AMD Dimgrey Cavefish Reportedly Points To Navi 23 GPU

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Something fishy is going on.

Shutterstock image of a circuit
(Image credit: Shuterstock)

Continuing with AMD's tendency for fishy codenames, the chipmaker (via @Komachi Ensaka) has added support for a Dimgrey Cavefish graphics card to Mesa 20.3-devel. Much like Sienna Cichlid and Navy Flounder, Dimgrey Cavefish is presumed to be a RDNA 2 graphics cards that'll surely unsettle the gaming graphics card hierachy as we know it.

AMD has already committed to lift the curtains for the Radeon RX 6000 series, which have been popularly baptized as Big Navi, on October 28. Therefore, it's not too surprising that the chipmaker's trio of next-generation graphics cards are doing their rounds in the wild. We don't have any factual information on AMD's RDNA 2 product stack so it's wise to treat the specifications that are going around the hardware world with a truckload of salt.

Assuming that each Compute Unit (CU) in AMD's RDNA 2 architecture still equates to 64 Stream Processors (SPs), we can piece together some of the rumored specifications for AMD's Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards.

AMD Radeon RX 6000 Specifications*

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Graphics CardCodenameSiliconCompute UnitsStream Processors
Radeon RX 6900Sienna CichlidNavi 21805,120
Radeon RX 6800, RX 6700Navy FlounderNavi 22402,560
Radeon RX 6600, RX 6500Dimgrey CavefishNavi 23??

*Specifications are unconfirmed.

At the current time, Sienna Cichlid is associated with the Navi 21 silicon. If the current prediction is accurate, Sienna Cichlid could end up with 80 CUs or 5,120 SPs. This would mean that Sienna Cichlid is likely to be the flagship, in which event, would be the Radeon RX 6900.

If Sienna Cichlid corresponds to Navi 21, then Navy Flounder should be Navi 22. Thus far, the silicon is rumored to bring 40 CUs, which amounts to 2,560 SPs. There is a good possibility that Navy Flounder could be the direct replacement for the current Radeon RX 5700 (XT). If that's the case, Navy Flounder must be the Radeon RX 6700 although we can't discard the probability of it being a Radeon RX 6800.

Dimgrey Cavefish (Image credit: Freedesktop.org)

The Dimgrey Cavefish is the latest RDNA 2 codename to pop up. Common wisdom tells us that Dimgrey Cavefish must be Navi 23, the last piece to the puzzle. The only logical assumption is that Navi 23 will be featured in either the Radeon RX 6600 or RX 6500, depending on AMD's intentions.

It's uncertain which graphics card AMD will announce on October 28. The chipmaker vaguely used the Radeon RX 6000 moniker. If we look back at RDNA 1, AMD started with the Radeon RX 5700 (XT) and eventually went down the pile. Being optimistic, we would love for AMD to reveal Big Navi because the current graphics card market needs some competition in the higher tiers. Nvidia's recent GeForce RTX 3080  has proven to be a tough cookie, and Big Navi will likely be the most worthy competitor.

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Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

19 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Chung Leong
    The XSX has 52 CUs while the PS5 has 36. If the RX 6700 XT is Navy Flounder, how will AMD price it? No one will pay $449 for below console-level graphics. Even at $349 it isn't that good of a bargain.

    The Dimgrey Cavefish should do well, assuming it's a low-end 20-CU part. Ray-tracing for less then $200 will generate excitement, especially if it's accompanied by new AI-driven upscaling tech. Will AMD launch it in October, that's the question.
    Reply
  • King_V
    If we look back at RDNA 1, AMD started with the Radeon RX 5700 (XT) and eventually went down the pile. Being optimistic, we would love for AMD to reveal Big Navi because the current graphics card market needs some competition in the higher tiers. Nvidia's recent GeForce RTX 3080 has proven to be a tough cookie, and Big Navi will likely be the most worthy competitor.

    I'll admit I'd like to see the big boy first. But, I wonder if it would work better for AMD, to take advantage of the holiday shopping season, to first produce the model likely to see the highest volume of sales.

    No idea, marketing's not even close to being my thing, but the thought did occur to me.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    King_V said:
    But, I wonder if it would work better for AMD, to take advantage of the holiday shopping season, to first produce the model likely to see the highest volume of sales.
    As much as I'd like to see the more budget-oriented stuff this year, I doubt AMD has enough wafer starts to aim for high-volume first on RDNA2 + Zen 3. It'll all be higher margins parts first simply due to supply constraints.

