AMD rumoured to be ditching future RDNA 5 graphics architecture in favour of 'unified' UDNA tech in a possible effort to bring AI smarts to gaming ASAP

pcgamer.com:

AMD hasn't even got its next-gen RDNA 4 gaming GPUs out the door, but already there are rumours RDNA 5 has been cancelled in favour of the «unified» UDNA graphics architecture. If true, the move could be all about adding AI capabilities to AMD's gaming GPUs as soon as possible.

AMD's current gaming graphics cards are based on the RDNA 3 architecture, while its enterprise, datacenter and AI GPUs are based on the CDNA technology. The idea is that the demands of gaming and data centers are sufficiently divergent to merit separate architectures.

At least, that was the narrative until September, when AMD announced plans to unify RDNA and CDNA into a single «UDNA» architecture. At the time, AMD said the new approach would be much easier for developers, though that implies that there are software developers creating games and, say, large language models at the same time, which seems unlikely.

Whatever the merits of the new approach, expectations in September were that UDNA would probably take a little while to hit gaming PCs. RDNA 4 is coming early in the new year and much had already been rumoured about its supposed but as yet unofficial successor, RDNA 5.

So, the assumption was that gaming graphics would make the jump to UDNA after RDNA 5. But no, not according to the latest rumour on Chiphell (via PC Guide). Established leaker zhangzhonghao claims that RDNA 5 is toast and that AMD is readying a UDNA-derived family of GPUs to succeed RDNA 4.

What's more, the poster says that UDNA will actually be GCN derived. Say what? GCN is the AMD graphics architecture that preceded RDNA and first appeared in 2012 in the Radeon HD 7000 family of GPUs. But GCN did not, in fact, die with the release of RDNA in 2019. Instead, it forked off into CDNA. So, if you can forgive all the acronyms, the idea is that UDNA is a development of CDNA, which in turn has its origins in GCN.

Now, it's worth pointing out that the notion of «unified» graphics architectures isn't quite what it first seems.