AMD will officially reveal its Big Navi graphics cards during today’s digital showcase event, which may also provide a sneak peek at the potential performance power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Kicking off at 4pm UK time (12 pm ET), AMD will use this video event as an opportunity to promote its RX 6000 graphics cards, with release date, price and specs all set to be revealed.
Related: AMD Big Navi
However, AMD will also likely give us a look at the performance power of the new graphics cards and show off exciting new features such as real-time ray tracing. And since the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are using the exact same GPU architecture (RDNA 2) as the RX 6000 graphics cards, such demos could well give us a glimpse of what the next-gen consoles are capable of.
One area that’s particularly interesting is Hardware Accelerated DirectX Raytracing. If we’re not mistaken, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is the only game running on RDNA 2 architecture that has publicly showcased the ray tracing visuals so far, and even then it was just a passing glance rather than a detailed analysis. We’ve seen absolutely nothing on Xbox Series X and Series S in terms of raytracing, despite Microsoft confirming the next-gen consoles support the technology.
We have of course seen Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards running games with ray tracing for a couple of years now, but since that’s operating on completely different hardware there’s a chance there could be some drastic differences on AMD’s architecture, for better or worse. Games that support Nvidia’s RTX ray tracing aren’t guaranteed to work with AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture too, with the likes of Minecraft, Fortnite and CyberPunk all likely requiring significant updates before being able to feature the upgraded visuals on RX 6000, PS5 and Xbox Series X hardware.
Related: AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
AMD may announce more games that will support ray tracing on RDNA 2 hardware during today’s event. So far there are only a handful of third-party games confirmed to support the light-rendering technology, with Watch Dogs Legion and Devil May Cry 5 the only noticeable standouts. AMD will want it RX 6000 graphics cards to have the best start possible, and so today will be the perfect opportunity for the company to announce additional game support.
We’ll also likely get a look at features such as Variable Rate Shading, while AMD may even offer an alternative to Nvidia’s DLSS. Regardless, we’re banking on there being some exciting reveals for PS5 and Xbox Series X fans, so make sure to watch the AMD video presentation once it kicks off at 4pm UK time today.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
