RDNA (

Radeon Radeon () is a brand of computer products, including graphics processing units, random-access memory, RAM disk software, and solid-state drives, produced by Radeon Technologies Group, a division of AMD. The brand was launched in 2000 by ATI Tech ...

DNA) is a

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...

(GPU)

microarchitecture In computer engineering, microarchitecture, also called computer organization and sometimes abbreviated as µarch or uarch, is the way a given instruction set architecture (ISA) is implemented in a particular processor. A given ISA may be imp ...

and accompanying

instruction set architecture In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ...

developed by

Advanced Micro Devices Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...

(AMD). It is the successor to their

Graphics Core Next Graphics Core Next (GCN) is the codename for a series of microarchitectures and an instruction set architecture that were developed by AMD for its GPUs as the successor to its TeraScale microarchitecture. The first product featuring GCN was la ...

(GCN) microarchitecture/instruction set. The first product lineup featuring RDNA was the

Radeon RX 5000 series The Radeon RX 5000 series is a series of graphics processors developed by AMD, based on their RDNA architecture. The series is targeting the mainstream mid to high-end segment and is the successor to the Radeon RX Vega series. The launch occur ...

of video cards, launched on July 7, 2019.AMD press release: The architecture is also used in mobile products. It is manufactured and fabricated with

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semiconductor company, the world' ...

's N7

FinFET A fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) is a multigate device, a MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) built on a substrate where the gate is placed on two, three, or four sides of the channel or wrapped around the channel, ...

graphics chips used in the Navi series of AMD Radeon graphics cards. The second iteration of RDNA was first featured in the

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, it was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North ...

and

Xbox Series X and Series S The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 2020, ...

consoles. Both consoles utilize a custom RDNA 2-based graphics solution as the basis for their GPU microarchitecture. On PC, RDNA 2 is featured in the

Radeon RX 6000 series The Radeon RX 6000 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by AMD, based on their RDNA 2 architecture. It was announced on October 28, 2020 and is the successor to the Radeon RX 5000 series. It consists of the RX 6400, RX 6 ...

of video cards, which first launched in November 2020. RDNA 2 is also featured in Samsung's

Exynos Exynos, formerly Hummingbird (), is a series of ARM-based system-on-chips developed by Samsung Electronics' System LSI division and manufactured by Samsung Foundry. It is a continuation of Samsung's earlier S3C, S5L and S5P line of SoCs. E ...

2200 as the graphics architecture. The third iteration of RDNA was announced on November 3, 2022, and is set to be featured in the Radeon RX 7000 series of consumer desktop and mobile graphics cards.

RDNA 1

RDNA 1 (also ''RDNA1'') is the first implementation of the RDNA microarchitecture and is the successor to the

Radeon RX Vega series The Radeon RX Vega series is a series of graphics processors developed by AMD. These GPUs use the Graphics Core Next (GCN) 5th generation architecture, codenamed Vega, and are manufactured on 14 nm FinFET technology, developed by Samsung Elec ...

. The launch occurred on July 7, 2019.

Architecture

The architecture features a new

processor Processor may refer to: Computing Hardware * Processor (computing) **Central processing unit (CPU), the hardware within a computer that executes a program *** Microprocessor, a central processing unit contained on a single integrated circuit (I ...

design, although the first details released at AMD's Computex keynote hints at aspects from the previous Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture being present for backwards compatibility purposes, which is especially important for its use (in the form of RDNA 2) in the major ninth generation game consoles (the

Xbox Series X/S The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 202 ...

and

) to preserve native compatibility with their pre-existing

eighth generation Eighth is ordinal form of the number eight. Eighth may refer to: * One eighth, or ⅛, a fraction, one of eight equal parts of a whole * Eighth note (quaver), a musical note played for half the value of a quarter note (crotchet) * Octave, an in ...

game libraries designed for GCN. It features multi-level

cache Cache, caching, or caché may refer to: Places United States * Cache, Idaho, an unincorporated community * Cache, Illinois, an unincorporated community * Cache, Oklahoma, a city in Comanche County * Cache, Utah, Cache County, Utah * Cache County ...

hierarchy and an improved

rendering pipeline In computer graphics, a computer graphics pipeline, rendering pipeline or simply graphics pipeline, is a conceptual model that describes what steps a graphics system needs to perform to render a 3D scene to a 2D screen. Once ...

