Until now, AMD’s graphics cards have had rather “cosmic” code names. Indeed, we’re thinking of all those cards with names like Polaris or Vega. However, a change seems to be taking place with the Reds, as the code names are now based on Transformers characters. As we heard recently, consumer GPUs are called Alpha Trion.
AMD opts for code names based on Transformers characters!
Here’s a quick article to put a few things into context, to make sure you know what you’re talking about. AMD is set to launch new graphics cards in 2026, based on a new architecture. This new architecture would also be shared with the Pro range, hence the new name UDNA. As a misnomer, you may also hear RDNA5 referred to as an extension of RDNA4, the current generation. By the way, the first estimates of chip composition have been published. Likewise, it’s not impossible that AMD will offer more “cores” in its Compute Units with this generation.
But there are other names like Alpha Trion. In this case, they are code names, names used to designate graphics cards. This family of chips will mainly be used for gaming applications, replacing the current RX 9000.
Then we move on to the console sector with Ultra Magnus and Orion Pax. These two codenames designate chips for Microsoft and Sony home consoles respectively. Even if the chips are named differently, we can expect a fairly similar design. If all goes well, the whole package should offer an iGPU based on UDNA architecture, while featuring Zen 5 or 6 cores, depending on timing.
For the moment, these are code names that are being used internally, so it remains to be seen whether the Reds will use them publicly or not.