AMD reveals plans to unify its data center and consumer GPU architectures

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will unify the architectures that power its data center and consumer graphics cards.

Jack Huynh, the executive who leads the AMD unit that develops the chips, disclosed the plan in a Tom’s Hardware interview published today.

AMD offers two sets of graphics processing units. The first product line, which targets the enterprise market, is based on an architecture called CDNA 3. The architecture is optimized to run artificial intelligence software with a particular emphasis on large language models.

Some of the calculations that an AI model performs while making a decision involve data points with a value set to zero. CDNA 3 can compress such data into a more compact form that takes less GPU capacity to process, which speeds up calculations. The architecture also includes several other optimizations designed to speed up AI workloads.

AMD’s consumer graphics cards, in turn, are geared towards running video games rather than LLMs. They’re based on an architecture called RDNA 3. One of the features that sets the design apart from CNDA 3 is its better support for ray tracing, a technique used by many video games to render lighting and shadow effects.

In today’s interview, Huynh detailed that AMD plans to merge RDNA and CDNA into a single chip architecture. That future technology is set to underpin all the company’s GPUs. He cited three main reasons for the decision to adopt a unified design.

The first reason is that developing one GPU architecture instead of two will enable AMD’s engineering organization to operate more efficiently. According to Huynh, another factor behind the change in direction is that RDNA, the chipmaker’s consumer GPU architecture, has certain design limitations. These limitations have made it challenging for AMD’s engineers to upgrade the architecture’s memory components.

A unified chip architecture will benefit third-party developers as well, Huynh said. Optimizing an application for one chip architecture is simpler than for two, which should ease software teams’ work.

Huynh also provided an update about AMD’s plans for the top-end consumer GPU market. The segment is currently led by rival Nvidia Corp., which has an estimated 88% share of chip shipments. AMD accounts for the remaining 12%.

According to Huynh, AMD will prioritize lower-cost graphics cards going forward. The company plans to grow its presence in that market before switching its focus back to competing with Nvidia’s top-end consumer GPUs. Huynh explained that the decision has to do with developer adoption.

The level of demand for a consumer GPU is heavily influenced by the number of video games that are optimized to run on it. AMD believes that its increasing share of the lower-end GPU market will convince more developers to optimize their games for its chips. Once it has built that go-to-market foundation, the chipmaker will be in a better position to take on Nvidia in the top-end GPU segment.

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