I’ve been thinking of when will the RDNA4 cards come out.
As MILD mentioned RDNA 4 will come out around Q3 2024. I don’t think there will be RDNA 3.5 refresh cards or RDNA 3 refresh cards out next year.
I think RDNA4 will be very similar to RDNA3 apart from very small arch improvements and update to Raytracing core.
There were rumors in 2022 that AMD had issues with TSMC 3nm node and that they will be using 4nm. Current rumors don’t say anything about which node will RDNA4 use but, seeing that TSMC N3E 3nm node is just being put in production and others will be using it, makes sense that AMD has to use the 4nm node in 2024. This could make AMD release the RDNA 4 before Nvidia does its new series. So, I’m thinking RDNA4 could come out end of May and be available in June 2024.
Further, I was looking at how big the RDNA 4 flagship chip will be in mm2 and what its performance could be. Taking the N31 which is based on 5nm and 6nm nodes and combined size of 530mm2. An RDNA4 best would be around 370mm to 450mm2 chip with 90-96 CUs like Rx7900 series, but with 256Bit bus, faster memory since it will use Gddr7 and rated TDP of below 280W. I came to this conclusion that 4nm TSMC node is a very small improvement in transistor density, of just 6% for the N4, (N4x or Nvidia specific 4N might be a bit more).
Looking at the 4nm node and doing the math is no wonder that AMD can’t produce a high-end GPU next year because by my math comes out that a 20-30% more performat GPU then a RX7900xtx would have to be bigger then 680mm2 and have a TDP of 410W, that’s what the 4nm node does.
But here are the all the good things, the GPU, let’s say it’s called Rx 8800 XT is out in middle of next year has 16gb of Vram for 600$, identical performance in raster compared to Rx 7900 XTX and somewhat better performance in raytracing.
There are two AMD patents on raytracing that I’ve read few months back. The first one, released 1 year prior to first RDNA 2 GPU, talks about raytracing core. But the second one, it was released in June this year. So, the latest AMD patent describes GPU withing its raytracing core, addition of a hardware specific traversal engine and specific BVH memory cache. Not to go into details, from what I understand of the two patents first patent describes raytracing core in RDNA 2&3 and the second patent describes similar but a much improved way of doing raytracing. I’m hopeful we will see this is RDNA4(the patent did arrive this june and next june we’ll have RDNA 4 card so it matches the schedule prior to RDNA2) (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/20230206543.pdf)
There’s no way we’d be getting a June release of RDNA 4 without some sort of announcement or more serious leaks. People be rumoring the RTX 5000 cards as a 2025 release, and yet we hear nothing about AMD and their next release is only 7 months out?
Your analysis about performance / size is sensible, but there’s absolutely no way we would see a release so soon.
Yea I dunno where OP got June next year. He said around Q3 next year…which is July - September…meaning it could come end of September.
We have gotten the first “changes” in Linux drivers for RDNA4
Last gen, Lovelace was rumored as late and RDNA3 was rumored early.
Let’s just say I am skeptical
RDNA3 entries to Linux were made 6-8 months before release of the 7900 series. RDNA4 entries were made about a week ago. July would be 7 months from now.
That being said, when RDNA3 entries were made, they also made the 7800xt and 7600xt entries, and those didn’t launch until like 12-18 months after the first entry. But I think 12 months at the latest from now makes sense. Another November release date like RDNA2.
That is fair to say, I am making a prediction here and its pure speculation.
But Rx5700 Xt released in Jul 7, 2019, RX 6800Xt Nov 18, 2020 and Rx7900 XTX Dec 13, 2022. So, it would be a year and a half from previous series.
It was 1.5 years for the 5000 and 6000, then 2 years from 6000 to 7000. 2 years from 7000 would be Dec 2024 or later. The announcements also come a few months before; if we were getting a card in June 2024 we’d be hearing about it by now, at least rumors if not official announcements.
An early release would be smart, especially if they don’t plan to compete at the high end in the next series of cards; get the folks who’d want to upgrade now, before Nvidia releases their cards in Q1 2025.
Sure, more often then not it was closer to 2 years apart from each series releases.
I agree with you that an early release would be smart if they are not competing in the high end with RDNA4.
GFX12 was add this week. That comparision
For RDNA3, gfx11 was added on April 29, 2022 and the cards were launched Dec. 13 2022. RDNA2 (GFX1030) was added on Jun 16, 2020 and released November 18, 2020
Not even close - December 24’ “paper” lunch is a wishful thinking even…
Some “Super” cards or “refresh” would be possible - but 5% chance at best…
There is pretty big difference in timeline of credible leaks for Nvidia versus AMD for past few major releases - AMD leaks start significantly closer to launch date. So the fact that there are no leaks for RDNA4 at this time does not mean summer release is too soon.
Obviously for the same reason release date is pure speculation at this point.