AMD: Southern Islands (7*** series) Speculation/ Rumour Thread

Is this the Tahiti die?

diesize.jpg


28hkkfo.jpg
 
Pitcairn looks surprisingly large and powerful. Isn't it going to be faster than Cayman?
I thought the slides showed the HD7800 to be slower than HD6900?
 
The source seems to be this:

http://en.expreview.com/2012/02/19/amd-radeon-hd-7800-series-specifications-surfaced/21209.html

But how did they loose 100$ during the copy-pasting? :oops:

If the "proposed leak" from the above link is correct, where would the Pitcairn 7850 / 7870 / 7890 stand performance-wise in relationship to the 6850 / 6870 / 6950?

“HD 7850 is codenamed Pitcairn Pro”
“20 CUs, 1208 stream processors, 80 texture units, 24 ROPs”,
core frequency-900MHz memory frequency-1250MHz, data rate 5000MHz 256-bit interface
1GB memory $219
2GB memory $249

“HD 7870 is codenamed Pitcairn XT”
“22 CUs, 1408 stream processors, 88 texture units, 24 ROPs”
core frequency-950MHz memory frequency-1375MHz, data rate 5500MHz 256-bit interface
2GB memory $299

“HD 7890 is codenamed Tahiti LE”
“24 CUs, 1536 stream processors, 96 texture units, 32 ROPs” 384-bit interface”
1.5GB memory $359
 
If the "proposed leak" from the above link is correct, where would the Pitcairn 7850 / 7870 / 7890 stand performance-wise in relationship to the 6850 / 6870 / 6950?

“HD 7850 is codenamed Pitcairn Pro”
“20 CUs, 1208 stream processors, 80 texture units, 24 ROPs”,
core frequency-900MHz memory frequency-1250MHz, data rate 5000MHz 256-bit interface
1GB memory $219
2GB memory $249

“HD 7870 is codenamed Pitcairn XT”
“22 CUs, 1408 stream processors, 88 texture units, 24 ROPs”
core frequency-950MHz memory frequency-1375MHz, data rate 5500MHz 256-bit interface
2GB memory $299

“HD 7890 is codenamed Tahiti LE”
“24 CUs, 1536 stream processors, 96 texture units, 32 ROPs” 384-bit interface”
1.5GB memory $359

I don't buy these specs, due to the following reasons:

It has already been pointed out (by CarstenS i think) that 24 ROPs is unlikely, since it does not fit the rasterizers.

The 7890 needs to be clocked higher than the 7950 to be faster than the 7870.

To many SKUs with not enough performance difference.

22 CUs, asymmetric CUs kind of makes sense with CV - but with Pitcairn I seems really bizarre.
 
the xx90 / xx30 variants have always arrived quite a bit later than the rest, say minimum of 6months after initial launches of the same chip, so I would just ignore any "Tahiti LE" specs for now, they have plenty of time to go back and forth on it's specs
 
And sure enough, AMD has launched 6930. Same price as 6870 but slightly higher performance (putting it above 560Ti), so I guess that means EOL for Barts and soon to be replaced with Pitcairn.
 
And sure enough, AMD has launched 6930. Same price as 6870 but slightly higher performance (putting it above 560Ti), so I guess that means EOL for Barts and soon to be replaced with Pitcairn.
That's a rather nice salvage part indeed. In contrast to 5830/6790 it has no disabled ROPs. It is just slightly faster than a 6870 but power consumption is similar and it overclocks much better.
More of an indication of EOL for Cayman though (need to get rid of the chips which didn't meet 6950 specs) imho. Not that Barts wouldn't be discontinued too :).
 
the xx90 / xx30 variants have always arrived quite a bit later than the rest, say minimum of 6months after initial launches of the same chip

Exactly cutdown versions of high-end chips come to market at least 6 month after initial chip release so maybe in end of May/early June 2012 we could see HD7890 came out to the public. And if Tahiti based GPUs stay overpriced as HD6970 was, and initial price was way higher, maybe whole HD7950/70 wont sell as much as popular HD6950 did, so the piled stock of unsold chips will keep rising. High prices on initial Tahiti based GPUs release and problems with initial TSMC 28nm production could mean that there is already quite a lot of dies that didn't bake out properly.
btw. HD6930 card is very limited edition card (for Russia and China only), only the name HD7890 should vaguely disclose that TahitiLE should be more available chip. Probably because HD7950 & HD7970 will keep pretty hefty prices even after envydio's Kepler will be released

To many SKUs with not enough performance difference.

