AMD has seemeingly inadvertently confirmed its upcoming Radeon RX 8600 and RX 8800 desktop GPUs through recent updates to its ROCm (Radeon Open Compute) libraries. The GPUs, which are expected to be part of AMD's RDNA 4 architecture, appeared in code changes (h/t VideoCardz), hinting at active development and future releases. We say "seemingly" as it's possible to fake credentials, but assuming they're real, an AMD employee committed updates to the ROCm repository.
The latest update references to "gfx12_rx8800" and "gfx12_rx8600" alongside existing "gfx11_rx7900" entries. This suggests "gfx12" denotes a new GPU architecture, and RX 8800/RX 8600 represent families of cards. A changelog entry explicitly mentions "add nav4x arch," confirming these GPUs are part of the next-gen Navi 4X series expected to power AMD’s upcoming Radeon line-up.
While the update doesn't reveal specific details such as specifications or release dates, the unexpected inclusion of the RX 8600 and RX 8800 in these libraries offers an early glimpse of AMD’s plans for its next-generation desktop GPU line-up. It seems that AMD is preparing to launch mid-range (RX 8600) and high-performance (RX 8800) graphics cards to succeed its RDNA3-based predecessors, the Radeon RX 7600 and RX 7800 series.
Just last week AMD's chief executive Lisa Su confirmed during its Q3 earnings call that the first products based on the all-new RDNA 4 architecture will launch by early 2025. "In addition to a strong increase in gaming performance, RDNA 4 delivers significantly higher ray tracing performance, and adds new AI capabilities. We are on track to launch the first RDNA 4 GPUs in early 2025."
AMD is expected to showcase its new Radeon RX 8000 series of GPUs during press event on 6 January at CES 2025 with a rollout of the new products in the following weeks.
Save the date 🗓️Join us for the @AMD Press Event on Monday, January 6, at 11 AM PT.Excited to share the stage with some incredible special guests as we unveil our next generation of innovation across gaming, AI PC, and commercial. You won’t want to miss it! 🎮💻✨Catch the… pic.twitter.com/IadsTDZfTxDecember 3, 2024
AMD’s ROCm is an open-source software platform for high-performance computing and AI workloads. It provides tools for GPU programming, libraries for machine learning, and supports open standards like OpenCL. New GPU support in ROCm requires developers to update code, often shared via GitHub.
Considering Intel’s newly announced (coming next week) second-gen Arc GPUs based on the Battlemage architecture, it will be interesting to see how AMD prices its upcoming line-up, especially the entry-level RX 8600.
In other related news, AMD's unreleased Radeon RX 8800 XT graphics card recently surfaced on power supply manufacturer Seasonic's wattage calculator webpage. While there is no official confirmation, the leaked information suggests that the card will come with a 220W TDP (Thermal Design Power). If this holds true, then the newer RX 8800 XT could potentially draw about 43W less that its predecessor, the Radeon RX 7800 XT.
