While Zen 3 and RDNA 2 CPU and GPU technology is still fresh out of the oven, AMD is already talking about the dramatic efficiency and performance gains planned for Zen 4 and RDNA 3.

Speaking to investor relations website The Street, AMD tycoon Rick Bergman explained that more of the same can be expected in AMD's next CPU and GPU architecture, which will be announced in 2022.

This means that RDNA 2 and Zen 3 will build on the impressive progress made over the previous generation; with RDNA 3, the primary focus will again be on efficiency and performance per watt.

"In many ways it is very important," said Mr. Krishnamoorthy. Because if the power is too high, as we are seeing from our competitors, potential users will suddenly have to purchase larger power supplies and very sophisticated cooling solutions. And in many ways, very importantly, it will actually drive up the cost of the board significantly. And invariably, retail prices will have to go up or GPU costs will have to go down, and we focused on that in RDNA 2, and we're focusing on that in RDNA 3 as well," he says.

Naturally, there is a bit of ridicule there for Nvidia's power-hungry RTX 30 series Ampere GPUs. But Bergman also suggests that AMD's Infinity Cache technology may be even more important for RDNA 3.

"To some extent, or related to Infinity Cache. If you have been involved in graphics for any length of time, you will notice that there is a significant correlation between memory bandwidth and performance. Therefore, we typically increase memory speed and bus width to improve performance. Unfortunately, both of these will drive up power," Bergman explains.

AMD's ability to remain competitive while using a relatively modest 256-bit memory bus is arguably one of the most impressive aspects of the RDNA 2 and the Radeon RX 6000 family of GPUs, at least according to the benchmark numbers provided so far Whatever AMD's Zen CPU architecture is, RDNA 3 has the potential to be the graphics architecture that truly delivers on AMD's broader philosophy. After all, Zen 1 and 2 were good. With Zen 3, however, AMD has a clear lead over its competitors.

Regarding Zen, Bergman stated that Zen 4 will be as comprehensive a redesign as Zen 3 compared to previous architectures. [Zen 4 will rethink everything from cache to branch prediction to the number of gates in the execution pipeline. Everything will be scrutinized to extract more performance."

Manufacturing nodes are, of course, a major component of CPU and GPU design, but Bergman's comments suggest that AMD is not going to be particularly aggressive in adopting new nodes for its GPUs. Although AMD has already indicated that the Zen 4 will support TSMC's 5nm technology, as used in the latest A14 chip in Apple's iPhone and new ARM-powered Macs, Bergmann was more cautious about the prospect of moving the RDNA 3 to a new node that would include the latest EUV technology.

"Certainly, EUV is an option for that process and there are no technical constraints. And there are no significant technical advantages either...EUV is certainly an option for that process, there are no technical constraints holding us back, and there are no significant technical advantages...There are further nodes at 7nm that we will leverage over time, and we are looking at the possibility of moving to 7nm, and we are looking at the possibility of moving to 7nm at some point in the future. But again, we are not going to disclose this," Bergman said.

Of course, until we see actual products, this is all talk. But AMD has certainly been delivering on its promises recently in both CPUs and graphics. With each successful new product, AMD is building credibility, and when they say that Zen 4 and RDNA 3 will be an improvement over Zen 3 and RDNA 2, we have to take them seriously. Likewise, it is a very exciting prospect for PCs.