AMD has revealed new details about its incoming graphics cards for this year, and it looks like the plan is to release a next-generation, high-end GPU, as well as updates to current Navi products. These revelations come from the highest level, namely the CEO of AMD, who was asked about various things during an earnings call after the company's latest financial results for the fourth quarter (which were indeed very healthy, with sales increasing 50% year-over-year). , one of the big drivers is Ryzen processors, not surprising). As Anandtech reports, when asked about GPU plans for 2020, CEO Lisa Su said: "In 2019, we launched our new architecture in GPUs, it's RDNA architecture and c'39, they were based products. in Navi. You should expect these to be updated in 39, and we will have a next-generation RDNA architecture that will be part of our 2020 range. "So we're very excited about this, and we'll talk more about it at our Financial Analyst Day." However, the information above is subject to interpretation, it is quite clear in stating that current Navi graphics cards will be updated this year and that a next-gen RDNA GPU will be part of the 2020 release schedule.
Monster incoming GPU?
The guess starts in terms of the latter likely referring to Big Navi, the high-end graphics card that's been making a lot of noise recently, and is designed to support Nvidia's best RTX offerings. This GPU is supposed to be built on RDNA 2 (although note that RDNA 2 isn't mentioned by name, it's just called next-gen, so it could be RDNA+), and will come with material ray-tracing acceleration. to go against RTX cards. We certainly know that a high-end graphics card will arrive sometime in 2020, as Lisa Su has already made clear. From what we've heard about the graphics vine, it could be a truly monster GPU, and could be in line for the Computex 2020 launch (in June, a mid-year release has already been rumored). The other comment regarding the current Navi-based GPUs probably means they will be updated in parallel with the new release, so we'll get updated versions of the RDNA cards as well as the new high-end RDNA 2 offering later on. this year. Although we obviously have to be careful here, since that's not exactly what Lisa Su said, but rather what we read there. Given the amount of spillover right now on AMD's upcoming graphics cards for 2020, with a host of comments from the GPU maker itself, we probably won't have to wait long to find out, and we can guess (or maybe hope) that a release high-end will arrive sooner than the end of this year. AMD's most recent take on the canonical hype is that it intends to release a high-end GPU to disrupt 4K gaming in a similar way to what Ryzen did in the processor world. Although the company has the financial wherewithal to push its GPUs just as hard as its CPUs, keeping this momentum going with processors, to maintain this lead over Intel, is another question, of course. Hopefully, the eventual next-gen Navi product will live up to the hype, though if it doesn't launch sooner rather than later, it could face much tougher competition from Nvidia's own new-gen GPU (which the rumor mill also plans to debut). in 2020).