Why do you think so. This way they could better manipulate the market if they have cut down versions of good chip which is used on similarly specced GPU (HD7850-1.15GFlops vs. HD7870-1,34GFlops) which will probably give quite negligible 3D performance boost in games, but in computing and professional applications that might differ. And there's a probably lot more headroom in cherry picked fully working PitcairnXT chips (HD7870) that someone who wish for might be paying. The only bad thing is that HD7870 is totally not appealing at 299USD price segment which was reserved for last years top line products (HD6950). I think the should keep this inflation at reasonable level, because Pitcairn is way smaller chip and it consumes less and cooling and power needs require less investments than in HD6950 which came out at the same price. No matter how advanced GCN and unused "DX11.1 ready" are.

And sure enough, AMD has launched 6930. Same price as 6870 but slightly higher performance (putting it above 560Ti), so I guess that means EOL for Barts and soon to be replaced with Pitcairn.

Unfortunately for me that ain't a launch up of HD6930. That's xbitlabs review of HD6930 GPUs that has been limited to Russian and Chines markets only aand came out silently for Xmas sales right after HD7950 launch.
 
And sure enough, AMD has launched 6930. Same price as 6870 but slightly higher performance (putting it above 560Ti), so I guess that means EOL for Barts and soon to be replaced with Pitcairn.

Hmm, I've done an extensive list of GPU ratings (according to overall performance). The 6930 is rated at 126 Voodoopower, while GTX 560 Ti is rated at 130 VP.

See: http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21797&start=0#p41174

AMD would be wise to make Pitcairn XT perform at least as fast as HD 6970, for only $199, but there's just no way AMD is going to do such a low price given its stance regarding the current Tahiti and Cape Verde prices.
 
AMD would be wise to make Pitcairn XT perform at least as fast as HD 6970, for only $199, but there's just no way AMD is going to do such a low price given its stance regarding the current Tahiti and Cape Verde prices.
There is no "stance", you simply have no idea what it costs to produce these cards and the margins on them.

Here, this is from Q3 last year meaning a mature 40nm process and fully ramped and yielding chip production:
pricesp.jpg

Why is AMD all of a sudden getting crap for wanting healthy margins on their products.

P.S: MP = Median Price.
 
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There is no "stance", you simply have no idea what it costs to produce these cards and the margins on them.

Here, this is from Q3 last year meaning a mature 40nm process and fully ramped and yielding chip production:
pricesp.jpg

Why is AMD all of a sudden getting crap for wanting healthy margins on their products.

No, not crap, or anything sensationalistic as you put it. I was just talking about AMD's current stance regarding the HD 7000 series pricing. It is indeed a stance in some form, so yes, there is a "stance". Nothing more to it, really. It's just me looking at the patterns. Nobody here was crapping on anything for the last few days - they were just trying to make sense out of a rumor that claims AMD to price a 7850 $20 cheaper than a slower 7770, all right.

As to your question asking the generic "why," it's just that many were expecting more performance for a next-gen part on a smaller node process. I personally bought a new HD 4890 for only $110 two years ago. Now, the HD 7770 XT is retailing at $159, costing more dollars per performance than the HD 4890 did many many moons ago. A GTX 460-768 is basically as fast, yet sold for even cheaper with mail-in rebates last year (yes, a full year ago). Hope this answers your questions, if reading numerous review sites out there didn't answer it for you (probably more than 9 out of 10 review sites negatively comment about the pricing of HD 7770).

About the chart that you posted, why should the 6970 GPU cost $15 more to produce than the 6950 GPU? Both are identical - even the PCB is same. It was only slightly higher quality (the binning process tests the quality, after it was already fabbed from the same wafer).
 
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