An alleged PCB of AMD’s upcoming Radeon RX 6000 “Big Navi” graphics card has leaked out which confirms some recent reports that we have heard. The picture was leaked by Twitter user, EB-18, & shows what seems to be an engineering board featuring the RDNA 2 powered Big Navi GPU.
AMD Radeon RX 6000 “Big Navi GPU” Graphics Card PCB Leaks Out – Dual 8-Pin Connectors, 16 Power Phases, VirtualLink USB Type-C Port & 256-bit Bus Interface
Compared to the previously leaked engineering board, the latest Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card PCB gives us a better view of what to expect from AMD’s Big Navi “Navi 21” class products. It will still be based on an engineering board so the final design could be vastly different than what we are looking at here.
So coming to the PCB specs, the GPU has been blacked out for unknown reasons but there are other interesting parts to focus on. The engineering board features a 16 phase delivery and two power connectors (8-Pin) can be seen. The VRMs are featured beneath two large aluminum fin-based heatsinks which are definitely not going to be included in the final design. The card comes with at least four display outputs which include two DisplayPort, a single HDMI port, and a USB Type-C VirtualLink connector which was something that earlier rumors had indicated.
There’s also a BIOS switch that can be seen on the top of the PCB which is interesting. This could either be a reference engineering board or a custom AIB developed engineering board. My guess is that AIBs have started evaluating custom board designs and this is one of the first samples that we are looking at. Surrounding the GPU is 8 spots for GDDR6 memory. This represents a 256-bit bus interface. Now the previously leaked PCB showed us the backside of the card and we didn’t spot any GDDR6 chips on the back which should indicate that the card is using denser DRAM modules rather than going for dual-sided memory.
AMD Radeon RX 6000 “Big Navi” GPU Scores Over 11,000 Points in 3DMark Firestrike?
In addition to the PCB leak, CapFrameX has reported that AMD’s Big Navi GPU “Navi 21” delivers a score of 11,500 points in the 3DMark Firestrike Ultra benchmark. There are no details on which Big Navi SKU is the user referring to as there are three variants, the XL, XT, and XTX. Regardless, a GPU score that high puts the Big Navi GPU at around 8.5% faster than the GeForce RTX 3080 which is super impressive. If these numbers are for the reference card and the “XT” variant than there’s no doubt that AMD has all eyes to steal the performance crown from even NVIDIA’s flagship graphics offering, the GeForce RTX 3090.
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT With Navi 21 XT & Radeon RX 6800 With Navi 21 XL GPUs
The AMD Radeon RX 6800 series will feature two RDNA 2 based graphics cards, the Navi 21 “Big Navi” based Radeon RX 6800 XT and the Radeon RX 6800. The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT will come packed with the Navi 21 XT GPU which is a cut-down SKU featuring 72 Compute Units or 4608 SPs. The card will also feature 16 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus interface, a 512 GB/s total bandwidth, and clock speeds of 2015 MHz base and 2250 MHz boost at reference specs. Yesterday, it was reported that the Navi 21 XT could feature TBPs as high as 320W for reference and 355W for custom variants.
The AMD Radeon RX 6800 graphics card will feature an even more cut down Navi 21 “Big Navi” GPU with 64 Compute Units of 4096 stream processors. The card will feature the same VRAM config of 16 GB GDDR6 memory, a 256-bit bus interface but it was reported that the card will end up with a slightly lower memory clock of 14 Gbps which will deliver a net bandwidth of 448 GB/s. The GPU is going to feature clock speeds of 1815 MHz game and 2105 MHz boost clocks at reference specs. It was also stated that the AMD Radeon RX 6800 with Navi 21 XL GPU could feature a TBP of 290W at stock clocks.
AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series “RDNA 2” Graphics Card Lineup:
| Graphics Card | AMD Radeon RX 6700 | AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6800 | AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | Navi 22 (XL?) | Navi 22 (XT?) | Navi 21 XL | Navi 21 XT | Navi 21 XTX |
| Process Node | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm |
| Transistors | TBA | TBA | 26.8 Billion | 26.8 Billion | 26.8 Billion |
| Compute Units | TBA | 40 | 60 | 72 | 80 |
| Stream Processors | TBA | 2560 | 3840 | 4608 | 5120 |
| TMUs/ROPs | TBA | TBA | 240 / 96 | 288 / 128 | 320 / 128 |
| Game Clock | TBA | TBA | 1815 MHz | 2015 MHz | 2015 MHz |
| Boost Clock | TBA | TBA | 2105 MHz | 2250 MHz | 2250 MHz |
| FP32 TFLOPs | TBA | TBA | 16.17 TFLOPs | 20.74 TFLOPs | 23.04 TFLOPs |
| Memory Size | 12 GB GDDR6 | 12 GB GDDR6 | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache |
| Memory Bus | 192-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Clock | 14 Gbps? | 16 Gbps? | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | 320 GB/s | 384 GB/s | 512 GB/s | 512 GB/s | 512 GB/s |
| TDP | TBA | TBA | 250W | 300W | 300W |
| Price | TBA | TBA | $579 US | $649 US | $999 US |
AMD Radeon RX 6800 Series With Triple-Fan Cooling Solution
As for the designs themselves, the Radeon RX 6000 flagship cooling design looks amazing with the red and black design. The card features a triple axial-tech fan setup on the shroud and has a large aluminum heatsink that runs beneath it. The card has a LED-lit Radeon logo on the side and there is a large cut out on the side for the fans to vent out hot air. This design is very reminiscent of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 series Founders Edition cooler. The card will feature dual 8-pin power and display ports would include a USB Type-C (VirtualLink), 1 HDMI, and 2 DisplayPort connectors.
The card also features a fancy backplate along with a retention bracket to hold the cooler in place. The Radeon RX “Big Navi” GPU looks like it will come in the standard 2-slot reference design which is the same as NVIDIA’s flagship RTX 3080 but not as huge as the triple-slot GeForce RTX 3090.
AMD will officially be unveiling its RX 6000 series graphics card family on October 28th. The second half of 2020 would definitely be interesting times for all the hardware enthusiasts and mainstream PC gamers who are looking forward to upgrading their PCs with the best hardware.