AMD RDNA 3+ iGPUs To Be Featured in Ryzen APUs Till 2027, Vega Reincarnated?

AMD's upcoming RDNA 3+ graphics architecture which will first be featured in Strix Point APUs will be the iGPU of choice for APUs up till 2027.

Based on the latest insider information from Golden Pig Upgrade over at Weibo, it looks like the AMD RDNA 3+ graphics architecture will be a long-lasting solution, covering several generations of Ryzen APUs as a part of their iGPU IP.

The AMD RDNA 3+ GPU architecture was made official during a recent AI PC summit held in China where the company announced the graphics IP for its next-generation Strix Point APUs. The RDNA 3+ graphics architecture will cover the iGPU side of things but it looks like we might get to see some discrete variations during the lifespan of this architecture, mainly covering the lower-end market.

The AMD RDNA 3+ GPU architecture for Radeon & Ryzen APUs is not a mystery. It has been showing up in patches for a while now and is referred to as the RDNA 3.5 "GFX115X" series. Officially, this architecture is going to be branded as RDNA 3+ and is simply an optimization of existing RDNA 3 IPs which we have seen on Radeon RX 7000 GPUs and Ryzen 7040/8040 APUs. There are no details provided but AMD did confirm that the architecture will be incorporated in Strix Point APUs when they launch later this year.

AMD's Strix Point APUs are expected to feature up to 16 RDNA 3+ iGPU compute units in the mono and up to 40 RDNA 3+ iGPU compute units in the chiplet designs. This will be a vast improvement over the existing Phoenix and Hawk Point APUs. Moving forward, we can see AMD reutilizing RDNA 3+ graphics architecture in future APUs and variations of the Zen 5 chips. These chips may house even more compute units or come with increased clock speeds and architectural optimizations.

The AMD RDNA 3+ iGPU plan sounds very similar to the Vega iGPU architecture which spanned across several generations in Ryzen APUs and had various variations. First launched with AMD's Ryzen 2000G and Ryzen 2000U/H chips and would last up to the Ryzen 5000 series. That's four gens and that's not even counting the rebranded SKUs under the Ryzen 7000 mobility series. So RDNA 3+ starting in 2024 and lasting up till 2027 will be at least four years of the same iGPU architecture for Ryzen APUs.

AMD's next-gen Sound Wave APUs were recently spotted alongside Strix, Sarlak, and Kraken & if the rumor holds, then we can expect it to house the latest Zen core IP but with the same/updated RDNA 3+ graphics core.