AMD’s next generation of graphics architecture is coalescing before our very eyes. A freshly unearthed patent application, published in mid-December 2018, shows a new design for AMD’s post-GCN, high-bandwidth, low-power, stream processors. And there’s a heavy emphasis on improving the parallel processing compute power of its next-gen GPUs and increasing their efficiency at the same time. And it has a faint whiff of Nvidia’s SM design about it too.

This isn’t the AMD Navi architecture, however – that is reportedly the last spin of the Graphics Core Next design introduced in 2012 – this is a new take on the stream processor for the GPU architecture to follow it, potentially in 2020. There has been speculation that AMD Arcturus would be the 7nm+ design on its current GPU roadmap, suggesting a 2020 launch for this whole new graphics processor design.

Now, you’re going to have to bear with me through this as I’m a relative dunce when it comes to the architectural specifics of actually engineering a new graphics core. So there is going to be some rather speculative assessments based on what we can glean from the dense technical language the patent application is couched in. This is where I wish I’d spent more time concentrating at school…