal on sale. In fact, it was available exclusively as part of the Dell Alienware Area-51m R2 gaming solution. AMD, as usual, hides details of upcoming mobile graphics cards. At the moment, leaks from Patrick Schur, a well-known insider, indicate only the TGP value of the upcoming GPUs. VideoCardz resource has compiled two tables with all the currently known power target values of NVIDIA and AMD mobile GPUs and their possible characteristics. Please note that both tables are purely speculative and are based only on leaks and assumptions. According to the resource, AMD may release more models of Radeon RX 6000 mobile graphics cards than in the last generation. Details about graphics chip, codenamed Navi 24, are still very limited, but it is clear that it will form the basis of entry-level graphics cards, such as Radeon RX 6300M. According to some rumors, the Navi 22 mobile chip will get 192- and 160-bit memory interfaces. This could suggest that the higher end mobile Radeon models will be able to offer 12 and 10 GB of video memory respectively. Radeon RX 6800M and RX 6700M may be built on this chip. Navi 22 will offer up to 40 processing units, giving a total of 2560 stream processors, while the cut down chip may have 2304 stream processors, allowing it to fill the space between the full Navi 22 and Navi 23 versions. The source also suggests that both models on the Navi 23 GPU should get a 128-bit memory bus, which could be configured with 8 or 4 GB of memory. These cards will offer up to 2048 stream processors.

AMD has introduced the Radeon RX 6700 XT, a graphics card for 1440p gaming. On sale March 18 for $479

As promised, AMD today unveiled the mid-range Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card, which is focused on 1440p gaming. Sales of the new product will start on March 18.

Like other graphics cards of Radeon RX 6000 series, new Radeon RX 6700 XT is based on 7-nm RDNA 2 architecture, equipped with high-speed Infinity Cache of 96 MB and 12 GB of GDDR6 video memory. The Navi 22 GPU used in Radeon RX 6700 XT features 40 processing units (2560 stream processors) running at 2424 MHz (Game Clock) with an overclock speed of up to 2581 MHz (Boost Clock). The video memory has an effective frequency of 16 GHz and 192-bit bus. The estimated heat dissipation of the graphics card is 230W.

According to AMD, Radeon RX 6700 XT in 1440p resolution is able to offer twice the gaming performance compared to graphics cards of the previous generation such as GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, as well as frame rate over 165 FPS in cybersports disciplines. In addition, AMD promises a performance advantage over both the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and GeForce RTX 3070. «Today's games are demanding more computing power than ever to provide gamers with an immersive experience, & ;said Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager of the graphics division at AMD. & ; AMD's Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card & ; is the best solution for 1440p gaming. For the majority of gamers who are still gaming on three to four year old graphics cards, it's & ; the perfect upgrade to deliver incredible image quality and uncompromised gaming performance at maximum 1440p» settings.

The Radeon RX 6700 XT will go on sale in two weeks & ;March 18. In addition to the reference variant will be available & ;  AMD partners ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE and XFX. The recommended price of the novelty (in the reference version) is set at $479. As we were confirmed by the local AMD representative office, sales of Radeon RX 6700 XT in Russian market will start simultaneously with the rest of the world.

AMD promises to introduce all graphics cards with RDNA 2 architecture by the end of the year

AMD management did not talk much about its results in the graphics segment at the quarterly event, but it was not without some interesting revelations. As it was announced at CES 2021, AMD will introduce more affordable RDNA 2 generation graphics solutions this semester, while work on RDNA 3 is in full swing.

Image source: AMD

On a year-on-year basis, as noted by Lisa Su, revenue from graphics products declined in the fourth quarter, but increased sequentially. Desktop GPU sales increased markedly from the previous quarter due to the arrival of the Radeon RX 6000 family of products on the market. They are in high demand, which should continue this year. New products are selling three times as active as their predecessors in price range from $549 at comparable life cycle stage, it is a record for AMD graphics solutions. As promised this month, the company will expand its RDNA 2 architecture GPU portfolio to include new mobile and desktop models by mid-year. Their range will continue to expand until the end of this year, as well as in the server segment. According to the head of AMD, this year the company will be able to increase revenue from sales of consumer graphics, as there is a pent-up demand in the market. The company will strengthen its position both in the retail segment and in the off-the-shelf computer market. As stated by Lisa Su, AMD experts are working hard on the RDNA 3 architecture. According to slides from the company's investor presentation, it will hit the market by the end of next year.

AMD to release RDNA 2 mobile graphics cards this half year

During her speech at CES 2021 AMD CEO Lisa Su talked a lot about the high pace of expansion of notebooks based on the processors of the brand, but about the plans to update mobile graphics solutions she mentioned briefly. According to her, RDNA 2 generation discrete graphics will make its way into laptops as early as this half of the year, but that's where all the details ended.

