AMD Big Navi is a “halo product”
AMD has confirmed that their upcoming Big Navi graphics processor will be the first product based on RDNA 2 architecture. This means that the next-generation gaming consoles (Play Station 5 and XBOX Series X), which are also officially featuring RDNA2 based graphics, will in fact arrive after the Big Navi.
The statement came from AMD’s CFO Devinder Kumar, who confirmed this during the Bank of America Securities Global Technology Conference. He said that Big Navi will be AMD’s first RDNA 2 product. He admitted that “there’s a lot of excitement for Navi 2, or what our fans have dubbed as the Big Navi“, which led him to say “Big Navi is a halo product” and “enthusiasts love to buy the best, and we are certainly working on giving them the best”.
He reiterated previous claims that AMD remains “on track to launch our next-generation Zen 3 CPUs and RDNA 2 GPUs in late 2020“. This means that the end of this year will bring many new gaming desktop products from AMD. The expectations are indeed growing as we await high-end Radeon GPUs. It has certainly been a quiet season for AMD Radeon fans, especially for those interested in enthusiast graphics cards. Well, considering the hype around the product, this is about to change. After all, AMD wouldn’t risk releasing a slower graphics card than the competition, or would they?
The confirmation that Big Navi will arrive before next-generation consoles (at point it does not matter which one arrives first), puts the launch window for Radeon RX 6000 series between September and October. Unless AMD has plans to make the announcement sooner.
Mr. Kumar also said that “RDNA 2 architecture goes through the entire stack“, which is something that David Wang (VP at RTG) promised last year. It means that we no longer waiting for one product, but in fact, the whole series based on RDNA2 architecture. This should fast-track the adoption of hardware-accelerated ray-tracing in games.
Source: BofA Securities, PCGamer, Overclock3D
