“Brand new” ray tracing hardware is coming to AMD RDNA 4 GPUs

RDNA 4 may be set to give AMD’s Radeon GPUs a huge ray tracing boost

AMD are being very secretive about their upcoming RDNA 4 graphics architecture. The company has not commented on RDNA 4 in huge detail, and rumour has it that AMD’s high-end RDNA 4 products have all been cancelled. Even so, rumour has it that RDNA 4 will deliver several key architectural leaps for AMD, especially when it comes to ray tracing.

We already know that AMD has major ray tracing (RT) related changes coming to their hardware. Recent PlayStation 5 Pro leaks have confirmed that. Even so, the nature of these architectural changes remain a mystery. Now, a leaker called Kepler_L2 has revealed some details about AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture.

Sadly, this new leak is detail light, but it suggests that big changes are coming with AMD’s next-generation Radeon GPUs. Specifically, the way RDNA 4 does ray tracing acceleration appears to be “brand new”, not an enhanced version of what AMD has released with RDNA 2 and RDNA 3.

RT looks brand new 🤔

— Kepler (@Kepler_L2) April 30, 2024

Based on this report, it looks like the way AMD does ray tracing is getting a complete overhaul. This should be great news for gamers, as this new design should bring with it major performance gains. Remember, AMD’s RDNA 2/3 graphics cards are behind their Nvidia counterparts when it comes to ray tracing. With RDNA 4, this could change.

RDNA3 RT was based on RDNA2 with some improvements. RDNA4 RT looks completely different.

— Kepler (@Kepler_L2) April 30, 2024

AMD needs a major ray tracing boost with RDNA 4

Honestly, AMD needs to deliver a major boost to their ray tracing performance to become competitive with Nvidia. Ray tracing performance is becoming an increasingly important part of GPU/gaming products. AMD needs to deliver major performance gains in this specific area, or they risk becoming irrelevant to performance-focused gamers.

With RDNA 4, AMD’s RT performance should see a major boost. Even so, it remains to be seen if this boost will be enough to boost AMD’s GPU market share.

You can join the discussion on AMD’s RDNA 4 graphics architecture and its new ray tracing accelerators on the OC3D Forums.