A new AMD Radeon logo has been spotted which marks a major revamp for the brand since the launch of Polaris graphics cards back in 2016. The new logo was showcased at the PC Gaming Show during the gameplay reveal of Gearbox’s upcoming title, Godfall.
AMD Updates Its Radeon Logo For The First Time Since Polaris Back in 2016, Highlights A Major Brand Revamp For Next-Gen RDNA 2 ‘Big Navi’ Radeon RX Graphics Cards
Although it’s just a new logo, even small updates such as this one can hint at major brand revamps coming along the way. The last time we saw a major brand revamp was with the Polaris GPUs that along with the new Radeon logo gave us an entirely new ‘Radeon RX’ branding scheme for Polaris cards. This was also the same time when the Radeon Technologies Group was found, led by Raja Koduri, who has since jumped shipped to lead the development of Intel’s next-generation graphics architecture.
With AMD’s 2nd Generation RDNA graphics architecture and Radeon RX graphics cards which make use of it on the horizon, a new Radeon logo is hinting at a major rehaul of the Radeon brand as a whole. For starters, the new Radeon logo makes use of the same format style as the Ryzen logo. It has already been stated by AMD that its Big Navi (RDNA 2) GPU will disrupt the 4K gaming segment similar to how Ryzen disrupted the high-end & performance CPU segments.
You can see the logo below which was spotted by Casmodem at Twitter (via Overclock3d):
AMD has also confirmed that Big Navi RDNA 2 based Radeon RX graphics card will be an enthusiast halo product. AMD doesn’t use the standard naming conventions for halo products, this much has been made obvious with the likes of the Radeon Fury series and the Radeon VII. It is likely that AMD will come up with a more interesting naming scheme for its Big Navi graphics cards rather than just placing it within the Radeon RX 6000 family which is expected to be made up of more performance & mainstream variants replacing existing Radeon RX 5000 (RDNA 1) series graphics cards.
Here’s Everything We Know About RDNA 2 Based Radeon RX Navi 2X 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.
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.
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.
A recent rumor hinted that only AMD’s high-end RDNA 2 GPU lineup would feature ray-tracing technology on hardware-level whereas the entry-tier and mainstream lineup will focus on higher performance efficiency, similar to how NVIDIA distinguishes its GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX line of Turing graphics cards.
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, David 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, David Kumar
With that said, we are already aware of a recent rumor which pointed out that AMD’s high-end Radeon RX Navi GPUs could be up to twice as fast as Navi 10, featuring a massive die size and GDDR6 memory. 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 and HBM2 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.”
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 on their own based on the early specs that we have seen.
Rumors have also suggested that both NVIDIA and AMD are planning their next-generation and flagship gaming graphics cards to hit streets by September 2020. So it looks like AMD’s RDNA 2 GPUs would compete against whatever is NVIDIA’s next-generation GPU inventory. Q3 and Q4 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.
