AMD to return to high-end graphics cards with 2020 release of 'Nvidia killer' Navi 23

AMD is planning a series of Navi-based GPUs in 2020 - including a return to the high-end of the graphics card market

AMD is set to release high-end, Navi 23-based GPUs in 2020 that have been described internally as ‘Nvidia killers'.

The Navi 20-based GPUs and graphics cards will feature much larger die-sizes than the first Navi 10-based cards AMD introduced in July, the mid-range Radeon RX 5700 series.

However, the Nvidia-killers won't appear before mid-2020, when Nvidia will no doubt have developed even more powerful GPUs and/or reduced the price of its flagship RTX 2080 graphics cards.

That's all according to Red Gaming, which cites an anonymous source within the company discussing both Navi 21 and Navi 23, both of which should emerge in 2020.

AMD focused its first Navi developments on the smaller die-sized Navi 10 as there was "less to go wrong". It would also provide a proof of concept for both Navi and the RDNA microarchitecture introduced this year. Nevertheless, Navi 10 was anything but straightforward, with Red Gaming's source all but confirming that the development needed to go back to the drawing board a number of times to overcome some of the challenges it presented.

Navi 23, according to the source, will be made on a larger die size with a second-generation or refreshed RDNA architecture.

And AMD is also expected to introduce ray-tracing technology. While the company has been tight-lipped about its plans for ray-tracing, both Microsoft and Sony have indicated that their next-generation consoles will feature ray-tracing graphics - and their CPU and graphics technology is being developed by AMD.

Both Navi 21 and Navi 23-based products will be coming out around about the same time as Nvidia launches its GeForce 30 line, which will feature a shrink from 12nm to 7nm process architectures. The products will also feature more mature ray-tracing technology.

And both the GeForce 30 and Navi 20 series GPUs will be released at a time when the market is set to hot-up, with Intel expected to launch its own Xe-branded line of discrete GPUs and graphics cards. While it has integrated graphics technology into its CPUs since 2010, these have typically not been as competitive as the graphics offer by Nvidia or AMD, whether integrated or as discrete graphics cards.

Intel's push is being led by former AMD senior vice president of chief architect of Radeon Technologies Group Raja Koduri, who heads up a visual computing now number 4,500 employees, according to Barron's.

AMD's developments follow on from the successful release of the 3000-series Ryzen CPUs, and its second-generation Epyc chips, which have already won-over Google as a customer.