[Hardware] AMD Big Navi Gets MALL Power Saving Feature

[RaresC]

 

 

 

As reported by Phoronix, AMD is reportedly working on a feature called Memory Access at Last Level (MALL) for its Big Navi graphics card. The Linux patches don't explain the what MALL is in detail, but the Linux publication thinks that it has something to do with improving power saving.

Apparently, MALL belongs to AMD's Display Core Next (DCN) 3.0 featureset, but it's not currently available for all Navi-based offerings. For the meantime, only Sienna Cichlid seems to support MALL. 

AMD Radeon RX 6000 Specifications*

Silicon    Codename    Compute Units    Stream Processors    Clock Speed (MHz)    Single-Precision Performance (TFLOPs)    Power Limit (W)
Navi 21    Sienna Cichlid    80    5,120    2,050 - 2,200    21 - 22.5    200 - 238
Navi 22    Navy Flounder    40    2,560    2,500    12.8    170
Navi 23    Dimgrey Cavefish    32    2,408    ?    ?    ?

*Specifications are unconfirmed.

As said to feature the Navi 21 silicon, which brings a whopping 5,120 Stream Processors (SPs) to the table. It's unknown of support if MALL will eventually land for Navy Flounder (Navi 22) or Dimgrey Cavefish (Navi 23).

AMD will reveal its Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards on October 28. The new graphics cards come wielding the chipmaker's RDNA 2 architecture that promises 50% more performance per watt in comparison to RDNA 1. It'll be interesting to see how MALL ties in to AMD's claims.

Linux news outlet Phoronix has spotted a couple of Linux patches that allude to an unreleased AMD blockchain graphics card for cryptocurrency mining. The description refers to a "navi10 blockchain SKU," implying that the Navi 10 silicon is at the heart of this new graphics card.

The blockchain graphics card in question presently lacks one of AMD's fishy codenames and carries a device ID that corresponds to 0x731E. As Phoronix noted, the major difference between this mysterious blockchain graphics and your normal Navi 10 offering is that the Display Core Next (DCN) and Video Core Next (VCN) engines are disabled. The lack of support indicates that the graphics card will likely arrive without any display outputs.

 
The Navi 10 silicon is based on AMD's RDNA 1.0 architecture, and it's a product of TSMC's 7nm FinFET manufacturing process. Checking in with a die size of 251 mm², Navi 10 houses up to 10,300 million transistors. Overall, the Navi 10 die houses 40 Compute Units (CUs), totaling to 2,560 Stream Processors (SPs). 

AMD Navi 10 Graphics Cards

Graphics Card    GPU    Stream Processors    Base / Game / Boost Clock (MHz)    Memory Capacity    Memory Speed (Gbps)    Memory Bus    Memory Bandwidth (GBps)    TDP (W)
Radeon RX 5700 XT    Navi 10 XT    2,560    1,605 / 1,755 / 1,905    8GB GDDR6    14    256-bit    448    225
Radeon RX 5700    Navi 10 XL    2,304    1,465 / 1,625 / 1,725    8GB GDDR6    14    256-bit    448    180
Radeon RX 5600 XT    Navi 10 XLE    2,304    1,130 / 1,375 / 1,560    6GB GDDR6    12    192-bit    288    150
Radeon RX 5600    Navi 10 XE    2,048    1,130 / 1,375 / 1,560    6GB GDDR6    12    192-bit    288    150
At present, AMD uses the Navi 10 silicon for four of its Radeon gaming graphics cards, including their corresponding Pro and mobile variants. The Navi 10 XT and Navi 10 XL power the Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700, respectively. Meanwhile, the Navi 10 XLE gives life to the Radeon RX 5600 XT, while the Navi 10 XE resides in the Radeon RX 5600. It's uncertain if AMD's Navi 10 blockchain graphics card will take after one of its mainstream models, or appear as a completely different animal.

According to Phoronix, the timings of the patches probably means that this Navi 10 blockchain graphics card won't debut until early next year. AMD's idea seems sound because it would discourage cryptominers from buying out the chipmaker's mainstream graphics card. Not that it matters, given that Navi-powered parts are still widely available.

Alternatively, AMD could just be getting rid of leftover Navi silicon as the chipmaker will be announcing the new Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards next week that will leverage Navi 2x dies.

Navi might be more energy-efficient than Vega or Polaris, but we're unsure if the cryptomining performance is there. The latter are dead-cheap nowadays, so a Navi-based model might not be enough to win cryptominers over. Furthermore, cryptomining has shifted away from graphics cards, and the emergence of custom-tailored ASIC miners have practically replaced them. Nonetheless, it still depends on the type of cryptocurrency you're into since certain algorithms still heavily favor the graphics card. 

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