Radeon

Radeon is a brand of graphics processing units (GPUs) and related graphics technologies developed by AMD. The brand originated with ATI Technologies, a Canadian graphics company that AMD acquired in 2006. Radeon products include discrete GPUs for desktops and laptops, as well as integrated graphics in AMD’s Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) and embedded solutions.

Radeon’s product line has evolved through several microarchitectures. AMD introduced RDNA as a successor to the GCN architecture with the RX 5000 series (RDNA 1) in 2019. RDNA 2, used in the RX 6000 series, added hardware-accelerated ray tracing and higher efficiency. RDNA 3 powers the RX 7000 series, delivering further performance improvements and efficiency gains.

Radeon GPUs support a range of technologies. FreeSync provides adaptive synchronization with compatible displays. FidelityFX is a suite of developer tools for image quality and performance, including upscaling via FidelityFX Super Resolution. Radeon GPUs offer support for DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan, OpenGL, and, on RDNA 2 and newer, hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

AMD positions Radeon as a competitive option in the discrete desktop GPU market against Nvidia GeForce, while also supplying Radeon graphics in consoles and laptops. Console applications include Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S, both utilizing AMD RDNA-based GPUs.

Radeon driver software includes Radeon Software Adrenalin for Windows, delivering game-ready drivers, performance tuning, and feature updates. Linux support is provided through the open-source AMDGPU driver and the RADV project, with ongoing collaboration to improve compatibility and performance.