Image source: AMD, YouTube

It is quite predictable that the public attention was more attracted by that part of the slide from AMD presentation, where they talked about RDNA 2 architecture range expansion and gave some sketches with outline of new graphics cards of Radeon RX 6000 family. The mobile portion of the range has been undeservedly forgotten as a result, but for the gaming industry it is no less significant, especially in light of the recent debut of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 series mobile graphics adapters. Now AMD's honor in the segment of mobile discrete graphics solutions family Radeon RX 5000M, which were presented the year before last but already offered the first generation RDNA architecture combined with GDDR6 memory size from 3 to 8 GB. In the first half of this year, as Liza Su made clear, discrete graphics solutions with RDNA 2 architecture will appear in the mobile segment, which will help to bridge the gap between AMD's mobile and desktop graphics segment in terms of adoption of advanced architectures. During the AMD CEO's presentation, one of the future mobile graphics solutions was demonstrated running the game Dirt 5 at 1440p resolution at ultra-high image quality settings. The scene refresh rate almost never dropped below 60fps. AMD partners are expected to unveil their respective notebooks by the end of this half-year.

AMD has promised up to 15% performance improvement with Smart Access Memory

Yesterday AMD released its flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card based on RDNA 2 architecture. One of the advertised features of this and other Radeon RX 6000 series cards is AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM) technology. More and more motherboards of 400 and 500 series (for example, recently reported by Biostar) support this technology, and AMD decided to present a commercial about this technology.

AMD introduced the SAM technology during the announcement of the Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards and initially announced it only for the Ryzen 5000 processor. While conventional Windows-based PCs can only access up to 256MB of graphics memory at the same time, this technology allows the processor to extend the data channel, allowing the entire video memory array to be accessed at once, eliminating potential bottlenecks and achieving improved performance in some games. This is especially true now, when the amount of video memory used often exceeds 10 GB.

In this video, the company promises a noticeable performance increase in some games when activated SAM. For example, Forza Horizon 4 and Assassin's Creed Valhalla get a 1440p resolution gain on AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT up to 15 %, while Ashes of Singularity: Escalation in 4K shows a 13 % gain. The company still recommends using the technology on AMD 500 series motherboards with AMD Ryzen 5000 processors and AMD Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards. This requires the AMD Radeon Software Driver 20.11.2 or later, a motherboard with fresh firmware based on AMD AGESA 1.1.0.0 and activation of Above 4G Decoding and Re-Size BAR Support in the BIOS:

Recall: SAM is based on Resizable BAR (Base Address Registers) sizing technology, which is part of the PCI Express interface specifications since version 2.0 and is not an exclusive of AMD. SAM works quite well on Radeon RX 6000 and Intel processors on ASUS and ASRock boards, but AMD Ryzen 3000 and older processors do not support it hardware. Since this is part of the PCI Express specifications, NVIDIA also plans to add SAM support to some of its graphics gas pedals.

Tests have confirmed that AMD Smart Access Memory technology has worked on the Intel platform

Resizable BAR (Base Address Registers) technology is part of the PCI Express interface specifications since version 2.0 & ; it is the basis of AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM), but is no longer exclusive to owners of new Ryzen chips. Recently ASUS released firmware for motherboards with Intel Z490 chipset, which adds Resizable BAR support.

When this functionality is enabled in the BIOS of Intel Z490-based motherboards, ASUS AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards should automatically take advantage of this technology. AMD never said that SAM would be exclusive to Radeon RX 6000 and Ryzen 5000 processors. Only these products are listed as supported by AMD because AMD has conducted tests with them and is confident that they will work. Another reason is obviously marketing and a desire to increase sales of their own devices.

Japanese site ASCII decided to test the SAM in practice in the Intel platform. The site staff used a Core i9-10900K processor and a reference Radeon RX 6800 XT with and without active Resizable BAR function. As we already know, activation of SAM does not always give a noticeable performance gain even on a bunch of Ryzen 5000 and Radeon 6000 & ; everything depends on the specific game. That's why only those projects that have already proven SAM gains were included in the test: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Forza Horizon 4, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Rainbow Six Siege.

Official data on performance gain from SAM on AMD Ryzen 5000 and Radeon 6000 platforms.

