AMD claims 50% higher performance-per-watt with RDNA 2

One of the highlights of AMD's Financial Analyst Day yesterday was the insight given about the new RDNA 2 GPU architecture, which has now been codenamed “Navi 2X”.

During AMD's Financial Analyst Day, the company shared data about its financial developments. The company also revealed technical details about coming releases and roadmaps, while this year plenty of information was given about the upcoming graphics architecture, RDNA 2.

AMD wants to emphasise that RDNA 2 is more than an iterative upgrade from previous architecture, and has therefore given the coming architecture the code name “Navi 2X”. AMD didn't go much detail as to what big changes we might expect, but we know there will hardware support for ray tracing and perhaps variable-rate shading.

Image credit: Anandtech

The biggest indication that RDNA 2 is something more than an upgraded version of the last architecture can be seen in the progress being made in performance per watt, where AMD claims the new architecture leaps forward 50% in comparison to RDNA. The improved efficiency is achieved through a series of, as Anandtech describes it, ‘microarchitectural enhancements' which could include improved IPC.

Image credit: Anandtech

Improved energy efficiency is of extra importance to AMD as it is widely expected that Nvidia will introduce new 7nm GPUs this year, moving from its current 12nm line-up, therefore achieving node parity with AMD. It's certainly shaping up to be an exciting year for graphics cards.

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