Radeon Technologies
And then Laura Smith stepped onto the stage with the Radeon Technologies Group to talk about what’s coming for 2020 from Radeon. The focus was very gaming focused. Many exciting gaming titles were launched in 2019. Many gamers use Radeon hardware. You’ll find Radeon hardware in discrete graphics, consoles and Macs.
FreeSync
One new announcement is that AMD FreeSync is now going to be separated into different categories to help you figure out what displays support which features. For example, if you see a display with FreeSync it means a stutter and tear-free experience. If you see the new FreeSync Premium logo this will indicate the display also has the added capability of a 120Hz+ refresh rate, and LFC. LFC stands for low framerate compensation. Third, the FreeSync Premium Pro logo will indicate the included addition of supporting HDR on the display. This will help differentiate the different levels of FreeSync support in monitors.
David’s Notes: The FreeSync Premium Pro requirements do not specify a certain level of HDR and any level of HDR will allow that box to be checked for the monitor. Therefore, an HDR 400 monitor can carry the badge just the same as an HDR 800 monitor.
2019 Radeon Launches
AMD then went over what 2019 brought us in terms of Radeon. We saw the release of AMD Adrenalin 2020 Edition software in December. This helps bring new software features to the experience, plus overall performance improvements compared to the previous yearly release.
AMD went on to also talk about the RDNA architecture that backs the AMD Radeon 5000 series GPUs that were released last year. RDNA allows a 25% performance per clock increase and a 50% performance per watt increase. It supports 7nm and PCIe 4.0 and GDDR6. It also brings a new media engine and display engine.
This architecture is a foundation for products to come. The first product with RDNA was the Radeon RX 5700 series and was followed up with the Radeon RX 5500 series.