AMD Says RDNA 4 “Radeon RX 9070” Launch Has Been “Unprecedented”, Talks Dual 3D V-Cache CCDs & Ryzen CPUs Beyond 16 Cores – Wccftech
AMD discussed its latest Ryzen & Radeon launches while shedding some light on potential future products within its product stack. The company also said that the Radeon RX 9070 “RDNA 4” GPU launch has been unprecedented and while their focus is first on gaining higher market share, they are looking to broaden the product stack to enthusiast segments in the future.During an interview with HotHardware, AMD’s David McAfee (CVP & GM) revealed some important insights into the Ryzen and Radeon product families, how they are positioned in the market and what lies ahead.The first important question was about the introduction of dual 3D V-Cache CCDs on Ryzen CPUs. Dual 3D V-Cache CCDs have been a topic of discussion ever since the company released its first V-Cache CPU, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. This CPU was a huge success and would pave the path forward for even more successful launches, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D & the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. These chips were single CCD solutions, but the company did end up making higher-end configurations with two CCDs, one with 3D V-Cache and the other without. The concept remained the same even with the debut of the 2nd Generation 3D V-Cache.Although there are no technical limitations in making a Ryzen CPU with dual 3D V-Cache dies, the biggest factor is the economics. David once again highlights this and states that cost is one of the major factors and, across all user workloads, gaming and content creation, a single 3D V-Cache option even on dual CCD CPUs makes more sense. With that said, there are certain use-cases in which multiple 3D V-Cache CCDs are implemented, such as the Genoa-X offerings, but these are aimed at niche segments. So, maybe in the future, if there’s ever a need to go for dual CCDs with 3D V-Cache and the economics back to making such a design, there will be no stopping AMD (Maybe a future HALO product?).The first generation of our Ryzen 9000 is where you know, we paired together. Just like in our prior generations, with our two CCD products, one stacked and one unstacked CCD. And this is the thing that I’ve got a lot of questions about, you know, ever since we introduced the first generation of our Ryzen 9000X3D processors. You know, why is only one CCD stacked and one unstack?Well, the truth is, lots of applications really have a preference for one type of die or the other. When you have stacked CCDs on both, if you build a product with stacked CCDs in both locations, you would end up with a massive amount of cache.However, there is overhead that goes along with keeping that cache coherent across the CCDs which results in a little bit of a performance penalty, and the truth is, there’s really not that many applications, whether you’re talking about the gaming domain or the Creator domain, that can take advantage of stacked CCDs and so really from the standpoint of cost for the end user cost benefit for the end user in this generation. We looked at all options and again the one stack and one unstack CCD was the optimal configuration to deliver best performance to the end user, whether they’re gaming or creating or whatever. They’re doing without unnecessarily driving up the cost of the product so that, you know, we can offer it at a reasonable price.David McAfee – AMD (via HotHardware)In a follow-up question, David was asked if AMD sees the current core counts becoming stagnant in the long run. The Red Team has now been on 16 cores for its flagship SKUs for 4 consecutive Ryzen generations (Ryzen 3000/5000/7000/9000). But AMD is definitely not stopping right there. We have seen them talk about raising the core counts in previous interviews, and, well, the same is being said by David.While 16 cores on AM5 are great for today’s workloads, there are new applications, both games and content creation, that are taking advantage of even higher core counts. Threadripper also exists in the spectrum, but even those are expected to continue to see more core and platform-level upgrades with the push towards multi-GPU systems for AI and workstation-scale ecosystems.Just recently, rumors have started to disclose increased core counts and caches on the next-gen Zen 6 offerings with 24 and 32 core variants possibly in the works for the same AM5 socket. That will be a big uplift and the same is being said for AMD’s rivals, who are making their own higher-core count offerings for future platforms.So maybe back to the beginning of your question, Dave, you know, is 16 core and the AM5 platform, you know, kind of at a point where it’s reached a level of stability. Yes. I think 16 cores is a great solution for today. I think we see a handful of applications that continue to push the envelope in terms of being able to take advantage of more cores.But at the same time, I think we see that AM5 platform and the Threadripper platforms continuing to complement each other for the next couple of years and just build out that range of solution depending on the price point you’re looking for and kind of before-use cases that you really need and care of that day in and day out is If that’s really why we have all three of those tools in the toolbox to help people build the right system for what they need.David McAfee – AMD (via HotHardware)Shifting gears to the Radeon side of things, AMD states that the recent launch of its RDNA 4 GPU lineup featured in the Radeon RX 9070 series graphics cards has been unprecedented across all price points. We have seen the company’s latest GPUs show up among Top Sellers at major retail outlets and the craze continues.However, another trend that we have seen with recent launches, both from NVIDIA and AMD, is that the supply situation hasn’t been that great. While AMD reportedly sold more units