So, on the Intel Z490 platform in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla at 1920 × 1080 and the highest quality, the activation of Resizable BAR gives both minimum and average frame rates increase: In Forza Horizon 4, at 2560 × 1440 and maximum quality settings, you'll feel the same gain (note that the graphics incorrectly specify resolution; 1920 × 1080): In Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1920 × 1080, the Resizable BAR increases the minimum frame rate multiple times to provide a smoother gaming experience: Finally, in Rainbow Six Siege at 1920 × 1080 at high quality settings and 100 %-scale rendering, the game shows an improvement in minimum frame rate and minimal increase in average performance: Recall: AMD introduced SAM technology during the announcement of Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards. While conventional Windows-based PCs can only access a portion of the graphics memory (VRAM) at the same time, this technology allows the processor to extend the data channel, allowing the entire video memory array to be used at once and eliminate potential bottlenecks, achieving improved performance in some games.

Maximum frequency of AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU will reach 3 GHz

The flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card will have the highest GPU clock speed of any Big Navi (RDNA 2) gas pedal. At least, according to the data from the informant Patrick Schur, published on Twitter.

According to the screen shots taken in the MorePowerTool utility, the future flagship Big Navi & ; Radeon RX 6900 XT & ; will be able to reach a higher clock frequency limit than graphics cards RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, & ; 3 GHz. The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, offering 72 Navi 21 processing units (CU), has a maximum GPU frequency tolerance of 2.8 GHz. This limit seems to be tightly set by AMD itself, and is enforced regardless of the modification of the graphics card by all partners; browsers and extreme overclockers have so far failed to overcome this limit. The restriction may be caused by the desire of AMD to prevent the cheaper model from competing with the much more expensive Radeon RX 6900 XT. If both gas pedals had the same frequency limit, there is a good chance that after overclocking the shortened version could easily approach the RX 6900XT in terms of performance. After all, both models have the same bass frequencies and a TBP (Total Board Power) limit of 300W. The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, which will offer 80 processing units, with an increased maximum clock speed limit of 3 GHz can be an excellent choice for overclockers, especially if the AMD will allow partners to produce unattended gas pedals. Overclocker Roman Hartung, known as der8auer, recently published a video in which he tried to overcome the 2.8 GHz limit on PowerColor's RX 6800 XT Red Devil. Unfortunately, despite many attempts, it is impossible to do it without special tools:

The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT with 5120 streaming processors will compete with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card worth $1499. Both cards will surely set new world records for overclocking. Unfortunately, graphics gas pedal manufacturers will not be able to meet the huge demand for high-performance graphics cards, so at the recommended price of $999 will be able to buy 6900XT this year only a few select ones. AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT will officially enter the market on December 8.

AMD expects Radeon RX 6800 to drop to the recommended price in 1-2 months.

The problem with NVIDIA Ampere and AMD RDNA 2 graphics cards is that it is almost impossible to buy them at the declared prices. Interesting information was shared by Hardware Unboxed channel during the November QA session. It seems that even in the U.S. it will be possible to buy Radeon RX 6800 graphics cards from AMD partners at recommended retail prices not earlier than a few weeks.

HWBOT

Steve and Tim from the Hardware Unboxed YouTube channel finally sat in front of the camera together after a long social distance to discuss the Radeon RX 6800 family and many other topics. The video concerns the lack of stock of the Radeon RX 6800 and overpriced non-standard models. The reference cards were immediately sold out at recommended retail prices. Many retailers did not even sell these cards through the Network, as their availability was minimal. Unfortunately, this situation did not change with the launch of non-standard models in a week. Stores, as a rule, did not accept pre-orders for these decisions, and the prices were simply terrifying and excessively higher than AMD's stated prices.

HWBOT

It turned out that AMD has recognized the problem of inflated prices, and the manufacturer is already working to help partners achieve the recommended retail price within two months. AMD's short and unofficial statement in a retelling of HarwdareUnboxed, however, does not explain why there is a shortage of AMD graphics cards and why prices for non-standard options are much higher even when compared to NVIDIA Ampere cards at the time of launch. «We had a personal conversation with AMD. They assured us that in 4–8 weeks, the cards from the partners will be available for purchase at recommended prices. They said they will help partners achieve the $649 recommended retail price for the Radeon RX 6800 XT and expect it to be $649 within the next 8 weeks;& ; said Steve Walton of Hardware Unboxed.

Recall: in Russian retail, the situation with the new AMD gas pedals is even worse. Large stores (in particular, DNS) are not waiting for normalization of supplies until the second quarter of next year. In the U.S., the recommended prices were only fair for the first reference models, which puts observers in a difficult situation: it is impossible to compare the price of new cards with competing NVIDIA products, because in retail they cost much more. AMD has had this problem with launches for years, but the manufacturer still can't solve the problem. As you can see from the table above compiled by VideoCardz resource, non-standard Radeon RX 6800 graphics cards are sold at Newegg for $81–251 above the recommended retail price (and it's still not easy to buy them):

AMD once again promised an open alternative to DLSS that will run on Intel and NVIDIA PCs, consoles, GPUs

AMD has already talked about working on an open cross-platform alternative to NVIDIA's DLSS intelligent scaling technology, which will work on PCs and consoles. AMD corporate vice president Scott Herkelman noted that the company is working on this issue in partnership with Intel and NVIDIA: the new technology will work on PCs and consoles, as opposed to closed DLSS.

