AMD: Speculation, Rumors, and Discussion (Archive)

[CSI PC]

Because we've been "stuck" in 28nm for quite some time now and even people who don't understand how typical production works when transitioning to a new node want new GPUs, basically believing any sort of rumor that's thrown their way. I'll be surprised if we see the flagship Pascal/Polaris this year, but then again i haven't been following the news closely

I am wondering just how late even the 390x/980 performance upgrade equivalents (not ones with similar performance and greater efficiency/smaller size) will be out, let alone the flagship ones
It feels like a lot of enthusiasts may be disappointed as there is a huge expectation for a boost in performance from the 14/16nm GPUs, but it feels from all the rumours and marketing we are going to see the smaller-mid cards (and by mid cards I mean even lower than 390 equivalent).
Cheers

 

[SimBy]

I am wondering just how late even the 390x/980 performance upgrade equivalents (not ones with similar performance and greater efficiency/smaller size) will be out, let alone the flagship ones
It feels like a lot of enthusiasts may be disappointed as there is a huge expectation for a boost in performance from the 14/16nm GPUs, but it feels from all the rumours and marketing we are going to see the smaller-mid cards (and by mid cards I mean even lower than 390 equivalent).
Cheers

I doubt enthusiasts from either camp will be very happy in 2016. But enthusiasts are not where volume is and where money is made.

 

[CSI PC]

I doubt enthusiasts from either camp will be very happy in 2016. But enthusiasts are not where volume is and where money is made.

Yeah totally agree.
Although worth noting the 970 and 390 were popular GPUs, so will we see 14/16nm this year before Q3/Q4 just offering power efficiency or a real performance upgrade even for these.
Was interesting to note AMD seems to be talking about VR around the 290x comparison when it comes to consumer Polaris, and they put this below a 390 in that context.

I am going to be one of those disappointed as I am looking forward to a true performance replacement for either the 390x or 980, but will be interesting if even the rung below is just efficiency or includes performance increase and price comparison to the 970/390 range, and even when we can expect those.
Cheers

 

[Grall]

It would also make 0 sense for AMD to limit itself to 4GB VRAM in 2016.

Why would it be so impossible to just add a couple address lines to a HBM die stack? It wouldn't exactly require a re-work of the entire architecture...

 

[Infinisearch]

Saw this: (an interview right after the capsacin event)
http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-...past-CrossFire-smaller-GPU-dies-HBM2-and-more

edit - beaten sorry about that.

 

[silent_guy]

Why would it be so impossible to just add a couple address lines to a HBM die stack? It wouldn't exactly require a re-work of the entire architecture...

It wouldn't. In fact, it's probably not even needed.

But you'd still need to make a commercial case for it. Does it really make sense for Hynix to make such a memory just for Polaris, when everything is moving to HBM2 anyway?

 

[Nemo]

It would also make 0 sense for AMD to limit itself to 4GB VRAM in 2016.

HBM DualLink = 8GB

 

[silent_guy]

HBM DualLink = 8GB

If only this were something that was easy to do with HBM. AFAIK, there is nothing of that sort.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

You have to watch the video.

I just watched the video and there's absolutely no mention of HBM 1 being or not being in Polaris 10, so whatever Ryan Shrout deduced had to be from a talk that happened away from the cameras IMO.

Polaris 10 with HBM1 could effectively replace both Hawaii, Nano and non-X Fury in one fell swoop. Even if they do use HBM1, they could still use 4* 8-Hi stacks to achieve 8GB.

Another thing they could do is pair Polaris 10 with 2 stacks of 8-Hi HBM1 and e.g. clock the HBM towards 600MHz for ~307GB/s. Sure, there would be a 4GB memory limitation, but 4GB hasn't really proved to be substantial bottleneck for Fiji yet, and they could achieve a tiny package with a tiny PCB at a good price/performance ratio.

 

[CSI PC]

..... Sure, there would be a 4GB memory limitation, but 4GB hasn't really proved to be substantial bottleneck for Fiji yet, and they could achieve a tiny package with a tiny PCB at a good price/performance ratio.

I think we have seen examples of it working well and also AMD driver solution or the developer doing unusual memory management that may be impacting some recent games where the 390/390x outperform the Furys until either patched/updated.
Unfortunately latest gaming development trend seems to be coming more dependent on larger VRAM capacity; more so when talking beyond 1080p and no way to know how this will affect the 4GB VRAM/ dynamic solution in the future.
Cheers

 

[CarstenS]

More HBM capacity? Easy, just add more memory controllers.

 

[eastmen]

Yeah totally agree.
Although worth noting the 970 and 390 were popular GPUs, so will we see 14/16nm this year before Q3/Q4 just offering power efficiency or a real performance upgrade even for these.
Was interesting to note AMD seems to be talking about VR around the 290x comparison when it comes to consumer Polaris, and they put this below a 390 in that context.

I am going to be one of those disappointed as I am looking forward to a true performance replacement for either the 390x or 980, but will be interesting if even the rung below is just efficiency or includes performance increase and price comparison to the 970/390 range, and even when we can expect those.
Cheers

I have a friend with a GeForce 650 . He will flip out if 970/390 performance gets down to sub $200 pricing and runs with much less power and heat generation.

