So, what exactly does GCN mean in a GPU?
And should you care about it or is it just a marketing buzzword?
What is GCN Architecture?
GCN is a graphics processing architecture launched by AMD in January 2012.
Not to mention, its scalable design is what made PlayStation 4 and Xbox One possible.
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This 1st generation GCN product was also the first to support DX11.1.
AMDs Oland, Cape Verde, Tahiti, and Pitcairn series GPUs are comprised of this architecture.
In later years, the GCN 1 lineup also supported DX12 and Vulkan API thanks to their asynchronous compute.
This push in asynchronous compute with F32 and F64 Ops really paid off in the long run.
It made GCN cards more futureproof than their competitions(Nvidia) offering.
And considering the added pressure from the competition, it was time for a new GCN generation.
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GCN 2
March 2013, the optimization phase for GCN architecture begins.
This architecture was seen in AMDs Bonaire and Hawaii series GPUs.
Not to mention the improved cache and modified ALU design helped a lot to increase the overall tesselation performance.
The memory subsystem was coupled with ROP to provide an added boost in compute workloads and gaming.
The number of ROPs(render output units) also increased dramatically.
The most noteworthy achievement of GCN2 architecture is its implementation in PlayStation 4 and Xbox One console lineup.
2nd generation GCN architecture also ushered in FreeSync support for high refresh rate gaming monitors.
This essentially increases the GPU bandwidth by around 20%.
This allowed for improved power efficiency, better-fed ROPs, and a much more efficient memory bus.
Fiji and Tonga AMD GPUs were manufactured based on this 3rd gen GCN architecture.
This effectively introduced unprecedented raw bandwidth, lower latency, and much-improved power efficiency compared to traditional GDDR VRAM.
GCN 4
GCN 4 saw a huge leap in performance and architectural advancement compared to previous generations.
On GCNs fourth iteration, AMD entirely revamped the architectural design from the scratch.
This allowed them to implement newer computational techniques that were much needed to compete against Nvidias Pascal lineup.
GCN 4 not only improved the Delta Color Compression system, but it also added Primitive Discard Accelerator.
Although, this wasnt a completely new design.
It was mainly a refinement of traditional GCN CUs.
GCN vs RDNA: Whats the Difference?
Powerful but underutilized the best way to describe the GCN architecture.
Hence, the arrival of RDNA.
From a technical perspective, it really is a much different and much more refined architecture than GCN.
RDNA uses wave32, a much narrower wavefront than GCNs wave64.
Additionally, each SIMD is wider but the CUs are narrower.
Unlike GCN, two RDNA CUs work in tandem with shared local data.
This effectively reduces bottleneck and boosts IPC by 4x.
It also provides a significant performance and efficiency boost.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the full term of GCN?
GCN stands for Graphics Core Next.
What is the last GCN desktop GPU?
Radeon VII is the last GCN desktop GPU.
Are RDNA GPUs different than GCN ones?
RDNA is a completely different GPU architecture than GCN.
Wrapping Up
Thats about it.
Hopefully, you dont have any confusion about GCN anymore after going through this write-up.
Have a nice day!
