AMD Readies APUs With RDNA-Based 'Cyan Skillfish' Graphics

AMD appears to be working on an accelerated processing unit (APU) with a built-in graphics processor codenamed "Cyan Skillfish" and based on the first-generation RDNA architecture (Navi 1x). The APU will likely target various consumer, as well as embedded applications that can take advantage of a relatively modern GPU architecture.

AMD engineers have submitted driver code that enables AMD's Radeon "Cyan Skillfish" in the upcoming Linux 5.15 OS release, Phoronix reported today. The actual patches that enable the Cyan Skillfish GPU released earlier indicate that the graphics processor is based on the RDNA architecture and belongs to the Navi 10-series family of GPUs.  

While AMD's RDNA 2 architecture is indisputably better in terms of performance than the original RDNA introduced two years ago, the latter has a key advantage: smaller die size, due to a lack of ray tracing logic and generally higher transistor density. Smaller die size means lower cost, and for some applications, that's the key priority. 

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • Joseph_138
    Coming soon, to a Best Buy near you.
    Reply
  • deesider
    It seems that AMD's APU strategy is to simply keep a bit ahead of Intel. I guess the concern is that being too ambitious and releasing a really strong APU would cannibalise sales of their GPUs. A pity really.
    Reply