AMD Navi certification hints at multiple versions of the RX 5000 graphics cards

The Korean Radio Research Agency certification talks about four models derived from the main Navi 10 GPU

AMD Navi GPU

The new AMD Navi RDNA GPUs have passed certification at South Korea’s Radio Research Agency, which marks the point where the graphics silicon design has been finalised prior to the public release of a new consumer device. The certification is dated June 5 this year, so it’s only just been certified by the agency.

Interestingly the certification seemingly covers five different Navi variants of the new RDNA graphics silicon. The D182 designation has been noted as the current code, with regular Twitter tech analyst, Komachi, noting the code in April for the Navi 10 design, showing that D160/D360 were the codes being used for the 7nm Vega 20 GPUs in similar RRA and Eurasian Economic Commission submissions.

This is not necessarily confirmation that there will be five different Navi variants at launch, however, but does at least point to the possibility that the AMD Radeon RX 5700 series will contain far more than just the already announced RX 5700 graphics card. AMD traditionally releases at least a pair of cards based off the same GPU design at the same time, so we’re expecting another Navi RX 5000 series card to launch alongside it.

The RRA certification appeared on Korean site, HW Battle, and you can see the full English version here. Quite what those derived models will actually turn out to be is open to speculation, but they all appear to be based on the same basic Navi GPU.

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AMD has already spoken about the RX 5700 card at Computex in May, suggesting that it will offer RTX 2070-level gaming performance when it launches. And we’re expecting to hear more about the new GPUs at E3 next week. The benchmark used at the Computex reveal was a very AMD-favouring title, Strange Brigade, so the speculation is that it will win some and lose some against Nvidia’s third-tier Turing GPU.

AMD Navi RRA certification

AMD could be holding a higher-spec RX 5800 card in reserve for a special E3 surprise, because I have my doubts that the top chip in the Navi family wouldn’t come rocking a numerical code with an 8 in the title. Think RX 580 and RX 570… though the Ryzen 7 2700X does put a bit of a thought spanner in that expectation.

It’s also possible that AMD is prepping multiple variants with different levels of GDDR6 memory support, so a potential 4GB and 8GB version of both cards for different price points. Of course 4GB might be seen as too small a level of video memory for a GPU pitched at the RTX 2070 level of gaming, so it remains to be seen whether that will come to pass.

In response we’re expecting Nvidia’s “something super” to be unveiled at E3 next week too, potentially a refresh of the Turing range of GPUs with higher-clocked variants of the GDDR6 memory on those cards. Or potentially even an RTX 2070 Ti…

One thing’s for sure, we don’t have long to wait to find out.

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