Lisa Su: "High-performance Navi on the way"

In the summer of 2019, AMD launched the Radeon RX 5700 graphics card series, which also premiered the Navi generation and the Radeon DNA (RDNA) architecture. The series’ top card Radeon RX 5700 XT, however, places itself in the upper part of the middle segment in terms of performance, and thus offers no replacement for the now defunct Radeon VII.

AMD started CES 2020 by unveiling, among other things, the graphics card Radeon RX 5600 XT, which is located under the siblings in the RX 5700 series in the middle segment. During a question-and-answer session with journalists, AMD CEO Lisa Su once again assures that the company has not abandoned the performance segment, and that high-performance Navi graphics cards are on the way.

I know those on Reddit want a high end Navi! You should expect that we will have a high-end Navi, and that it is important to have it. The discrete graphics market, especially at the high end, is very important to us. So you should expect that we will have a high-end Navi, although I don’t usually comment on unannounced products.

When asked by PC World’s Gordon Ung (via Anandtech) about high-performance Navi models, Lisa Su answers that the high-performance segment is important for AMD, and that customers should expect such models in the future. All graphics cards in the 5600 and 5700 series are based on the Navi 10 graphics circuit, while the 5500 family runs smaller Navi 14s.

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Previous reports indicate that this year’s performance card from AMD is based on the new and larger graphics circuit Navi 20, which will be manufactured on TSMC’s refined process 7nm + with EUV lithography. The circuit is also said to be based on the next generation RDNA 2 architecture, whose functionality will include support for Variable Rate Shading (VRS) and hardware accelerated ray tracing.

The Navi-based graphics component of the Xbox Series X has confirmed support for VRS and ray tracing.

The statement does not contain more details than that, and it remains to be seen when the high-performance models in the Navi family will reach the market. AMD delivers both processor and graphics technology to Microsoft Xbox Series X and Sony Playstation 5, which will reach the market for Christmas sales in 2020. Xbox Series X has confirmed support for VRS and hardware-accelerated ray tracing.