    Edit: ... and the PS5 + XBX-X/S.
    Reply
  • HaggyGT
    Chung Leong said:
    The XSX has 52 CUs while the PS5 has 36. If the RX 6700 XT is Navy Flounder, how will AMD price it? No one will pay $449 for below console-level graphics. Even at $349 it isn't that good of a bargain.

    The Dimgrey Cavefish should do well, assuming it's a low-end 20-CU part. Ray-tracing for less then $200 will generate excitement, especially if it's accompanied by new AI-driven upscaling tech. Will AMD launch it in October, that's the question.

    What are you talking about? The price vs consoles is irrelevant for most PC owners, I for example have no interest in a console for whatever price it is. Most people that use PC's are multitasking, console you're stuck doing one thing, playing a game. I'm browsing the web, talking to a friend/family, while playing a game or working, while watching a show, across 2-3 monitors.
    Reply
  • hotaru.hino
    Chung Leong said:
    The XSX has 52 CUs while the PS5 has 36. If the RX 6700 XT is Navy Flounder, how will AMD price it? No one will pay $449 for below console-level graphics. Even at $349 it isn't that good of a bargain.
    This point is kind of moot because Sony and Microsoft tend to sell their consoles as loss leaders and make their profits off software sales and subscriptions. AMD and its AIB's have to sell video cards for profit.

    I mean, if you'd like AMD to lose money...
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    hotaru.hino said:
    This point is kind of moot because Sony and Microsoft tend to sell their consoles as loss leaders and make their profits off software sales and subscriptions.
    Last times I heard, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony were roughly breaking even on their console sales. Though Microsoft is going all-out on games-as-a-service this time around with financing plans that tie the purchases to its Game Pass Ultimate service.
    Reply
  • Chung Leong
    hotaru.hino said:
    This point is kind of moot because Sony and Microsoft tend to sell their consoles as loss leaders and make their profits off software sales and subscriptions. AMD and its AIB's have to sell video cards for profit.

    According to my observation, PC gamers care a lot about their own bragging right. They're far less concerned about the profitability of equipment manufacturers.
    Reply
  • hotaru.hino
    InvalidError said:
    Last times I heard, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony were roughly breaking even on their console sales. Though Microsoft is going all-out on games-as-a-service this time around with financing plans that tie the purchases to its Game Pass Ultimate service.
    If this was recent, then yes, eventually the hardware manufacturing costs are cheap enough to make a profit. But initially, Microsoft and Sony sold their consoles with no intent on making a profit on them. Nintendo's the only one that manages to break even or sell at a profit from the get go.

    EDIT: The rumor mill is that the PS5 and XBSX cost about $460-$520 to make (https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ps5-xbox-series-5-could-be-500-dollars/). This is just manufacturing though, the rest of the supply chain could eat up more.

    Chung Leong said:
    According to my observation, PC gamers care a lot about their own bragging right. They're far less concerned about the profitability of equipment manufacturers.
    And they'll pay whatever price it takes to get said bragging rights.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    InvalidError said:
    Last times I heard, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony were roughly breaking even on their console sales. Though Microsoft is going all-out on games-as-a-service this time around with financing plans that tie the purchases to its Game Pass Ultimate service.
    Nintendo claims they have always made money on their consoles, never selling them at a loss or just breaking even starting from day 1. MS and Sony usually sell at a loss on day 1, and start making a profit a year or 2 into release when they release the shrunken down refreshes that are cheaper to produce. Sony, famously, lost huge money on each PS3 they initially sold when they decided to put a bluray player in each. The PS3 reportedly accounted for over $3 billion in losses for Sony in its first 2 years.
    Reply
  • Chung Leong
    InvalidError said:
    As much as I'd like to see the more budget-oriented stuff this year, I doubt AMD has enough wafer starts to aim for high-volume first on RDNA2 + Zen 3. It'll all be higher margins parts first simply due to supply constraints.

    The higher margin RDNA2 part might be the low-end part at this point. Outfitting an underwhelming chip with large among of VRAM is a recipe for negative margin.

    Bloomberg had a story a few days ago about Sony cutting PS5 production target due to low yield on their SoC. I imagine AMD itself is running into problems making large dies on the same process.
    Reply