Rumour | AMD "Big Navi" GPUs to have up to 40% larger dies than the Xbox Series X

AMD has given fans plenty to get excited about over the RDNA 2 architecture, and now the die sizes of its next-generation GPUs may have been revealed. Published by AquariusZi, a reliable source who posts on PC_Shopping forums, the die sizes have seemingly received approval from KOMACHI_ENSAKA.

According to AquariusZi, the dies of Navi 21, Navi 22 and Navi 23 will measure 505 mm², 340 mm² and 240 mm² respectively. AquariusZi and KOMACHI_ENSAKA stress that the three die sizes have a margin of error of 5 mm².

Wccftech asserts that a 505 mm² die could "easily contain" 80 CUs and 5,120 stream processors, resulting in a performance uplift of "at least 2x" from the RX 5700 XT. There have been other references to Navi 21 having 80 CUs too, so this does not seem wildly absurd.

Naturally, we would not recommend taking these die sizes as fact. However, Microsoft has already offered an insight into how big "Big Navi" will be with last month's Xbox Series X announcement. As we reported, the custom RDNA 2 GPU in the Xbox Series X will have 52 CUs on a die size of 360.45 mm². This is considerably larger than the die of the RX 5700 XT so it seems reasonable to expect AMD to include even larger dies on high-end desktop GPUs. 

Separately, AMD has already confirmed that RDNA 2 will offer 50% higher performance per watt than current RDNA cards. We would be remiss if we did not mention that NVIDIA will release new GPUs this year too. Based on its new Ampere architecture, NVIDIA has dropped heavy hints that it will announce something GPU-related at its GTC 2020 keynote next month.