AMD’s Radeon RX 9000 series, powered by the RDNA 4 architecture, has been on the market for about a year. With this generation, AMD focused on the mid-range segment, avoiding direct confrontation with NVIDIA’s high-end GPUs. The flagship Radeon RX 9070 XT competes with the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, widely considered one of the most balanced GPUs for performance and efficiency.
This strategy allowed AMD to strengthen its position in the mainstream market. However, internal developments suggest that AMD’s next-generation GPUs may take a revolutionary step forward with a chiplet-based design.
Why Chiplet GPUs Matter #
According to Laks Pappu, AMD Senior Fellow and Chief SoC Architect, future Radeon architectures—including Navi 4x and Navi 5x—will leverage 2.5D/3.5D chiplet and monolithic GPU designs. Pappu, who joined AMD in 2022 after a long tenure at Intel working on projects like DG1, Alchemist, and Battlemage, brings deep expertise in multi-tile GPU solutions.
Traditionally, data center GPUs such as AMD’s Instinct MI300 and NVIDIA’s Blackwell already use chiplet packaging to boost scalability. However, bringing chiplets to consumer gaming GPUs poses unique challenges:
- Ultra-low latency requirements for rendering workloads
- High-bandwidth interconnects to keep thousands of GPU threads synchronized
- Power efficiency concerns with inter-chip communication
- Software-level transparency so the GPU behaves as a unified device
Despite these hurdles, chiplet design offers major advantages:
- Better manufacturing yields compared to massive monolithic dies
- Cost efficiency in production
- Flexibility to create multiple GPU tiers from a single architecture
AMD has already pioneered chiplets in its Ryzen CPUs, EPYC server processors, and even experimented with a Graphics Compute Die + Memory Cache Dies model in the Radeon RX 7900 series (Navi 31). This history makes AMD a strong candidate to push chiplets into mainstream gaming GPUs.
RDNA 5: A Potential Game-Changer #
Industry insiders believe Pappu is leading the development of RDNA 5 (Navi 5x). Based on typical GPU development cycles, RDNA 5 should be in the tape-out or validation phase by late 2025, positioning its launch around late 2026 or early 2027.
If successful, RDNA 5 could be the first true consumer multi-chiplet GPU. This would mark a turning point in desktop graphics by:
- Sustaining performance growth beyond the limits of monolithic designs
- Reducing costs while maintaining competitive power efficiency
- Introducing advanced packaging (2.5D/3.5D interconnects) to overcome latency issues
Market Impact and Competition with NVIDIA #
AMD’s decision to focus the RX 9000 series on mainstream GPUs has given NVIDIA a stronger lead in the high-end market with its RTX 5080 and RTX 5090. To regain share, AMD must deliver a differentiated and disruptive technology in its next generation.
If RDNA 5 with chiplets launches successfully:
- AMD could revolutionize the economics of GPU manufacturing
- Gamers may see new performance tiers without extreme pricing
- The competitive balance with NVIDIA could shift significantly
Conclusion: A Critical Moment for AMD #
The upcoming RDNA 5 architecture is not just another GPU launch—it could redefine the future of consumer graphics cards. With chiplet technology, AMD has a chance to introduce groundbreaking scalability, better yields, and unmatched flexibility in product design.
As engineering samples emerge in the coming months, the industry will closely watch whether AMD can finally deliver a chiplet-based gaming GPU that changes the rules of the desktop graphics market.
For gamers, developers, and industry watchers, 2026–2027 may mark the start of a new era in GPU evolution.