One engineering board PCB picture was recently shared on Twitter allegedly claiming that the board design is for a custom Big Navi 21 GPU variant based on the new RDNA 2 architecture. The original Tweet has since been deleted though.
This appears to be an engineering sample PCB in early evaluation phase as evident from the board’s current layout. This likely appears to be one of the custom RX 6800 XT GPU models. The final design is going to vary since this is an engineering board sample.
Looking at the PCB prototype there are some missing memory modules as well. Two large aluminum fin-based oversized heatsinks can also be seen covering the VRMs.
VRM stands for voltage regulator module. GPUs use VRMs to control and lower the voltage (V) sent to these components in order to avoid exceeding their maximum voltage capabilities. VRMs are especially important for overclocking a CPU or GPU.
Theoretically, VRMs should mean the power supplied to the component is consistent and steady. VRMs are buck connectors, meaning they are DC-to-DC power converters.
Since the GPU area has been blacked out by the user we cannot see the graphics processor itself. The engineering board also features a 16-phase delivery system, and two 8-PIN PCIe/PEG power connectors. One Twitter user also teased a similar reference engineering sample Navi 21 PCB before having two 8-pin connectors.
There are at least four display outputs in this board, two DisplayPort, a single HDMI port, and a USB Type-C VirtualLink connector, which was rumored before as well. 8 GDDR6 memory modules surround the GPU area as evident from the above photo, which means the Memory bus interface is 256-bit.
AMD might be using some denser DRAM modules with the Big Navi lineup, instead of dual-sided Memory, since the previously leaked PCB picture didn’t show any GDDR6 memory chips on the back of the board. There’s also a BIOS switch that can be seen on the top of the PCB.
From the board picture we can see Kapton Tape used over the memory pins, and some manual soldering done on the VRM (manual soldering on the two terminal SMD devices to the upper right of the GPU, to be precise). So this appears to be a prototype PCB.
Speaking of RX 6000 Big Navi GPU, one twitter user @CapFrameX has reported that AMD’s Navi 21 card delivers a score of 11,500 points in the 3DMark Firestrike Ultra benchmark. The card appears to be 8.5% faster than the GeForce RTX 3080 which shows the performance uplift the new RDNA 2 GPU architecture has to offer.
Firestrike Ultra
Big Navi: 11500
RTX 3080: 10600— CapFrameX (@CapFrameX) October 22, 2020
Some power consumption figures and memory specs of AMD’s upcoming Big Navi 21 GPU lineup were also reported before by Igor’s Lab. According to Igor, AMD’s RX 6000 Big Navi 21 XT flagship GPU will allegedly feature a total of 320W TBP, and 16Gbps of GDDR6 VRAM.
Igor has also pointed out that the Radeon RX 6000-series Navi 21 graphics card will use Samsung’s 16 Gbps memory modules, though AIBs are free to put a different memory if they want, as long as it is a 16 Gbps module.
Some alleged specs of AMD’s upcoming Radeon RX 6000-series NAVI 21 and NAVI 22 GPU lineup were also recently shared. More details can be found here. AMD has also issued some preventive measures to retailers to circumvent the scalping of Radeon RX 6000-series RDNA 2 GPUs.
RDNA 2 GPUs are expected to be fabbed on an optimized 7nm process node, and they will support hardware-level ray tracing as well, and are expected to deliver a 50% increase in performance per watt over previous-gen RDNA arch.
Along with an improved performance-per-clock (IPC), and logic enhancement that helps reduce the design complexity and switching power. The GPU clock speeds are also going to get a boost.
AMD plans to showcase its Radeon RX 6000 NAVI GPU lineup on October 28th, based on the new RDNA 2 architecture. John will cover this live event showcase.
Stay tuned for more!
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Isn’t TBP a term that Nvidia made up for Ampere? Maybe I’m wrong but if I’m not I wouldn’t believe the power consumtion stuff. Why would AMD suddenly start using a Nvidias compleatly new phrase?
320W honestly sounds too much. If it’s really 320W It would be faster then 3090.
Its the opposite. There was some confusion before though.
You should read the previous article as posted by METAL messiah, though let me quote some important points from that story as written by Metal. .
“” TGP stands for Total Graphics Power, whereas TBP is the total board power.
The previous TGP value was wrong since AMD calls the power consumption of the entire card as TBP (Total/Typical Board Power) while NVIDIA calls the equivalent as TGP (Total Graphics Power).
These values are not equal and do not represent the same thing for both AMD and NVIDIA. The 255 Watt TGP value reported earlier only took into consideration the GPU socket power (i.e. GFX, SOC, and VDDCI), and VRAM.
NVIDIA’s TGP figures are based on the entire board’s power consumption, which includes GPU, VRAM, VRM, fans & everything else that feeds on the power. The AMD equivalent of TGP is TBP, and according to Igor, the values reported earlier were in fact just the GPU and VRAM figures alone.
As Igor explains, in AMD’s Graphics Power ONLY the supply voltages of the GPU for the GFX controller (VDDCR_GFX) and SOC controller (VDDCR_SOC) are included as the most important component, as well as the supply voltages for the memory such as VDDMEM and VDDCI (controller and bus).
So AMD’s graphics power is not equal to Nvidia’s TGP, since that represents the power consumption of the whole graphics card. 255W was only representing the socket power of the AMD card.
Looking at the table posted by Igor the Navi 21 XT would have a stock GPU power consumption of 235W. Thus the TBP (total board power) of the entire Navi 21 XT GPU would be at around 320W. The custom AIB cards will have 355W as the TBP value.””
If this card is similar in performance and not too much more expensive than a RTX 3080 and availability is good then it should sell well. Quite a few people don’t think the 10 GB VRAM for 4k will be enough during the lifespan of the card.
They need to do what Nvidia failed to do and have good availability and put a limit of 1 per household from the beginning to prevent the scalpers from buying 10 at a time to resell for large profits on Ebay.
Nice photoshop ! lol
I rly wanna se this guy make a vid from this https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/778ed5343edcee7c8157ee799018f49c7469bb72436b6ca8b5c780b91f597631.png
The more days pas, the more it looks like that this will be my first ever full AMD build.
If it’s really true that means the 6700 XT may be a great buy (I really mean 6700 XT).
Yawn same old AMD.
If the rumors stand true, this is gonna be the big come back for AMD since the 290 GPU.
Now the next question is, what its performance like in RT?