As reported by Phoronix, AMD is reportedly working on a feature called Memory Access at Last Level (MALL) for its Big Navi graphics card. The Linux patches don't explain the what MALL is in detail, but the Linux publication thinks that it has something to do with improving power saving.
Apparently, MALL belongs to AMD's Display Core Next (DCN) 3.0 featureset, but it's not currently available for all Navi-based offerings. For the meantime, only Sienna Cichlid seems to support MALL.
AMD Radeon RX 6000 Specifications*
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Silicon
Codename
Compute Units
Stream Processors
Clock Speed (MHz)
Single-Precision Performance (TFLOPs)
Power Limit (W)
Navi 21
Sienna Cichlid
80
5,120
2,050 - 2,200
21 - 22.5
200 - 238
Navi 22
Navy Flounder
40
2,560
2,500?
12.8?
170
Navi 23
Dimgrey Cavefish
32
2,048
?
?
?
*Specifications are unconfirmed.
Sienna Cichlid's said to feature the Navi 21 silicon, which brings a whopping 5,120 Stream Processors (SPs) to the table. It's unknown of support if MALL will eventually land for Navy Flounder (Navi 22) or Dimgrey Cavefish (Navi 23).
AMD will reveal its Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards on October 28. The new graphics cards come wielding the chipmaker's RDNA 2 architecture that promises 50% more performance per watt in comparison to RDNA 1. It'll be interesting to see how MALL ties in to AMD's claims.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
Well, if it works, great. If it doesn't, it's not like anyone seemed to care anyway. :D
I care. If a gpu can save more power when needed I'm all for that. Even at idle my 2080ti uses more power than I think it should..even if I undervolt it I don't think their power profiles are aggressive enough of maybe it's a matter of capability who knows but when you're paying the electric bill..and every other bill for that matter then things like this become more important. Especially if the gpu is used for more than just gaming.