, with support for GDDR6 memory. Starting with the architecture itself, one of the biggest changes for RDNA is the width of a wavefront, the fundamental group of work. GCN in all of its iterations was 64 threads wide, meaning 64 threads were bundled together into a single wavefront for execution. RDNA drops this to a native 32 threads wide. At the same time, AMD has expanded the width of their SIMDs from 16 slots to 32 (aka SIMD32), meaning the size of a wavefront now matches the SIMD size. RDNA also introduces working primitive shaders. While the feature was present in the hardware of the Vega architecture, it was difficult to get a real-world performance boost from and thus AMD never enabled it. Primitive shaders in RDNA are

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...

-controlled. The display controller in RDNA has been updated to support Display Stream Compression 1.2a, allowing output in 4K@240 Hz, HDR 4K@120 Hz, and HDR 8K@60 Hz.

Instruction set

AMD's GPUOpen website hosts a PDF document aiming to describe the environment, the organization and the program state of AMD “RDNA” Generation devices. It details the instruction set and the microcode formats native to this family of processors that are accessible to programmers and compilers.

Differences between GCN and RDNA

There are architectural changes which affect how code is scheduled: #Single cycle instruction issue: #*GCN issued one instruction per wave once every 4 cycles. #*RDNA issues instructions every cycle. #Wave32: #*GCN used a wavefront size of 64 threads (work items). #*RDNA supports both wavefront sizes of 32 and 64 threads. #Workgroup Processors: #*GCN grouped the shader hardware into "compute units" (CUs) which contained scalar ALUs and vector ALUs, LDS and memory access. One CU contains 4 SIMD16s which share one path to memory. #*RDNA introduced the "workgroup processor" ("WGP"). The WGP replaces the compute unit as the basic unit of shader computation hardware/computing. One WGP encompasses 2 CUs. This allows significantly more compute power and memory bandwidth to be directed at a single workgroup. In RDNA, 1 CU is one half of a WGP.

Chips

discrete GPUs: * Navi 10 found on "Radeon RX 5700 XT", "Radeon RX 5700", "Radeon RX 5600 XT", "Radeon RX 5600", "Radeon RX 5700M", "Radeon RX 5600M", "Radeon Pro 5700 XT", "Radeon Pro 5700", "Radeon Pro W5700X" and "Radeon Pro W5700" graphics cards * Navi 12 found on "Radeon Pro V520" branded graphics card, "Radeon Pro 5600M" branded mobile graphics card and "BC-160" mining card for cryptocurrency * Navi 14 found on "Radeon RX 5500 XT", "Radeon RX 5500", "Radeon Pro 5500 XT", "Radeon Pro 5500", "Radeon Pro W5500", "Radeon RX 5300 XT", "Radeon RX 5300", "Radeon Pro 5300" and "Radeon Pro W5300" branded graphics cards; "Radeon RX 5500M", "Radeon Pro 5500M", "Radeon Pro W5500M", "Radeon RX 5300M", "Radeon Pro 5300M" and "Radeon Pro W5300M" branded mobile graphics cards

RDNA 2

RDNA 2 (also ''RDNA2'') is the successor to the RDNA microarchitecture. It was first publicly announced in early 2020 with a projected release in Q4 2020. According to statements from AMD, RDNA 2 would be a "''refresh''" of the RDNA architecture. More information about RDNA 2 was made public on AMD's Financial Analyst Day on March 5, 2020. AMD claimed that it would provide a 50% performance-per-watt improvement over RDNA, with increases in

clock speed In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the pro ...

and instructions-per-clock. Additional features confirmed by AMD include real-time, hardware accelerated ray tracing, "Infinity Cache", mesh shaders, sampler feedback and variable rate shading. The company announced that RDNA 2 would be used in next-generation gaming consoles and PC graphics cards code-named "Navi 2X" and also nicknamed as "Big Navi". AMD unveiled the

