[Hardware] AMD Radeon Begins It’s RX 6000 Journey Early With Cooler Reveal

[Hossam Taibi]

It was only a few days ago when AMD Radeon revealed that they would be announcing their upcoming Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards on October 28th. They caught quite a bit of flak from community members over the tease of the announcement rather than just announcing a product but it seems they picked up and have decided to pull back the curtain on the Radeon RX 6000 Series cooler!

Is This Big Navi?

Well is it? That part remains to be seen but AMD Radeon decided that today was a good time to drop the cooler design for their upcoming RX 6000 Series cards and it is quite possibly the best-looking cooler (save the R9 295x2 in my opinion) that AMD has ever put on a reference card.  Three big fans with a bold R on each one, what appears to be a lit-up RADEON logo down the side that appears to be an evolution of the Radeon VII look. Thankfully this time around AMD went with much larger fans that should, in theory, be much quieter than what we heard with the Radeon VII.

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AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series Graphics Card Cooler Render Spotted in Fortnite (Image Credits: @boot_squence & @NateOrb)

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Teases of power delivery are there too as it seems that they have decided to go with dual 8-pin PCIe power cables rather than the 6+8 design that the RX 5700 Series carried. We do know that the RDNA2 and Navi 2X architecture is boasting high performance per watt gains, but it also looks like Radeon is ready to push the power and go all out this time around. Although the wrap-around shroud and overall design are quite reminiscent of the NVIDIA RTX 20 Series Founders Edition cards. There are also four display outputs which include 1 HDMI, 2 DisplayPort, and a single Virtual Link port (Type-C) connector.

There is still much to be revealed on October 28th as the cooler is only one small portion of the story, what is under it is just as, if not more important. But for now, here's the tweet sent out by Radeon:

 

Here's Everything We Know About RDNA 2 Based Radeon RX Navi 6000 Desktop GPUs

The AMD RDNA 2 based Radeon RX Navi 2x graphics card family is also touted to disrupt the 4K gaming segment similar to how Ryzen disrupted the entire CPU landscape. That's a pretty bold claim from AMD themselves but leaks and rumors are suggesting that this might be the case for AMD's next-generation Radeon RX graphics cards.

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AMD unveiled that its RDNA 2 GPUs will deliver a similar performance jump over the first-gen RDNA GPUs like Zen 2 delivered over Zen 1. The first RDNA GPUs delivered a massive 50% increase in performance per watt over GCN architecture and RDNA 2 GPUs are expected to do the same over RDNA 1, delivering another 50% increase in performance per watt.

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According to the roadmap shared by AMD, the RDNA 2 GPUs would feature three key features that will be part of the new GPU architecture. First and foremost is the performance per watt increase which is due to a number of reasons. AMD will be shifting from TSMC's 7nm process to the more advanced 7nm process node. The new process node itself increases transistor efficiency on the new GPUs while decreasing its overall size, allowing AMD to cram more performance in a much smaller package.

The key changes that have led to a 50% increase in performance per watt include a redesigned micro-architecture with improved performance-per-clock (IPC), a logic enhancement that helps reduce design complexity and switching power, and physical optimizations such as increased clock speeds.

AMD has also announced that RDNA 2 GPUs would feature VRS (Variable Rate Shading) and hardware-accelerated ray tracing. AMD is following suit with NVIDIA here who have already implemented the said technologies on its Turing GPU based GeForce RTX graphics cards. With the launch of the new consoles from Microsoft and Sony imminent, AMD is going to work to provide these features with its own optimization framework to developers for integration within next-generation gaming titles.

AMD has also recently showcased its RDNA 2 GPUs running Microsoft's DXR 1.1 (DirectX 12 API Ultimate) demo internally which utilizes hardware-accelerated ray tracing. AMD's approach to ray tracing is to offer simplified development and speedy adopting and that is definitely possible through consoles where the mass majority of game developers focus their efforts towards.

AMD's CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, has already stated that we can expect a new RDNA 2 GPU based Radeon RX high-end family and a 7nm RDNA refresh family to launch this year. The same was stated during the presentation in which it was stated that the "Navi 2x" lineup would scale from top to bottom and as the name suggests, would deliver twice the performance efficiency increase over the first-generation RX graphics cards. AMD's CFO, Devinder Kumar also shed some light on the RDNA 2 GPU based Radeon RX products for the PC platform, stating that PCs will be first to get a taste of the new architecture in the form of the Big Navi (Halo) graphics card followed by mainstream GPUs.

“There’s a lot of excitement for Navi 2, or what our fans have dubbed as the Big Navi“

“Big Navi is a halo product”

“Enthusiasts love to buy the best, and we are certainly working on giving them the best”.

“RDNA 2 architecture goes through the entire stack“

"it will go from mainstream GPUs all the way up to the enthusiasts and then the architecture also goes into the game console products... as well as our integrated APU products.

"This allows us to leverage the larger ecosystem, accelerate the development of exciting features like ray tracing and more."

via AMD's CFO, Devinder Kumar

Some of the features to expect from 2nd Generation RDNA Navi GPUs would be:

• Optimized 7nm process node
• Enthusiast-grade desktop graphics card options
• Hardware-Level Ray Tracing Support
• A mix of GDDR6 graphics cards
• More power-efficient than First-Gen Navi GPUs

One of the key features on the Big Navi Radeon RX GPU is that it is going to disrupt the 4K gaming segment, similar to how Ryzen disrupted the entire CPU segment. These are some bold claims by AMD, but if those rumored specifications are anything to go by, then these claims may not be that far fetched.

“With the Radeon 5000-series we are essentially covering 90-something-percent of the total PC gamers today,” says Chandrasekhar. “And so that’s the reason why no 4K right now, it’s because the vast majority of them are at 1440p and 1080p.

“That doesn’t mean a 4K-capable GPU isn’t coming, it is coming, but for here and now we want to focus on the vast majority of gamers.”

“Similar to Ryzen,” he says, “all of us need a thriving Radeon GPU ecosystem. So, are we going after 4K, and going to similarly disrupt 4K? Absolutely, you can count on that. But that’s all I can say right now.”

- PCGamesN

Once again, AMD in its own presentation emphasized enthusiast-class performance for the RDNA 2 based Radeon RX 'Navi 2X' GPUs so that's something to consider. The competition however from the other side won't just go eyes closed as AMD launches its high-performance graphics cards. The next-generation NVIDIA based GeForce GPUs are shaping up to be a beast from what we've seen so far and will be available first to consumers, starting the 17th of September.

The second half of 2020 would definitely be interesting times for all the hardware enthusiasts and mainstream PC gamers who are looking forward to upgrading their PCs with the best hardware.