First alleged AMD RDNA2 Navi 2x engineering sample spotted in the wild

AMD finally announced a launch date for the RDNA2 Navi 2x GPUs with yesterday’s teasers, and it looks like some engineering sample cards are already being tested in China. One of the Bilibili forum users provided a few pictures of an alleged RDNA2 test board, alluding that it could be the “Big Navi” GPU.

The pictures only show the back of the board, which has a bunch of stickers along with dip switches and various voltage measurement points, plus LED load indicators on the far right. There is no cooler shroud and the card appears to have a CPU cooler attached to the GPU. Also, the thickness of the radiator suggests that this is the Navi 22 mid-range model, not the Navi 21 flagship.

Additional proof that this could be the mid-range GPU is provided by the sticker that reads “Typical Samsung 16 Gb” (2 GB per VRAM module) and the info coming from the original poster stating that the card has a 3+3+2 VRAM module configuration, which would suggest that the VRAM bandwidth is limited to 256-bit. There is an additional sticker reading “Full Secure Typical XT A0 ASIC” that is usually placed on pre-production gaming card samples with safe voltage limits in order to differentiate them from professional GPUs.

If the mid-range Navi 22 card already comes equipped with 16 GB of VRAM, we can assume that the Navi 21 flagship will feature more than 20 GB, just like Nvidia's RTX 3090. Between now and October 28, I am sure we will be seeing more engineering samples that will reveal more specs and, hopefully, some performance metrics, especially for the Navi 21 flagship GPUs.