The first year Rift and Vive games will be targeting 970/290s brining the price from $350 down is a big deal,

Also if the price is right , I could get one of the new cards to crossfire with my 290 non x. If the new one runs quieter and uses less power and has more featuers I will use that when crossfire doesn't help and switch into cross fire when it does.

 

[CSI PC]

I have a friend with a GeForce 650 . He will flip out if 970/390 performance gets down to sub $200 pricing and runs with much less power and heat generation.

The first year Rift and Vive games will be targeting 970/290s brining the price from $350 down is a big deal,

Also if the price is right , I could get one of the new cards to crossfire with my 290 non x. If the new one runs quieter and uses less power and has more featuers I will use that when crossfire doesn't help and switch into cross fire when it does.

But how long has the 970 been out?
It should be a good price when 14/16nm are released, same goes for the 390.
I doubt the next gen cards released are going to be much cheaper than their previous iteration (when comparing actual model like-for-like).
So we are not getting a performance increase nor really a price reduction (when taking price of cards newly released compared to cards going out of date) IMO, just efficiency.
Context here though is how they put the marker below that of a 390.
I would love to be wrong and that we see a 380 equivalent with performance that better of a 390 and with a great price.

Cheers

 

[eastmen]

But how long has the 970 been out?
It should be a good price when 14/16nm are released, same goes for the 390.
I doubt the next gen cards released are going to be much cheaper than their previous iteration (when comparing actual model like-for-like).
So we are not getting a performance increase nor really a price reduction IMO, just efficiency.

Cheers

I think 970, 290x performance pricing will drop. Its how it always is. Faster chips will slot in higher. It may take a bit longer for all the cards to come out to fill the gaps but it sounds like we will start getting the new stuff in the fall and have the biggest out in early 2017.


I mean the 290x has been out since 2013. Its been 3 years now. Price has gone down sure , but its been slow with only new models replacing it above . The 970 is new , its been out what a year now ? it be nice to get 290x performance out of something that doesn't sound like a lawn mower

 

[CSI PC]

I think 970, 290x performance pricing will drop. Its how it always is. Faster chips will slot in higher. It may take a bit longer for all the cards to come out to fill the gaps but it sounds like we will start getting the new stuff in the fall and have the biggest out in early 2017.


I mean the 290x has been out since 2013. Its been 3 years now. Price has gone down sure , but its been slow with only new models replacing it above . The 970 is new , its been out what a year now ? it be nice to get 290x performance out of something that doesn't sound like a lawn mower

Price trends are a tricky business especially when looking at AMD as they ended up slashing their 290/290x pricing that then had to be carried over to the 3xx series (exception were the Fiji models but then they also had to start reducing those).
Annoyingly NVIDIA do not need to do this, as was seen with the eye watering price of the 980 when released and in comparison a "bargain" price for the 970 (that was still a bit of a wince of a rrp at release) - and even worst both of these cards could be deemed slightly crippled compared to the 980ti and 384-bit bus earlier models.

IMO if there is an actual performance-to-price increase next time round, we should see the replacement 380x competing equal or very close to current 390 and still at the price of a 380x.
Cheers

 

[eastmen]

well we will see a 480 not a 380 since that's out already. But I fully believe a 480 will be as fast or slightly faster than a 290x an will slot in under $200 .

 

[CSI PC]

well we will see a 480 not a 380 since that's out already. But I fully believe a 480 will be as fast or slightly faster than a 290x an will slot in under $200 .

I said the replacement 380x but appreciate it could be taken either way; I mean what is replacing the 380x, what happens when being lazy on my part in writing and continuing same context from earlier posts
Gets round any ambiguity regarding naming/numbering for what is coming.
Cheers

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Price trends are a tricky business especially when looking at AMD as they ended up slashing their 290/290x pricing that then had to be carried over to the 3xx series

Actually, AMD shamelessly increased their Hawaii offerings by %50-%60 when the 300 series came out.

 

[CSI PC]

Actually, AMD shamelessly increased their Hawaii offerings by %50-%60 when the 300 series came out.

That is funny (unless you were unfortunately one of the customers at that time).
Must had been sweating no-one would buy the 300 series.
That said the 390x RRP was lower than the 290x rrp at release, so their price slashing were still sort of in effect for the new 390 and 390x.
Cheers

 

[Megadrive1988]

Vega is probably just Polaris+HBM2. Serious architectural changes between it and Polaris would be odd considering the mere 6 month gap and AMD's tight financial situation.
Polaris does include substantial architectural advancements upon current-gen GCN, including significantly improved memory bandwidth compression which should reduce any bottleneck imposed by GDDR5. Considering the performance GM200 can offer with a 384bit GDDR5 interface I'm not too worried.

Yeah, so no real surprises here. Arctic Islands (R* 4** series) is being split between Polaris and Vega.

Vega (Vega 10 anyway) is that big, enthusiast GPU with HBM2, formerly what was known as Greenland.

There's no way that Vega 10 and Vega 11 would be a true new architecture over Polaris 10 and Polaris 11. Tweaks yeah, but the main differences would be the use of HBM2 and larger dies for the ultra enthusiast / high-end market segments. Nvidia must be doing pretty much the same thing with Pascal.

Navi will be AMD's future next gen architecture for 2018. This could be their equivalent to Volta.

Edit: Assuming next gen consoles come out in 2019-2020, their GPUs would be of the same gen architecture as Navi,
with whatever performance/configuration Sony and Microsoft want from AMD semi-custom.

Anyone disagree?