AMD confirmed to skip RDNA 4 for Zen 6 APUs: RDNA 4 for discrete GPUs only, RDNA 3.5 on Zen 6

AMD's next-generation Zen 6-based APUs will not be using RDNA 4 GPU cores, and instead will rely on RDNA 3.5 GPU that is used inside of the Zen 5-based Strix Point and just-released Strix Halo APUs.

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The news is coming from AMD GPUOpen Drivers code on GitHib with the device ID "Gfxlp12" for RDNA 4 being exclusively reserved for discrete GPUs like the just-released Radeon RX 9070 series graphics cards. AMD's current fleet of Radeon RX 9070 series graphics cards will be the exclusive use of RDNA 4, while next-gen Medusa Point and Medusa Halo APUs using RDNA 3.5 GPU cores.

AMD's next-gen Zen 6 "Medusa Point" and "Medusa Halo" APUs will feature next-gen Zen 6 cores, with Medusa Strix APUs expected to debut with between 12 CUs and 32 CUs of RDNA 3.X GPU, while Medusa Halo APUs will bump the RDNA 3.5 GPU core count up to 48 CUs. Zen 6-based Medusa Point and Medusa Halo APUs will also reportedly have a 384-bit memory bus that's expected to drive performance up 30-50% over the new Strix Halo APU.

UDNA is the next GPU architecture after RDNA 4, so we could expect AMD to dive right into the next-gen unified GPU architecture for Medusa Point and Medusa Halo. The increased memory bus and GPU cores inside of Medusa Halo are expected to drive up to RTX 5070 Ti levels of gaming performance, which would be nice to see from UDNA GPU cores inside of the new Zen 6-based APUs.

• Read more: Medusa Halo APU leaks: Zen 6 rumored with RTX 5070 Ti levels of gaming perf
• Read more: Medusa Point 'Zen 6' APU: drops RDNA 4/5 GPU for updated RDNA 3.X GPU
• Read more: Zen 6 desktop, laptop CPU leaked photos: meet Medusa Ridge + Medusa Point
• Read more: Medusa Ridge CPU leak: desktop Zen 6 processors with 24 cores, 48 threads coming

RDNA 3.5 and previous RDNA architectures don't support FSR 4 which is exclusive to RDNA 4, so it would be nice to see UDNA and FSR 4 and even FSR 5 support inside of the Medusa Point and Medusa Halo APUs. We'll know more in the months ahead as we get closer to their reveal.