The discussion as to what exactly to expect from AMD's upcoming flagship GPU series (Big Navi) has been ongoing. Personally I expect a GDDR6 based product, however, there might be an enthusiast and enterprise-class product where some form of HBM2 memory is used. And guess what just popped up at Twitter?
We're not 100% sure what to make of the photo posted by a Twitter user named CyberPunkCat, but he claims to have obtained a photo originating from Hynix with a GPU listed as unknown. You can, however, see a 5950 XT reference in the text next to it, 5950 XT. And that name has been popping up several times now. Hynix refers to the GPU as D32310/15, which earlier on also has been spotted at an RRA entry, a South Korean organization that certifies chips.
Now the weird stuff, we'd have no idea as to why Hynix (memory makes) would list GPU specs, but the photo shows just that, as it reveals 80 compute units, multiplied by 64 shaders per cluster that is 5120 shaders processors. Which is double that of NAVI 10. You can see 320 texture memory units listed and 96 ROPs. If this is all true, then AMD might be able to double up perf as long as it's not a dual-GPU based product.
Of course, for Hynix, it is all about the inclusion of memory, and that is listed at 24 GB / 4096-bit HBM2e at 2,048 GB/s, e.g. an enhanced fabrication node of HBM2 which indeed would launch in 2020. In the past, HBM types of memory have proved to be a devil's dilemma, as yields dramatically decrease when applying it making it a very expensive process as well as the very expensive type of memory to purchase due to low its volume production. As such if this rumor is true, we're not even sure if the product is aimed at the consumer market.
This post falls within the typical rumor mill as we do seriously need to question the validity of the photo. We also place some questions at a configuration of 4096-bits and then 24GB (you'd expect 8, 16 or even 32 GB) as well as the actual ROP count. Hynix did announce HBM2e to be released in 2020 but talked 3.6Gb/s at the time, so we're not sure if anything faster has been planned or announced either. The more I look at the photo, the more I think it's a fake, as there are legitimate doubts as, it is the memory configuration that makes the whole picture seem unreliable. 4096-bits = four HBM stacks, not three stacks multiplied by eight GB per HBM2e chip. But I'll leave that as-is, to judge for yourself.
Update February 26th, 7:53 - The SK Hynix team has contacted us indeed verifying our expectations, as well the technical configuration did not make much sense. The photo is not a real one.:
Seoul, February 26, 2020
Regarding recent fake news about SK hynix’s memory specifications and info sheet on AMD’s next generation GPU, on which some media have reported since February 24 (PST), SK hynix hereby announces that the company has not created and distributed such specifications as well as the document asserted to be leaked by an internal source.
AMD Big Navi Spotted? - Updated, the twitter photo is a confirmed fake
