Hardware-accelerated ray tracing and variable-rate shading would be the design focal factors for AMD’s next-generation RDNA2 graphics structure. Microsoft’s reveal of its Xbox Series X console attributed each options to AMD’s “next generation RDNA” structure (which logically occurs to be RDNA2). The Xbox Series X makes use of a semi-custom SoC that options CPU cores primarily based on the “Zen 2” microarchitecture and a GPU primarily based on RDNA2. It’s extremely probably that the SoC may very well be fabricated on TSMC’s 7 nm EUV node, because the RDNA2 graphics structure is optimized for that. This would imply an optical shrink of “Zen 2” to 7 nm EUV. Besides the SoC that powers Xbox Series X, AMD is anticipated to leverage 7 nm EUV for its RDNA2 discrete GPUs and CPU chiplets primarily based on its “Zen 3” microarchitecture in 2020.
Variable-rate shading (VRS) is an API-level characteristic that lets GPUs preserve assets by shading sure areas of a scene at a decrease fee than the opposite, with out perceptible distinction to the viewer. Microsoft developed two tiers of VRS for its DirectX 12 API, tier-1 is presently supported by NVIDIA “Turing” and Intel Gen11 architectures, whereas tier-2 is supported by “Turing.” The present RDNA structure does not assist both tiers. Hardware-accelerated ray-tracing is the cornerstone of NVIDIA’s “Turing” RTX 20-series graphics playing cards, and AMD is catching as much as it. Microsoft already standardized it on the software-side with the DXR (DirectX Raytracing) API. A mix of VRS and dynamic render-resolution will likely be essential for next-gen consoles to realize playability at 4K, and to even boast of being 8K-capable.
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