I guess you need to start learning and investigating, I'm sure if you learned the right languages, learned a lot about gpu design, you could fashion programs that could test specific functionality, and then see what changes, from that you can infer what they've done.
Or
Find where amds gpu designers hang out, get them very drunk, and ask them nicely.
I suspect that compute mode is simpler than gpu mode, and maybe some functionality is bypassed, in the days of sub unit clock speeds, it may have allowed a slight clock speed increase as a result of the silicon that was deactivated.