AMD is making significant progress in developing its next-generation products. Recently, the Linux team at AMD submitted some intriguing patches on GitHub for GFX12 targets, as reported by Phoronix. These patches have introduced two new discrete GPUs into the LLVM compiler for Linux. This has sparked speculation that these GPUs could be the initial versions of the RDNA4 graphics architecture, potentially belonging to the Radeon RX 8000 series of desktop graphics cards. The naming convention for these new targets, GFX1200 and GFX1201, suggests a logical continuation of AMD's graphics architectures, following the pattern of associating RDNA1 with GFX10, RDNA2 with GFX10.2, and RDNA3 with GFX11.
It is important to note that the development of these new GPUs is still in its early stages. The lack of detailed information about the upcoming graphics ISA or its features in the patches indicates that AMD is keeping the specifics under wraps until closer to the release. Currently, the new GFX12 targets are being treated similarly to GFX11, as stated in the patch notes: "For now they behave identically to GFX11." This implies that AMD is withholding specific details until a later date. The patch defining target names and ELF numbers for the new GFX12 targets, GFX1200 and GFX1201, is necessary to enable timely support for AMD ROCm compute stack, the AMDVLK Vulkan driver, and the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver.
