As Sony and Microsoft prepare to launch their respective next-generation consoles this year, there are questions as to when AMD’s high-end Radeon Navi GPU based on its RDNA2 architecture will hitting store shelves. According to the company itself, such a card would be available sometime before the launch of the two consoles.
The projected launch timeline was made during a recent webcast, where an AMD representative hint that the GPU might just be able to be launched “Big Navi” just before this year’s holiday timeline. He also described Big Navi as a “halo product”, further suggesting that the graphics card is based on the RDNA2 architecture could rival NVIDIA’s own currently existing GeForce RTX series cards.
As a quick recap, AMD first announced the existence of its current RDNA architecture back at Computex 2019. Along with it, the brand also announced the mid-range Radeon RX 5700 XT, followed by a series of other mid-range and entry-level graphics cards in the following months. One of the many issues that people have with the cards, however, are their lack of onboard, real-time ray-tracing hardware. Such as the ones found on NVIDIA’s RTX series cards.
With RDNA2, it is expected that AMD’s upcoming high-end graphics card will not only support hardware-based ray-tracing and Variable Rate Shading, but only have an edge over its main rival with its use of PCIe 4.0.
Of course, this is all assuming that AMD doesn’t delay the launch of its first enthusiast-level Radeon graphics card due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; as it stands, several launches have either been postponed or cancelled altogether. Only to be rescheduled at a much later date. In any case, fingers crossed.
(Source: Hot Hardware)
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