AMD's next-gen flagship GPU is said to have made one big step towards launch

Even though the Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards only recently hit store shelves (for a brief moment), it's never too early to talk about what's next. Well-known AMD leaker, greymon55 tweeted out (thanks videocardz) today that the next-generation flagship Navi 31 GPU has been taped out. The tape out process means that the design of the card has been finished, a big important step before its sent out to manufacturing. 

 Though before that there's still the chip testing phase, and since Navi 31 is rumored to be the first consumer MCM (multi-chip module) design for a gaming GPU, meaning it will feature two GPUdies, that could take some time. In theory, this should mean AMD can drastically increase core counts for its next-gen graphics cards, but that will depend on making both chips appear as one to your PC, software, and games. No easy task.

The leaker also said that chip's being manufactured are using TSMC N5 and N6 process technology.

AMD Navi 31 will use the RDNA 3 architecture and should be destined for the Radeon RX 7000-series  cards (if the typical naming conventions hold up) that are expected to be released in late 2022. AMD has not commented or released any details regarding the new GPUs' technological roadmap, though, so we're largely going on guesswork and leaks today.