Architecture Overview
GCN 3.0 is most notably associated with Fiji, the die behind the Radeon R9 Fury and Fury X, which introduced High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) to a consumer GPU for the first time in 2015. Fiji was manufactured on 28nm and connected to 4 GB of HBM1 via a silicon interposer at 512 GB/s of memory bandwidth — far ahead of GDDR5 configurations of the era. The generation also encompasses Tonga and Antigua (R9 380/380X), though the HBM integration was the defining feature.
Quick Facts
- Architecture name
- GCN 3.0
- Launch era / years active
- 2015 to 2016
- Predecessor
- GCN 2.0
- Successor
- GCN 4.0 (Polaris)
- Process nodes
- 28nm (TSMC)
- Important chips
- Fiji (R9 Fury X / Fury / Fury Nano), Tonga (R9 380X / 380), Antigua (R9 390X / 390 — Hawaii refresh)
- Memory technologies
- HBM1 (Fiji, via silicon interposer, 4 GB at 512 GB/s); GDDR5 (Tonga / Antigua)
- CUDA / RT / Tensor generation
- GCN 3.0 Stream Processors; DirectX 12 (FL 12_0); Vulkan 1.0; OpenCL 2.0
- Consumer series
- Radeon R9 Fury X, R9 Fury, R9 Nano, R9 390X, R9 390, R9 380X, R9 380
- Workstation / professional series
- Radeon Pro Duo (dual Fiji), FirePro W9100 (second revision)
- Data center series
- Radeon Instinct MI8 (Fiji-based)
- Source review status
- Source review complete for primary consumer product line.
What this architecture changed
First consumer GPU with HBM (High Bandwidth Memory): Fiji pairs four HBM1 stacks on a silicon interposer for 512 GB/s bandwidth at 4 GB capacity.
Compact die footprint: the small Fiji die + HBM package enabled the Radeon R9 Nano, a full-performance GPU in a Mini-ITX form factor.
DirectX 12 feature level 12_0 and Vulkan 1.0 compliance.
Liquid cooling on the Fury X reference design — AMD's first all-in-one liquid-cooled reference GPU.
Why it mattered
GCN 3.0's Fiji demonstrated HBM's viability for consumer discrete GPUs over a year before NVIDIA's HBM2 adoption in Pascal. The silicon interposer approach was a significant packaging engineering milestone for AMD and established the groundwork for future HBM designs in the Vega generation. The Fury X remains collectible as the first HBM consumer GPU.
Related GPUs
Popular GPU entries
| GPU | Architecture | Launch Date | Shader Processors | Memory | Bus Width | TDP/TBP | Segment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FirePro S7150 | GCN 3.0 | 2016-02-01 | 2,048 | 8 GB GDDR5 | 256-bit | 150 W | Data Center |
| FirePro S7150 x2 | GCN 3.0 | 2016-02-01 | 1,792 | 8 GB GDDR5 | 256-bit | 265 W | Data Center |
| Radeon 620 Mobile | GCN 3.0 | 2019-05-13 | 384 | 2 GB GDDR5 | 64-bit | 50 W | Mobile |
| Radeon 625 Mobile | GCN 3.0 | 2019-05-13 | 384 | 2 GB GDDR5 | 64-bit | 50 W | Mobile |
| Radeon 530 Mobile DDR3 | GCN 3.0 | 2017-04-18 | 384 | 2 GB DDR3 | 64-bit | 50 W | Mobile |
| Radeon Instinct MI8 | GCN 3.0 | 2016-12-12 | 4,096 | 4 GB HBM | 4096-bit | 175 W | Data Center |
| FirePro S9300 X2 | GCN 3.0 | 2016-03-31 | 4,096 | 4 GB HBM | 4096-bit | 300 W | Data Center |
| FirePro W7100 | GCN 3.0 | 2014-08-12 | 1,792 | 8 GB GDDR5 | 256-bit | 150 W | Workstation |
| Radeon 530 Mobile GDDR5 | GCN 3.0 | 2017-04-18 | 384 | 2 GB GDDR5 | 64-bit | 50 W | Mobile |
| Radeon 530X Mobile | GCN 3.0 | 2017-04-18 | 384 | 2 GB GDDR5 | 64-bit | 50 W | Mobile |