Leaked RDNA 4 features suggest AMD drive to catch up in Ray Tracing — doubled RT intersect engine could come to PS5 Pro
There's a non-zero chance that PS5 Pro will be the earliest way for gamers to try out RDNA 4, or that it will be announced first.
A partially redacted data sheet highlighting the expected ray tracing features coming to RDNA 4 GPUs has been shared by well-known hardware information leaker @Kepler_L2. We expect the features to also be present in the hybrid RDNA 3 + RDNA 4 RT design coming to PS5 Pro when it launches (presumably) later this year or early next year. The leaked data points seem to confirm that advancing ray tracing technology is going to be a major focus of RDNA 4.
Some of the new RT features coming with gfx12/RDNA4. Most if not all of these should be in the PS5 Pro too 🙂 pic.twitter.com/AO5HaxJlMKJuly 21, 2024
Leaked RDNA 4 Ray Tracing Features
- Double Ray Tracing Intersect Engine
- RT instance node transform
- 64B (byte) RT node
- Ray Tracing Tri Pair optimization
- Change flags encoded in barycentrics to simplify detection of procedural nodes
- BVH Footprint Improvement
- RT support for OBB and Instance Node Intersection
Previously, leaks have pointed toward RDNA 4 delivering a massive overhaul of AMD's existing RT hardware in the interest of turning around a more performant, more competitive solution to Nvidia's market-leading RT technology. The peak of RDNA 3 GPU architecture, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, still crumbles compared to the yet-older RTX 3090 Ti when put in ray tracing workloads — yet rasterized performance still exceeds Nvidia's powerful RTX 4080. Any gains to RT performance for AMD are sorely needed.
Of the listed improvements, the ones that seem most promising are "Double Ray Tracing Intersect Engine", "64B RT node", and "Ray Tracing Tri Pair Optimization". These all seem to point toward significant improvements in both ray tracing precision and ray tracing performance.
Other listed improvements also seem characteristic of precision and efficiency improvements in general, which may mean AMD is hoping to match the yet greater RT fidelity offered by ray reconstruction. Although the AI hardware in RDNA 3 has thus far been solely dedicated to AI workloads rather than RT or even FSR image scaling, sadly.
Until we see some real RT benchmarks on RDNA 4 hardware, we really can't glean much meaningful information from these points. While the PS5 Pro is expected to partially utilize RDNA 4 for boosted RT performance, it'll still mainly be built around the RDNA 3 graphics architecture. Meanwhile, mainstream RDNA 4 GPUs aren't even expected to be revealed until the CES of next year, as per another leak from @Kepler_L2 given earlier this month.
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Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.
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usertests yet rasterized performance still exceeds Nvidia's cutting-edge RTX 4090
7900 XTX beats 4090 in raster? Not as far as I can tell.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt-review-shooting-for-the-top/4
I don't know what kind of raytracing improvement RDNA4 would have if this leak is true. "2x" sounds possible when you read "Double Ray Tracing Intersect Engine". But it's chasing a moving target since the 5090 and 5080 will be out around the same time.
Anyone know if Metal Messiah got yeeted? -
Blacksad999
Right. The 7900xtx is nowhere near a 4090 in rasterization, and is comparable to a 4080/4080 Super.usertests said:7900 XTX beats 4090 in raster? Not as far as I can tell.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt-review-shooting-for-the-top/4
I don't know what kind of raytracing improvement RDNA4 would have if this leak is true. "2x" sounds possible when you read "Double Ray Tracing Intersect Engine". But it's chasing a moving target since the 5090 and 5080 will be out around the same time.
Anyone know if Metal Messiah got yeeted?
Kind of a big flub from a tech news website. -
TheyCallMeContra To be fair, I directly linked the benchmarks- but yeah, my bad. Pushing the edit through the appropriate channels as we speak.Reply
These human mistakes should at least help dissuade the Metal Messiah (RIP in whatever, I don't really care) narrative that I was auto-generating these, though. -
TheyCallMeContra usertests said:I don't know what kind of raytracing improvement RDNA4 would have if this leak is true. "2x" sounds possible when you read "Double Ray Tracing Intersect Engine". But it's chasing a moving target since the 5090 and 5080 will be out around the same time.
Also, more directly on-topic than quick error fix (my bad once more)— yeah, it's really hard to quantify what performance gains to expect from this, not that I said or implied 2X anywhere in this piece. But since ray tracing is primarily built around detecting how rays intersect with each other and geometry in a scene, having two intersect engines is most likely a very good thing for RDNA 4. -
Nicholas Steel I don't think AMD has a card that competes with the 4090, the 7900XTX might beat the 4080 Super in Rasterization. All that needed to change regarding the article was clarifying you're comparing similar tier cards.Reply
Of course, there's still the issue of Nvidia smacking it about in terms of Image Upscale quality (DLSS) and Ray Tracing giving the 4080 Super a rather large edge over the 7900XTX's slight rasterization advantage. -
TheyCallMeContra Nicholas Steel said:I don't think AMD has a card that competes with the 4090, the 7900XTX might beat the 4080 Super in Rasterization. All that needed to change regarding the article was clarifying you're comparing similar tier cards.
This is what I meant, yes. The newsroom can be a little chaotic on the weekends. Once an editor switches that digit over, all should be right in the universe. Even moreso if AMD actually starts providing competitive RT performance. -
vanadiel007 I am perfectly happy with my 7900XTX and will skip the next generation of either manufacturer.Reply
People have to stop gleaming over numbers and data, and instead enjoy their cards.
It's similar to cars, where so many chase horsepower and zero to 60 (or 100) that they forget to enjoy driving their car. -
thisisaname
<post removed>TheyCallMeContra said:To be fair, I directly linked the benchmarks- but yeah, my bad. Pushing the edit through the appropriate channels as we speak.
These human mistakes should at least help dissuade the Metal Messiah (RIP in whatever, I don't really care) narrative that I was auto-generating these, though. -
TheyCallMeContra thisisaname said:Just what an AI would say :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
At this point, I've heard this enough times that I'm beginning to suspect these AI accusations themselves are auto-generated. They might as well be for the lack of originality. I am Begging you to find some actual original material if you're insistent on being a bottom-barrel hater.