than the GeForce RTX 50 lineup, it looks like the initial supply has more or less been extinguished, leading to several retailers and AIBs hiking up the prices.Unfortunately for AMD, that is something that isn’t in their control, but they are working to ramp up the supply of Navi 48 ASIC so that its partners can replenish the supply promptly and offer the gamers out there who have been waiting for these cards to not only get them easily but at prices that are more reflective of the MSRP.We put a process around a box. We set a price for that product. We ship it directly into the market and we control that end. With the launch of RDNA 4, You know, we sell an Asic to our board partners, who then have a range of designs that they want to enable and then the end retailers and any tailors around the world are the ones that are picking the assortment of cards that they want to carry for day one we can help in that process, but it’s something that we don’t honestly directly control the biggest thing that we can do in the biggest thing that we are doing quite honestly is ramping supply of Navi 48, very aggressively the demand that we saw on day one was really unprecedented and unprecedented across all the price points in the RDNA 4 product portfolio.I think is you look at where we stand today Priority number one is restocking all of our partners’ restocking, and by the way, we stocking our partners means all the way from retailers and retailers. And making sure that they have all the components that they need to build the widest assortment of cards that they can. And I think that you know as we look forward and you know Graphics business throughout the rest of this year. We want to make sure that users are able to buy cards at the prices that they expect to see in market.We’re doing everything that we can to make that happen and make sure that both, you know, the retailers and retailers as well as our board partners are doing their part to help ensure that there’s plenty of supply at those price points and I think as you know, we feel from what happened last week refill the channel from what happened last week, you’ll see you’ll see more Supply coming across not just the opening price points, but across the entire range as we look at, you know the rest of this quarter into two and be home.David McAfee – AMD (via HotHardware)Lastly, the big question is whether AMD will come back to the enthusiast space now that the RDNA 4 launch has been mostly a success. Well, the answer is simply to wait. AMD is now in for the long run in the graphics department. The RX 9070 series builds up momentum for future launches and will help them secure more market share, leading to stronger relations with game developers, and once that is all set, we will see the return of AMD’s Enthusiast GPUs.David actively says that AMD has aspirations to cover the entire graphics segment out there, but it’s better to go step by step rather than do a repeat of the RX 7000 series. The RX 7000 was good value but software solutions, driver support and the overall ecosystem just didn’t compare to NVIDIA’s RTX offerings. This time, the roles have reversed, with NVIDIA getting a big backlash for not only offering smaller performance uplifts than the last gen but at not so great value, plus the whole driver situation has been a real mess which is still being addressed.The Green Team still has the software edge in the form of support for MFG and Neural Shading with AMD following them by finally leveraging AI for their own FSR 4 upscaler. Even the likes of the RX 9070 XT can sometimes beat the RTX 4080 SUPER, which puts AMD in a strong position. Some have even said that if AMD didn’t cancel the Navi 4C/4X family, they would have had a competitive edge over the top-end RTX cards such as the 4090 and even the 5090.But having multi-chiplet ASIC has already proved bad for Team Red in the past gen, so the goal is to go with value-oriented mono-dies and wait for when the time is right to roll out the big guns.Market dynamics or technology dynamics for that matter are required to make that a reality for you. I think that if you look at a graphics business as a whole, and what it’s done over the past couple of years, priority number one is really bad. The truth is if you look at the market in the segmentation of the market setting aside dollars where the units reside, you know, it’s $800 and below $700 and below $500 and below right that that is where most people in the world buy gpus and when you go back to things like our conversation about FSR 4 and in game technology to help Advance the experience, you know, what we are very focused on in our Graphics businesses ensuring that we have the scale, you know, Graphics business to drive the relationships with game developers to get the Mind share that AMD technology into their games and to have the broadest appeal that we possibly can to you know, as many gamers as we can touch in the ecosystem.I think as you look forward in time, you know, we certainly have aspirations to cover the entire gamut of gaming solutions that are out there in the market and maybe one day we’ll get there. But for now, we’re focused on really growing scale, driving the developer relationships that come from having a bigger footprint in the graphics market, and that’s the near-term focus of our Graphics business.David McAfee – AMD (via HotHardware)AMD has some strong gaming solutions out on the market right now. They have claimed the title of the highest-performance CPU for gaming and have the best graphics card value right now in the form of RDNA 4 with great software support. If they can continue the Radeon-side of things like they did with Ryzen, then there’s no doubt that they can become a solid competition against NVIDIA.News Source: HotHardwareSome posts on wccftech.com may contain affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC
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