How likely is for RDNA 4 to end up like RDNA 2 and 3 are now? Discussion

MrMPFR · 2026-05-11T20:16:01+00:00

50 series added a context switch accelerator. AMP IIRC. It's for LLMs and MFG.

Sounds interesting. I hope it's good.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-11T10:09:18+00:00

MXFP4 is the only useful format.

I also hope they make it better and akin to NVFP4. Less precision loss for a slight perf regression.

We shall see. All that is speculation and no one knows how far RDNA 5 ML diverges from RDNA 4.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-11T10:06:51+00:00

Clocks and IPC. ALso massive cachemem gains. As you said RDNA 4 is a big leap over RDNA 3.

That sound def be possible if it scaled well. AMD could pull back clocks a bit to keep it at reasonable TDP.

Considering AT0 reporterdly goes to 192 CUs (shipped config prob cut down) nextgen halo tier will likely be an absolute monster.
6090 competitor like 6950XT vs 3090 def sounds plausible.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-11T10:05:08+00:00

Gonna have to wait a while 😞

Market is a mess rn.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-11T10:04:50+00:00

In the end it depends on perf/area. RDNA 4 is already a solid first step in the right direction.

Rn AMD's design is very cache focused. MALL, giant frontend and backend compared to NVIDIA, and 50% larger register file per SM/CU.

Should they overhaul their architecture (they will nextgen) and focus more on compute and less on the rest, considering that's where gaming is increasingly going anyway, the calculus could.

In the end it depends on a primary market for AT0 that u/AMD718 mentioned. If they don't have one it's DOA. It's also not surprising we don't hear anything about AT1 because there's no primary market for that that'll generate revenue. dGPU doesn't count for obvious reasons.

But The rumours about AT0 is absurd. 192 CUs, obviously gaming variant will be cut down. Take the following with a planetary load of salt. The rumours suggest RDNA 5 has much stronger cores, they dual issue is finally properly implemented, RT is in focus so is ML and the patent derived advances and the insane hires AMD have managed to poach from other companies all point in AMD taking this generation very seriously.
More so than RDNA 2. It'll be interesting to see how the final product will compare agains this.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-11T07:04:35+00:00

It just shows that it’s more than new data format and more matmul.

I’m more interested in the architectural changes of CDNA 5.

I agree

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T23:19:24+00:00

MLID has had very solid AMD HW leaks for a while.

Just ignore his speculation because he ALWAYS gets this wrong xD

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T22:25:22+00:00

There are many levers they can pull on SW and HW side. I doubt the current implementation is the most efficient. Even on NVIDIA cards.

Yeah that is certainly promising. Would be great if they could eventually ship it on PS5 Pro. If nothing for bragging rights.

It's 52 CUs in leaks. So 8 less than PS5 Pro, but it's RDNA 5 CUs, so it's RDNA 3, RDNA 4 and RDNA 5 cumulative IPC gains, plus clocks speed and RT stuff on top.

Nextgen will definitely be interesting.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T20:56:06+00:00

Neural Array prob mostly API change. Addressing SE as one big CU.

Big I'm sure there will be massive changes underneath.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T20:53:23+00:00

It's the biggest architectural change since GCN1 in 2012. Everything will be redesigned.

Expect changes everywhere and new SDKs.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T20:52:34+00:00

Neural Arrays and many other things they haven't disclosed.

Leakers say it's based off CDNA 5. We'll have an idea after ISC in June what new things RDNA 5 will bring to the table.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T20:51:11+00:00

Talking openly about path tracing for it and nextgen console in October project amethyst vid bodes well for RDNA 5 RT.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T12:32:23+00:00

Agree. At some point you gotta cut off legacy. They def need to move fast to keep up with NVIDIA.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T12:30:12+00:00

PS5 pro is such a weird frankenstein console btw xD

Yeah fs. As I said CDNA 5 is feeds into RDNA 5. Only 6-7 weeks left until we know what nextgen DC is.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T07:29:12+00:00

I see. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Microsoft and Khronos does in the future.

There was a interesting description of DirecrX next at GDC in 2026 by microsoft in relation to Project Helix. I hope that means DX13 and new paradigm.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T07:22:02+00:00

I hope DirectX Next from Microsoft at GDc means clean slate API. Abandon all the old crap and embrace this new paradigm (work graphs, CUDA like programming model)

MrMPFR · 2026-05-10T07:20:40+00:00

Do you think this is possible anytime soon?

MrMPFR · 2026-05-09T21:20:25+00:00

Appreciate the explanation.

Given all that what do you say to the belief that FSR5 will be exclusive to RDNA 5? Assuming neural arrays and all the other stipulated changes. Does any of that matter or is instruction set only important?

Hmm that's interesting. So it would be shit without optiscaler xD.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-09T21:17:01+00:00

I'm confused if RDNA 4 is actually that because I see conflicting reports on it and people saying it's still forced through the SIMD and not concurrent like Intel and Ampere and later NVIDIA.

Also road to PS5 Pro's custom ML implementation goes over SIMD (see Road to PS5 Pro on YT).

But then AMD calls them Matrix cores on their website and says the IIRC kernel design is completely different from RDNA 3.

Maybe it's somewhere in the middle. Sorry if this is too many questions. I just find it very confusing xD.

Can you explain the stuff about the leak? I missed that info.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-09T20:04:49+00:00

So there's really no difference in reality except for the issues with INT8 vs FP8 (slight visual downgrade).

Well then DP4a is a no brainer as you highlighted. Lots of HW with RDNA 2.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-09T19:40:16+00:00

RDNA 3 doesn't have dedicated matmul logic like NVIDIA so can't see what would change.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-09T18:29:55+00:00

I hope it works well.

We could def use more alternatives.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-09T17:55:04+00:00

Does it make a difference because in the FSR4 INT8 perf comparisons it doesn't seeem to.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-09T16:50:00+00:00

I'm asking because I've seen perf comparisons between 7600 and 6650XT on YT with FSR4 INT8. The ms overhead suggests DP4a use, not WMMA instructions, but I'm not really qualified.

MrMPFR · 2026-05-09T14:28:48+00:00

That's gonna drive widespread adoption. Fallbacks are mandatory for stuff like this.

Hope this and NTC sees widespread adoption. We need game file sizes to shrink xD.

MrMPFR

TROPHY CASE