AMD Navi 23 Radeon RX GPUs Feature 32 MB Infinity Cache, RDNA 2 Powered Van Gogh APUs & CDNA 2 Powered Instinct MI200 Without Infinity Cache

In the latest Linux Kernel Patch, AMD has confirmed the Infinity Cache sizes of its upcoming RDNA 2 Radeon RX GPUs based on the Navi 23 SKU. The company has also confirmed that neither RDNA 2 powered Van Gogh nor CDNA 2 powered Instinct accelerators will be featuring its Infinity Cache technology.

The information was spotted by Coelacanth-Dream (via Kepler_L2) and confirms cache sizes & GPU configurations of several RDNA 2 and CDNA 2 GPUs. The AMD Infinity Cache was first introduced on the Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards featuring the RDNA 2 architecture. The Navi 21 SKU, codenamed Big Navi, was the first to get it but it was followed by the Navi 22 SKU recently & now we are also going to get a third SKU in the form of Navi 23.

AMD RDNA 2 Powered Navi 23 GPU For Radeon RX 6000 Graphics Cards

The patch confirms the Infinity Cache size which is listed as a level-3 cache (L3) for all three RDNA 2 GPUs that will be coming to desktop PCs. The Navi 21 GPU 'Sienna Cichlid' features the biggest size of 128 MB Infinity Cache followed by the Navi 22 GPU 'Navy Flounder' which features 96 MB of L3 or Infinity Cache. The AMD Navi 23 GPU 'Dimgry Cavefish' is going to be the next GPU in the lineup of Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards and is going to feature 32 MB of Infinity Cache. That's a quarter of the L3 size featured on the Big Navi GPU.

It was previously expected that Navi 23 Radeon RX 6000 GPUs would feature 64 MB of Infinity Cache but that rumor is debunked now. The specifications of the Navi 23 GPU suggest a total of 2048 stream processors & 32 raytracing units inside the GPU package. The GPU will also be packed with 32 MB of Infinity Cache which will help it boost its bandwidth by a huge margin. For memory, we are looking at up to 8 GB GDDR6 capacity that will operate across a 128-bit bus interface and offer pin speeds of up to 16 Gbps. This should bring the total bandwidth to 256 GB/s.  The Navi 23 GPU will also be the smallest of the Navi 2X family with a die size reported at around 236mm2.

AMD CDNA 2 Powered Aldebaran GPU For Instinct MI200 HPC Accelerators

The other GPU is Aldebaran which is the codename for the chip powering AMD's Instinct MI200 accelerator. According to the data, the GPU carries 16 KB of L1 cache per CU which makes up 2 MB of the total L1 cache considering that the GPU will be packing 128 Compute Units. The GPU also carries 8 MB of shared L2 cache but carries 14 CUs per Shader Engine compared to 16 CUs per SE in the previous Instinct lineup. Regardless, it is stated that each CU on Aldebaran GPUs will have a significantly higher computing output.

Based on the naming convention itself, it looks like MI200 will be twice as fast as Instinct MI100 but to achieve this, AMD is expected to go all out with its MCM design. Do note that AMD's CDNA 2 GPU will be fabricated on a brand new process node & are confirmed to feature a 3rd Generation AMD Infinity architecture that extends to Exascale by allowing up to 8-Way coherent GPU connectivity.

AMD RDNA 2 Powered Van Gogh APUs For Ultra-Low-Power Notebooks

The Patch also confirms that the hotly anticipated RDNA 2 and Zen 2 powered Van Gogh APUs for ultra-low-power notebooks won't be featuring Infinity Cache. The Van Gogh APUs do feature a 128 KB GL1 cache, 1 MB of L2 cache but the L3 cache is non-existent.

It makes sense for an entry-tier RDNA 2 iGPU which will be relying on LPDDR4X or even LPDDR5 memory for its primary memory bandwidth requirements. These APUs will be fabricated on the 7nm process node but we don't have an exact figure of what the maximum CU count on the RDNA 2 chip would be.