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AMD RDNA 2: Radeon Pro W6800 and W6600 start in the professional sector

Jun 9, 2021

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AMD itself has already teased the Radeon Pro W6000 series, but the official presentation will only take place today. With this, the company is no longer sending the RDNA-2 architecture to gamer graphics cards, but also to the professional market. With the Radeon Pro W6800, W6600 and W6600M there will be three different models.

The Radeon Pro W6800 is – at least temporarily – the flagship model. This relies on the large Navi-21-GPU, of the 80 physically present Compute Units only 60 are activated, which corresponds to 3,840 FP32-ALUs. This means that the Radeon Pro W6800 is configured exactly like the Radeon RX 6800, while the RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT each go one better.

Apart from the 60 CUs, AMD mentions a theoretical computing power of 17.83 FP32-TFLOPS for the Radeon Pro W6800, which corresponds to a GPU clock of around 2,320 MHz. This means that the professional RDNA-2 graphics card would clock higher than its comparable consumer counterpart. The 256-bit memory interface, the memory clock of 8,000 MHz and the 128 MB Infinity Cache are absolutely identical. When it comes to memory expansion, however, AMD goes to the limit: While players get 16 GB, there is double 32 gigabytes of VRAM for professionals. The peak board power is 250 watts, an 8-pin and a 6-pin power plug are required for this. The dual-slot cooler is a classic radial design that has nothing in common with the desktop coolers. Monitors can be operated on six Mini DisplayPorts.

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Radeon Pro W6600 comes with Navi 23

The Radeon Pro W6600, on the other hand, has no counterpart, at least on the desktop, because after the Radeon RX 6600M for notebooks, Navi 23, the third and at the same time smallest RDNA-2 GPU (11.06 billion transistors on 237 mm²), celebrates its desktop premiere on the professional graphics card. 28 Compute Units and thus 1,792 FP32-ALUs are available, according to the rumor mill there should be physically 32 CUs on Navi 23. A computing power of 10.4 FP32-TFLOPS speaks for a GPU clock of very high 2.9 GHz, the TDP is specified with up to 100 watts, a 6-pin power connector is required accordingly. 32 MB Infinity Cache are available, and there is also a 128-bit memory interface. The 7,000 MHz GDDR6 memory has a capacity of 8 GB. The Radeon Pro W6600 comes with a single-slot cooler including a radial fan. Monitors can be controlled from four DisplayPort outputs.

The Radeon Pro 6600M as the third in the group is not a desktop graphics card, but is intended for notebooks. In terms of specifications, the Radeon Pro 6600M is absolutely identical to the Radeon Pro 6600, with one exception. Depending on the notebook, the power consumption is 65 to 90 watts, which accordingly has an (previously unknown) influence on the clock rates and thus also the performance.

AMD gives for the Radeon Pro W6800 has a suggested retail price of 2,249 US dollars, the Radeon Pro W6600 costs 649 US dollars.

AMD – Own benchmarks for Radeon Pro with RDNA 2

As usual, AMD also offers a number of its own benchmarks, but these should be viewed with great caution as manufacturer tests. According to its own information, the Radeon Pro W6800, which is loud at 46 decibels, should be on average 79 percent faster than the Radeon Pro W5700 with RDNA. The Infinity Cache is supposed to increase the performance in professional applications by up to 10 percent on the graphics card.

As an opponent for the Radeon Pro W6800, AMD has selected itself Nvidia's RTX A5000, which should be beaten differently depending on the software. The faster RTX A6000, however, is not mentioned.

New feature brings more FPS in the viewport

Finally, a new feature called “Radeon Pro Viewport Boost” is worth mentioning, which is intended to massively accelerate the performance of the viewport navigation in compatible programs before the actual rendering. AMD speaks of up to 39 percent more performance with the Radeon Pro W6800 in the viewport in Epic Twinmotion, up to 43 percent in Autodesk 3ds Max and up to 114 percent in Autodesk Revit. Further programs with Radeon Pro Viewport Boost are to follow.

ComputerBase has received information about this article from AMD under NDA. The only requirement was the earliest possible publication time.