AMD has only just released its Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card, but that hasn’t stopped fresh leaks appearing for the currently unreleased RX 6500 series, projected to use AMD’s Navi 23 architecture.The details come from reputable leaker & also insider, KittyYYuko, who has a flawless history of posting GPU leaks several months before launch as we’ve seen with his Ampere leaks.
The leaked GPU is listed as ‘Dimgrey Cavefish’, which is the internal codename used by AMD for the Navi 23 we heard circulating last year. This will be the third addition to the Navi family and the smallest of the lineup, with a die size reported to be around 236mm2.
Cezanne Desktop APU
~JuneDimgray Cavefish GPU
<For Premium 1080p Gaming>
~1440p < RTX 3060 < 1080p
~April
~CNY 2,499
~32 Compute Units
~About 236 mm2
~64MB Infinity Cache
~128-bit 16Gbps GDDR6 with 8GB VRAM— Yuko Yoshida (@KittyYYuko) March 18, 2021
According to the details, AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards based on the Navi 23 RDNA 2 GPU are indeed in the works. The Navi 23 GPU will be the third chip within the Navi 2X family and is the smallest of the bunch with a die size reported at around 236mm2. The Navi 23 GPUs will most probably be utilized by the Radeon RX 6500 series graphics cards since the RX 6600 XT is expected to utilize a 192-bit bus interface which is only possible with the Navi 22 GPU.
Hot on the heels of reports around a purported Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti looking to fill the affordable laptop gaming void, a fresh round of leaks have brought to us word about the AMD Radeon RX 6500 – a new generation GPU that may also be aimed at offering 1080p gaming. It’s expected to bring in the next generation of affordable gaming for AMD. Even amid the ongoing severe chip crisis limiting the ability for users to buy GPUs, the AMD Radeon RX 6500 is now tipped to launch as early as next month itself, in April 2021.
According to the information posted online, the AMD Radeon RX 6500 does not appear to be a direct rival of the upcoming Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti that is also expected to launch soon. Instead, it may actually rival the already launched RTX 3060, which falls in the mid-range of the GPU hierarchy. The tip about the upcoming AMD GPU specifically points at this being a card for “premium 1080p gaming”, which suggests that it may be a shade too expensive for the absolute budget segment of PC gaming. The suggested pricing of the AMD Radeon RX 6500 is also tipped to be CNY 2,499, which is about $350 – further suggesting that the card in question will cater to affordable, but not budget gaming PCs.
The sub-flagship AMD Radeon RX 6500 also appears to match more specifications of the RTX 3060, and less of the upcoming Nvidia RTX 3050 lineup. What AMD might actually be aiming for is a sliver of a gap that lies between the market that the RTX 3060 addresses, and the budget GPU segment that still features older chips without support for new generation features such as ray tracing. Tips about the specifications about the AMD Radeon RX 6500 GPU include 32 compute units (against the rumoured 20 CUs in the rivalling Nvidia RTX 3050 series), so that’s a total of 2048 stream processors & 32 raytracing units inside the GPU package. The GPU will also be packed with 64 MB of Infinity Cache which will help it boost its bandwidth by a huge margin. The die size is 236mm2, and there’s support for 128-bit memory with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM and 16Gbps data throughput.
So the lineup is going to replace the Radeon RX 5500 series which were based on the Navi 14 GPU. Navi 14 measured at 158mm2 which means that we are looking at a die size increase of around 50%. The Navi 23 GPU is also internally referred to as ‘Dimgray Cavefish’ which is a codename we heard last year.
Even with these specifications at hand, the AMD Radeon RX 6500 does appear to be a touch too expensive for the segment that it wants to target. Given that the source of information likely comes some time ahead of the commercial launch of the GPU, there is still room for pricing details to be tweaked. If AMD wants to do to Nvidia what it has recently succeeded in doing to long-time chip market leader Intel, pricing is a key area that it will have to get right. With 1080p gaming on the literal card here for AMD, here’s hoping that we get more information coming in about this GPU, before it launches in the expected launch timeline of April this year.
