AMD might be gearing up for a flagship GPU showdown with NVIDIA

AMD’s next-gen UDNA architecture could see Team Red finally fielding a true flagship GPU to take on NVIDIA’s top cards.  

7900 XTX
AMD’s last flagship gaming GPU, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, was released back in 2022. Photo: HWZ

After playing it safe with RDNA4 (aka the Radeon RX 9000 series) and its focus on the mainstream crowd, AMD might be gearing up for a proper heavyweight fight in the next generation. The company’s rumoured RDNA5 architecture – now said to be rebranded as UDNA – is shaping up to be a major overhaul, and new leaks suggest that Team Red is preparing silicon that could finally go toe-to-toe with NVIDIA’s flagship GPUs.

According to reliable leaker Kepler, UDNA will once again unify AMD’s GPU design across both its gaming and data centre line-ups – a split that has existed since the RDNA/CDNA era. This unified approach would let AMD scale the same core architecture from data centre accelerators all the way down to gaming graphics cards, which has the benefits of simplifying development and and optimising performance across the board.

UDNA
Image: Kepler_L2 via Anandtech Forums

Kepler’s diagrams point to four GPU configurations under the codenames AT0, AT2, AT3, and AT4. AT0 is without a doubt the new monster of the family, reportedly packing 96 Compute Units and a 512-bit memory interface. This puts it in the same league as NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5090 in terms of bandwidth potential. If true, this would mark AMD’s first real attempt in years at a no-compromise flagship rather than just a “good-enough” high-end card.

AT2, with 40 CUs and a 192-bit bus, appears targeted at the mid-range, while AT3 and AT4 are very likely to be laptop-friendly designs with support for LPDDR5X or even LPDDR6 memory. These smaller variants would continue AMD’s push in the mobile GPU market, which has grown more competitive with NVIDIA’s Ada refresh and Intel’s Arc Battlemage parts.

Of course, we’re still a long way from seeing UDNA hardware. Rumours suggest a 2027 launch window, which is in line with the 2-years cadence for any new GPU series release. The idea of AMD once again fielding a true flagship GPU should be welcome news for PC gamers who have watched NVIDIA dominate the ultra-high-end space since the GeForce RTX 4090.

Source: Wccftech

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