AMD Radeon RX 6500 Series GPUs With Navi 23 Detailed – Expected To Feature Up To 2048 Cores, 8 GB Memory & Tackle NVIDIA RTX 3060 at 1080p

It looks like new information on AMD's Radeon RX 6500 series graphics cards which will be based on the Navi 23 RDNA 2 GPU has leaked out. The details come from reputable leaker & also insider, KittyYYuko, who has a flawless history of posting GPU leaks several months before launch as we've seen with his Ampere leaks.

AMD Radeon RX 6500 Series Graphics Cards Based on Navi 23 GPU To Feature Up To 2048 Cores, 8 GB Memory, 96 MB Infinity Cache & 1080p Premium Gaming Performance To Tackle RTX 3060 in April

According to the details, AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards based on the Navi 23 RDNA 2 GPU are indeed in the works. The Navi 23 GPU will be the third chip within the Navi 2X family and is the smallest of the bunch with a die size reported at around 236mm2. The Navi 23 GPUs will most probably be utilized by the Radeon RX 6500 series graphics cards since the RX 6600 XT is expected to utilize a 192-bit bus interface which is only possible with the Navi 22 GPU.

So the lineup is going to replace the Radeon RX 5500 series which were based on the Navi 14 GPU. Navi 14 measured at 158mm2 which means that we are looking at a die size increase of around 50%. The Navi 23 GPU is also internally referred to as 'Dimgray Cavefish' which is a codename we heard last year.

Cezanne Desktop APU
~June

Dimgray Cavefish GPU
<For Premium 1080p Gaming>
~1440p < RTX 3060 < 1080p
~April
~CNY 2,499
~32 Compute Units
~About 236 mm2
~64MB Infinity Cache
~128-bit 16Gbps GDDR6 with 8GB VRAM

— Yuko Yoshida (@KittyYYuko) March 18, 2021

Moving on, it is reported that the AMD Radeon RX 6500 series graphics cards with the Navi 23 GPU will feature up to 32 compute units so that's a total of 2048 stream processors & 32 raytracing units inside the GPU package. The GPU will also be packed with 64 MB of Infinity Cache which will help it boost its bandwidth by a huge margin. For memory, we are looking at up to 8 GB GDDR6 capacity that will operate across a 128-bit bus interface and offer pin speeds of up to 16 Gbps. This should bring the total bandwidth to 256 GB/s.

AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series "RDNA 2" Graphics Card Lineup:

Graphics Card	AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6800	AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6700	AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6600	AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6400
GPU	Navi 21 KXTX	Navi 21 XTX	Navi 21 XT	Navi 21 XL	Navi 22 KXT	Navi 22 XT	Navi 22 XL	Navi 23 KXT	Navi 23 (XT)	Navi 23 (XL)	Navi 24 (XT)	Navi 24 (XL)
Process Node	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	6nm	6nm
Die Size	520mm2	520mm2	520mm2	520mm2	336mm2	336mm2	336mm2	237mm2	237mm2	237mm2	107mm2	107mm2
Transistors	26.8 Billion	26.8 Billion	26.8 Billion	26.8 Billion	17.2 Billion	17.2 Billion	17.2 Billion	11.06 Billion	11.06 Billion	11.06 Billion	5.4 Billion	5.4 Billion
Compute Units	80	80	72	60	40	40	36	32	32	28	16	12
Stream Processors	5120	5120	4608	3840	2560	2560	2304	2048	2048	1792	1024	768
TMUs/ROPs	320 / 128	320 / 128	288 / 128	240 / 96	160/64	160/64	144/64	128/64	128/64	112/64	64/32	48/32
Game Clock	2116 MHz	2015 MHz	2015 MHz	1815 MHz	2495 MHz	2424 MHz	2330 MHz	2410 MHz	2359 MHz	2044 MHz	2610 MHz	2039 MHz
Boost Clock	2324 MHz	2250 MHz	2250 MHz	2105 MHz	2600 MHz	2581 MHz	2495 MHz	2635 MHz	2589 MHz	2491 MHz	2815 MHz	2321 MHz
FP32 TFLOPs	23.80 TFLOPs	23.04 TFLOPs	20.74 TFLOPs	16.17 TFLOPs	13.31 TFLOPs	13.21 TFLOPs	11.50 TFLOPs	10.79 TFLOPs	10.6 TFLOPs	9.0 TFLOPs	5.7 TFLOPs	3.5 TFLOPs
Memory Size	16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache	16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache	16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache	16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache	12 GB GDDR6 + 96 MB Infinity Cache	12 GB GDDR6 + 96 MB Infinity Cache	10 GB GDDR5 + 80 MB Infinity Cache	8 GB GDDR6 + 32 MB Infinity Cache	8 GB GDDR6 + 32 MB Infinity Cache	8 GB GDDR6 + 32 MB Infinity Cache	4 GB / 8 GB GDDR6 + 16 MB Infinity Cache	4 GB GDDR6 + 16 MB Infinity Cache
Memory Bus	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit	192-bit	160-bit	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit	64-bit	64-bit
Memory Clock	18 Gbps	16 Gbps	16 Gbps	16 Gbps	18 Gbps	16 Gbps	16 Gbps	17.5 Gbps	16 Gbps	14 Gbps	18 Gbps	14 Gbps
Bandwidth	576 GB/s	512 GB/s	512 GB/s	512 GB/s	432 GB/s	384 GB/s	320 GB/s	280 GB/s	256 GB/s	224 GB/s	144 GB/s	112 GB/s
TDP	335W	300W	300W	250W	250W	230W	220W	176W	160W	132W	107W	53W
Price	$1099 US	$999 US	$649 US	$579 US	$549 US	$479 US	TBD	$399 US	$379 US	$329 US	$199 US	$159 US?

As for products, once again nothing is mentioned except the fact that the Navi 23 GPU-based AMD Radeon RX 6500 series (referring to the RX 6500 XT) will be positioned as a premium 1080p gaming solution, offering faster performance than the RTX 3060. The pricing is suggested around 2499 CNY which ends up around $350 US. Now that's quite expensive if we look at where the RX 5500 XT was. We also aren't sure if the pricing would work considering the RX 6700 XT costs $479 US and the RX 6700 would end up close to $399 US. The RX 6600 XT also exists and would end up in the sub $400 US segment.

The pricing seems to be a rumor for now but I'd personally expect a $299 US pricing for this card if AMD wants it to succeed, especially if it's a 1080p card going against the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 which already costs $329 US.

Previously leaked details from Patrick Schur suggest that AMD was planning Navi 23 GPUs with TGPs of 65W, 80W, and 90W but that seems to have changed and we are now getting higher TGP variants even in the Navi 23 SKU lineup. Igor mentions that official documents from manufacturers also list down 128-bit Navi 23 GPUs which would refer to a more standard 4 GB and 8 GB memory capacity.

2 of 9

Die blueprints of the AMD RDNA 2 based Navi 23 GPU as posted by Igor's Lab!

Other details listed for Navi 23 include support for up to 5 display outputs which include DP 1.4a (4x DP and 1 USB Type-C), HDMI 2.1, and SL-DVI. The Radeon RX 6000M GPUs will feature support for VP9 decode, HEVC decode, H.264 decode, and VC1 decode. The chips will carry support for PCIe Gen 4.0 with up to 8 lanes for 16 GT/s. For one of the Navi 23 GPUs with a power limit of 90W, the maximum GPU clock speed is reported at 2350 MHz. The launch of the Navi 23 GPU-based graphics cards is expected in April so expect more information in the coming weeks!