When AMD Added AV1 Decode to RDNA GPUs

AMD officially introduced hardware-accelerated AV1 decoding with the launch of its RDNA 2 graphics architecture in November 2020. This milestone arrived with the Radeon RX 6000 series desktop graphics cards, marking the first time AMD included dedicated fixed-function silicon capable of processing the royalty-free AV1 video codec.

The RDNA 2 Debut

The rollout began on November 18, 2020, with the release of the Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT graphics cards. These GPUs were powered by AMD's Video Core Next (VCN) 3.0 multimedia engine, which integrated hardware decoding for the AV1 format alongside older formats like HEVC (H.265) and AVC (H.264).

Key details of AMD's initial AV1 implementation include:

• Decode Capabilities: The VCN 3.0 engine supported hardware-accelerated AV1 decode at resolutions up to 8K at 60 frames per second, including support for 10-bit color and High Dynamic Range (HDR) content.
• Decode Only: RDNA 2 strictly offered AV1 decoding. It did not include hardware encoding for AV1, meaning content creators and streamers still had to rely on software encoding or other hardware solutions to export or broadcast in the format.
• Predecessor Comparison: The original RDNA architecture (Radeon RX 5000 series, released in 2019) used VCN 2.0, which lacked dedicated hardware support for the AV1 standard entirely and required software-based CPU decoding.

Subsequent Evolution in RDNA 3

AMD expanded its AV1 capabilities two years later with the release of the RDNA 3 architecture (Radeon RX 7000 series) in December 2022. Upgraded to the VCN 4.0 media engine, RDNA 3 introduced dual-media engines that added hardware-accelerated AV1 encoding up to 8K60, while simultaneously maintaining and improving the hardware AV1 decoding features first established in RDNA 2.