AMD’s APU graphics have not had a proper shake-up since RDNA 3, and RDNA 3.5 was mainly an optimised tweak rather than a new direction. While AMD has moved discrete GPUs onto RDNA 4, with stronger AI and ray tracing cores plus support for FSR Redstone, it has not brought that jump to APUs.
The latest APU launch, the Ryzen AI 400 “Gorgon Point”, still runs RDNA 3.5 with higher clocks. AMD’s Strix Halo and Gorgon Halo “Ryzen AI MAX” families also stick with RDNA 3.5, just scaled up to 40 compute units.
Insider Kepler_L2 says RDNA 3.5 will remain across AMD’s current and upcoming APU family for a long while.
The claim is that AMD will keep leaning on RDNA 3.5 until 2029, in line with chatter from the Golden Pig Upgrade.
Over time, RDNA 3.5 iGPUs are expected to get boxed into entry-level and mainstream APUs.
AMD’s next-gen Medusa Point “Ryzen AI 500” is tipped to be the last major family to ship with RDNA 3.5 graphics.
After Medusa Point, AMD is expected to skip RDNA 4 for APUs entirely and move straight to RDNA 5.
Kepler_L2 says RDNA 5 iGPUs land only in the “Premium” tier, so the fancier Medusa Premium and Halo parts get the new toys.
Medusa is expected to bump core counts and add optimisations in specific APU classes to keep the iGPU competitive against Troubled Chipzilla.
Chipzilla’s iGPU lineup has moved to Xe3 and is promising a big leap, leaving AMD’s mainstream APU graphics looking tired.
This year, Intel is expected to roll out Xe3P, a new Celestial-based architecture under the Arc family.
Medusa should be the first APU family to start shipping brand new RDNA 5 GPU cores.
Kepler_L2 says Medusa Premium will use an RDNA 5 “AT4 GMD” die and Medusa Halo will use an RDNA 5 “AT3 GMD” die.
Those dies are said to be separate from the main compute tiles, while the monolithic Medusa Point version keeps RDNA 3.5 iGPUs.
Chipzilla has Xe4 plans beyond that, and its partnership with Nvidia could also deliver a new class of x86 SoCs with RTX-tier graphics options. Intel says the tie-up does not change its own graphics roadmap, but the iGPU fight is about to get noisier.
