AMD Ryzen: AM5 desktop processors in Zen 4 will integrate RDNA 2 for the graphics part

Rémi Bouvet Aug 24, 2021 @ 11:0429

AMD's Ryzen 7000 would integrate RDNA 2 iGPUs; it remains to be seen what will happen to the G-series APUs then.

AMD's first generation of Zen 4 desktop processors, Ryzen 7000, codenamed "Raphael", will bring a lot of innovations: a new CPU architecture of course, but also a new socket, the AM5, and the support for DDR5 memory.

A generalization of iGPUs

According to documents stolen from Gigabyte and AMD last week, containing a lot of confidential information, the company led by Lisa Su would make another important change: it would grant integrated graphics solutions, or iGPUs, under RDNA 2 architecture, to some Raphael chips. Thus, the presence of graphics processors would no longer be the exclusive feature of the G-series APUs, which would therefore lose their raison d'être. Let's quickly put things into context. At Intel, the majority of Cores are equipped with iGPUs; those whose iGPU is deactivated are designated by the suffix F. In the Rocket Lake-S range for example, six references out of the 19 existing ones are concerned.

On the AMD side, the situation is different: "classic" Ryzen CPUs do not have iGPUs. They must therefore be associated with a dedicated graphics card. To obtain a desktop chip equipped with a graphics processor, you have to turn to another range, those of APUs, which are distinguished by the suffix G.

The current AMD APUs are the Ryzen 5000G Cezanne. Like their Ryzen 5000 desktop counterparts, they inherit a Zen 3 micro-architecture. On the other hand, their graphics processor mobilizes the aging Vega micro-architecture. In addition, the best of them, the Ryzen 7 5700G, has 8 CPU cores, compared to 16 for the Ryzen 9 5950X, flagship of the Ryzen 5000s.

But things could well change with Ryzen Zen 4 processors, which would now include iGPUs. The found document still states that "some OPNs may not support GFX", some references will therefore remain without iGPU, such as Intel's Core F series.

iGPU Navi 2

The other good news is that the Ryzen will directly adopt the Navi 2 graphics micro-architecture (RDNA 2); the one on which the Radeon RX 6000 is based and which is also available in the SoCs of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Note that before the Ryzen 7000 Raphael, expected at the end of 2022, this micro-architecture should benefit the successors to the Cezanne APUs, the Rembrandt APUs. Finally, while two diagrams have been published regarding supported interfaces, one suggests DisplayPort 2.0 support, but the other does not. To be continued…

Source: Chips and Cheese , TechPowerUp