He also said that the performance of the ray tracing technology of current Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards will improve over time. And AMD's leading gaming architect, Frank Azor, added that the company will consider enabling intelligent memory access for non-Series 500-series chipset as well. AMD's new Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT proved to be quite competitive with their NVIDIA counterparts in most games using traditional screening techniques. And while Navi 21 ray tracing is also good for the first time, AMD has nothing yet to answer to NVIDIA DLSS, which is very useful for ultra heavy modes, especially when using ray tracing actively. DLSS allows the graphics card to visualize the picture at a relatively low resolution, and then « restore » it uses machine learning algorithms.

Features DirectX 12 Ultimate and AMD FidelityFX

Speaking to Dave Altavilla and Marco Chiappetta of HotHardware, Frank Azor said that RDNA 2 is primarily focused on games. For non-game workloads, AMD has a separate CDNA architecture used in gas pedals like Instinct MI100. According to Azor, although RDNA2 cards are sometimes good at general-purpose computing, their priority is precisely gaming.

With regard to intelligent zoom (around 30:01 in the video), Scott Herkelman said AMD's goal is the opposite of NVIDIA's when it comes to implementation. Without going into particular detail, he only said that AMD's PC and console game development partners are begging the company not to create an API for any particular platform, manufacturer or game in order to minimize the complexity of cross-platform project development. AMD is committed to working with Intel and NVIDIA to create an open, intelligent scaling method that works in both PC and console games without additional effort. However, it will take time to develop it, so AMD does not go into detail at this time, noting only that it invests a lot of resources in it, and that in the near future the technology will definitely appear on the latest Radeon cards and possibly even other platforms. In the meantime, NVIDIA is still ahead of in this regard; for example, Cyberpunk 2077 will not initially have « rays» AMD cards; perhaps due to the lack of the notorious alternative to DLSS. Herckelmann also believes that the ray tracing performance of RX 6000 laquo cards; is quite good» and while the vast majority of games currently available still do not use this feature, he has confirmed that the performance of ray tracing will improve over time; as more new generation cross-platform games are released. By the way, AMD introduced Smart Access Memory (SAM) technology during the announcement of Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards. If usually PC processors can only access part of the graphics memory (VRAM) at the same time, then with this technology it is possible to expand the data channel, which will allow the processor to use the entire video memory array at once and eliminate potential bottlenecks. This will lead to increased performance. For now the technology works only on RDNA 2 graphics cards in conjunction with Ryzen 5000 processors and X570 chipsets. NVIDIA has promised to implement an analog that runs on Ampere graphics cards with AMD and Intel processors, even when using PCIe 3.0 bus. AMD then confirmed that the technology is open, and support is only temporarily limited to the flagship platforms. Frank Azor in a conversation with HotHardware confirmed that so far the technology is certified to work only with motherboards based on 500-series chipsets and Ryzen 5000 processors. In the future, SAM can work with other chipsets.

AMD showed ray tracing on Radeon graphics cards in all its glory in Hangar 21 demonstration

As promised a few days ago, after the market launch of the new Radeon RX 6000 family graphics cards based on RDNA 2 architecture, the Hangar 21 technology demonstration was also published. It is designed to showcase the benefits of the advanced features of fresh gas pedals in all its glory.

The video itself tells a short and simple story about how a certain android or a cyborg armed with swords sneaks into the protected object, secretly moves on this hangar, by breaking into the starship and safely flies it into the space distance. To implement a juicy picture AMD used technology from a set of DirectX 12 Ultimate, its own set of effects FidelityFX, as well as the particle engine PopcornFX.

Separately, AMD released a video in which it offered to pay attention to the key technological aspects of the demonstration:

dynamic light sources; volume beams of light; global real-time lighting; a realistic Ambient Occlusion shading model based on ray tracing; calculation of the interaction of light with the model depending on the type of material; volume fog interacting with light; application of the screen space reflection technique; reflections and shadows based on ray tracing; realistic depth of field effect; detailed textures for models in 8K resolution; textures for starry sky in 16K HDR quality.

Both videos are published in 1080p resolution and show 60 frames per second. Unfortunately, even owners of new graphics cards will not be able to run the demonstration on their systems; this is just a live video. It is possible that in the future there will be a full-fledged launch of Hangar 21, complemented, for example, by testing and performance evaluation tools.