A PCIe 5.0 x16 interface for the Navi 31 GPU.
Linux driver patches published by AMD and analyzed by a certain @Kepler_L2 provide some indications on future RDNA 3 GPUs. The first is that the VCN 4.x video engines (Video Codec Next version 4.x) are able to handle most modern codecs. The second is that the Navi 31 GPU would exploit the PCIe 5.0 interface.
Data regarding encoding/decoding is from a few days ago. We haven’t talked regarding it on the site, but rumors regarding the lack of AV1 support have circulated. In the end, it wouldn’t: AMD’s VCN 4.0 engines should support H.264/MPEG 4 AVC, H.265, VP9, AV1 and JPEG decoding, as well as AV1, H. 264 and H.265. On the other hand, there are uncertainties for the H.266/VVC codec.
The Navi 31 GPU would have fewer stream processors than expected
VCN 4.x
Remember that currently only the GPU Intel Arc Alchemist offer full AV1 support. Intel also made a marketing argument during its presentation at the end of March. Conversely, at AMD, the Radeon RX 6500 XT et Radeon RX 6400 distinguished themselves – in a negative way – by the absence of AV1 decoding.
Note that AMD RDNA 2 GPUs use VCN 3.0, VCN 3.1 and VCN 3.1.2 engines. These VCN 3.x engines support H.264/MPEG4 AVC, H.265, VP9, AV1 and JPEG decoding as well as H.264 and H.265 encoding.
PCIe 5.0
About the PCIe interface, the Navi 31 GPU would use PCIe 5.0 x16. Some also mention PCIe 5.0 x16 for Navi 32 and PCIe 5.0 x8 for Navi 33.
AMD’s recently released roadmap for its Zen 4 processors confirmed they will have PCIe 5.0 interface support. At this stage, however, it is not guaranteed that the Radeon RX 7000s will use this interface. Fact, the future GeForce RTX 4000 Series “Ada Lovelace” would skip PCIe 5.0.
Sources : VideoCardz, Tom’s Hardware US
