RRA certifications are one of the most surefire methods of predicting when a particular GPU is going to come out and it looks like AMD is preparing a launch pretty soon because a big family of GPUs just passed RRA certification. While we cannot be sure this is indeed Big Navi, word on the rumor mill would point that way. If nothing else, gamers can expect some new GPUs to launch within a few months from AMD.
AMD next-generation Radeon GPUs pass RRA certification, are these the Radeon RX 5950 XT and family?
The RRA certification is something all consumer ASICs have to go through in South Korea - just like in the US. Unlike the States, however, RRA publishes its certifications in the public domain, which is great for us because it allows us to sniff out interesting new GPUs that are in the official pipeline. The AMD ATI-102-D32310 GPU received its RRA certification yesterday, meaning AMD has not only finalized its plans for the upcoming GPU family but submitted it to the authorities as well (no more changes in design are now possible).
I want to clarify that passing an RRA certification is usually the first step in the final phase of getting a product to market. It can take anywhere from 3 months to 6 months before you finally see a polished product hitting the shelves.
What we know about the AMD RX 5950XT GPU family so far:
The naming convention at play here is the one AMD used for shipping manifests during the Zauba years and something we were able to readily decode. To give you a recap: Hawaii boards were named C6XXXX, Tonga boards C7XXXX, Fiji boards C8XXXX, Polaris boards C9XXXX, Vega boards D12XXX and small Navi boards were named D18XXX.
In fact, if we are being specific about it, then the exact code names were:
- Hawaii XT had the C67101 code name.
- Tonga had the C76501 code name.
- Fiji XT had the C88001 code name.
- Polaris 11 had the C91103 code name.
- Vega 64 had the D12201 code name.
- 'Small' Navi had the D18205 code name.
Considering it just passed the certification, we are likely looking at the RDNA2-based full Navi die that will support ray tracing at a hardware level. This is the same GPU that will power the next-generation PlayStation 5 and the Xbox as well (remember AMD designed Navi for the consoles, read more about that over here). In all likelihood, we are finally catching our first glimpse of "big" Navi. You might remember my exclusive published a year and a half back that predicted that the flagship Navi part won't land earlier than 2H 2019 or early 2020. Well, there you have it, folks, it's finally happening. The Radeon RX 5950 XT GPU has previously been spotted on EEC filings as well:
The EEC filing, in fact, mentions four new GPUs: Radeon RX 5950XT (the flagship), Radeon RX 5950, Radeon RX 5900 and the Radeon RX 5800. This means we can expect at the very least one more Navi GPU with three variants each. It is entirely possible that this is the Big Navi that was promised to us almost 2.5 years ago and the one that will deliver to AMD fans the high-end card they have been waiting for. On the other hand, it is also possible that this is a new die that the company prepared and while these graphics cards will obviously more powerful than the RX 5800 series, it is still not Big Navi.
[EEC] Radeon RX 5950XT, Radeon RX 5950, Radeon RX 5900,Radeon RX 5800 XT https://t.co/gTHD288q3w
— 比屋定さんの戯れ言@Komachi (@KOMACHI_ENSAKA) January 14, 2020
Without any further ado, here is a screenshot of the EEC filing submitted by AFOX corporation - an add-in board partner for AMD Radeon.
Nomenclature would dictate that the RX 5950 XT be significantly more powerful than any of its younger siblings (like the already-released RX 5700) and going by the steps involved, we can easily see that this is going to be quite a powerful card.