, its next-gen RDNA 2 graphics cards at an online event on October 28, 2020. The lineup initially consisted of the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT. The RX 6800 and 6800 XT launched on November 18, 2020, with the RX 6900 XT being released on December 8, 2020. Further variants including a Radeon RX 6700 (XT) series based on Navi 22, later launched on March 18, 2021. On May 31, 2021, AMD launched the RX 6000M series of GPUs designed for laptops. These include the RX 6600M, RX 6700M, and RX 6800M. These were made available beginning on June 1, 2021. On June 1, 2021, AMD's CEO Dr.

Lisa Su Lisa Su (; born 7 November 1969) is a Taiwanese-American business executive and electrical engineer, who is the president, chief executive officer and chair of AMD. Early in her career, Su worked at Texas Instruments, IBM, and Freescale Semi ...

and Tesla, Inc.'s CEO

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The B ...

confirmed that the entertainment systems of Tesla's new Model S and Model X are powered by RDNA 2. The same microarchitecture was also announced to be used for an upcoming flagship Samsung

SoC, later introduced in January 2022 as Exynos 2200, utilizing a custom Xclipse 920 GPU with 3 compute units. An RDNA 2 integrated GPU with 2 compute units is included in the I/O die on AMD's Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs. According to AMD, the integrated RDNA 2 graphics in Ryzen 7000 are not intended for gaming and is instead intended for diagnostic purposes and offering video encode and decode capabilities.

Chips

* Navi 21 * Navi 22 * Navi 23 * Navi 24 integrated into APUs: * Rembrandt (as "Radeon 660M" and "Radeon 680M" models found on Ryzen 6000 series mobile APUs) * Raphael (as iGPU found on Ryzen 7000 series CPUs)

Usage in video game consoles

Custom configurations of the RDNA 2 graphics microarchitecture are used in the

from

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

consoles from

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

, with proprietary tweaks and different GPU modifications in each system's implementation.

Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fitting ...

announced on July 15, 2021 that their

Steam Deck The Steam Deck is a handheld gaming computer developed by Valve Corporation. Released on February 25, 2022, the Steam Deck can be played as a handheld or connected to a monitor in the same manner as the Nintendo Switch. It is an x86-64-v3 de ...

would feature the RDNA 2 architecture. The Steam Deck was released in February 2022.

RDNA 3

RDNA 3 (also ''RDNA3'') is the successor to the RDNA 2 microarchitecture and is scheduled for a 2022 release per AMD's gaming GPU roadmap. At an August 29 reveal event for Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, AMD CEO

teased RDNA 3 and revealed that it would utilize chiplets built on

's N5 node. On September 19, 2022, Sam Naffziger, the current senior vice president at AMD, stated in a blogpost that improvements made to the RDNA 3 microarchitecture will allow for considerable performance gains and efficiency, with an estimated 50% increase in performance-per-watt compared to the RDNA 2 microarchitecture. Additionally, the RDNA 3 architecture features the next generation of Infinity Cache, a modified graphics pipeline, adaptive power management and rearchitected compute units, leading to an overall robust uplift in rasterization and ray-tracing performance over the previous consumer architecture. On November 3, 2022, AMD unveiled the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT graphics cards, based on the RDNA 3 microarchitecture. The graphics card are the first commercial GPUs to be based on Multi-Chip-Module design.

Chips

* Navi 31

Comparison of RDNA chips

References

External links

RDNA's official page on AMD.com

RDNA 2's official page on AMD.com

AMD RDNA 1.0 Instruction Set Architecture – Reference Guide - developer.amd.com

AMD RDNA 2 Instruction Set Architecture – Reference Guide - developer.amd.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:RDNA AMD microarchitectures Computer-related introductions in 2019 Graphics microarchitectures

RDNA 1

Architecture

Instruction set

Differences between GCN and RDNA

Chips

RDNA 2

Chips

Usage in video game consoles

RDNA 3

Chips

Comparison of RDNA chips

See also

References

External links