In a new rumor from Greymon55, it looks like AMD's RDNA 3 based Navi 33 GPU which will power the next-gen Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards will feature fewer cores than expected at first.

AMD Radeon RX 7000 'RDNA 3' Navi 33 GPU Rumored To Feature 4096 Cores But Performance Faster Than Navi 21

Previously, Greymon55 had stated up to 5120 cores or 20 WGP's on the RDNA 3 based Navi 33 GPU but his latest information suggests a lower WGP and Core count. But that doesn't mean the overall performance has changed. Despite the lower number, the Navi 33 GPU will be offering faster GPU performance than the Navi 21 GPU which is currently AMD's flagship RDNA 2 chip for the high-end segment.

AMD RDNA 3 Navi 33 GPUs For Radeon RX 7700 Series

The AMD Navi 33 GPU will start the monolithic segment within the RDNA 3 family. The GPU will feature a single die. The die is very similar to the flagship Navi 21 GPU and is expected to utilize a 6nm process node for fabrication.

A preliminary block diagram of AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 based Navi 33 GPU that will power the flagship Radeon RX 7600 XT graphics card. (Image Credits: Olrak)

The Navi 33 GCD is expected to feature 2 Shader Engines and each Shader Engine has 2 Shader Arrays (2 per SE / 4 in total). Each Shader Array was previously expected to be composed of 5 WGPs (10 per SE / 20 total) and each WGP features 8 SIMD32 units with 32 ALUs (40 SIMD32 per SA / 80 per SE / 160 total). These SIMD32 units combine to make up 5120 cores which is the same core count as the RX 6900 XT (Navi 21 XTX GPU).

However, based on the new numbers, the RDNA 3 Navi 33 GPU will feature a total of 16 WGPs or 4096 cores. Now we don't know if this is the particular configuration of the chip itself that's been updated or the new Radeon RX 7000 cards will feature a cut-down configuration of the Navi 33 chips with 1 WGP disabled in each Shader Array.

n33 was designed to be better than the 6900xt, and even if it didn't meet its design goal, its performance was still around 6900xt.

— Greymon55 (@greymon55) September 22, 2021

That's true. N33=N23+GFX11.

— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) September 29, 2021

To make things interesting, Kopite7kimi states that Navi 33 is Navi 23's replacement on the GFX11 architecture but we know that Navi 23 only features 2048 cores, half the amount that's allegedly featured on Navi 33. The Navi 23 GPU has been featured on the Radeon RX 6600 series cards so one can assume that Navi 33 will power AMD's RX 7600 series lineup unless AMD wants to move their lineup one tier up with Navi 31 powering RX 7900 series, Navi 32 powering RX 7800 series & Navi 33 powering RX 7700 series. The RX 7600 lineup and below would end up being based on the refreshed 6nm RDNA 2 GPUs as reported here.

AMD RDNA 3 Navi 3X GPU Configurations (Preliminary)