Jawed
Legend
I think your observation about node-change years is very interesting. Has someone done an NVidia history like this? The history you've drawn up does seem to paint a clear picture of AMD's retreat from graphics since 2013.
(One could put the console GPUs in that history, but I really think that's off-topic).
But what if, in future, there is literally never more than 1 chip per year. "Scalable" chips, like we're expecting Navi, onwards, to be? It might not be a problem if 4 or more cards can be derived from a single chip at the relevant performance-pair (pro and XT) levels. Perhaps covering mainstream, performance and enthusiast segments with 6 configurations (1, 2 and 4 chips - all three in pro and XT variants).
In a similar fashion to how Fiji was the "HBM pipe cleaner", I'm expecting Navi to be the "MCM pipe cleaner". So what Wang says might merely align with that plan. I'm not trying to suggest it's a non-subtle hint by him or some kind of confirmation, merely pointing out that what he said might not be coincidence. And that MCM scalability is what makes this "not a coincidence".
It may be that either one of "scalability" and "nextgen memory" is lost in Navi. e.g. it only results in 1 and 2 chip variants (has scalability) and uses GDDR6 (so not nextgen memory). To me GDDR6 is just kicking the can down the road while waiting for HBM to get cheaper, so doesn't qualify as "nextgen".
(One could put the console GPUs in that history, but I really think that's off-topic).
But what if, in future, there is literally never more than 1 chip per year. "Scalable" chips, like we're expecting Navi, onwards, to be? It might not be a problem if 4 or more cards can be derived from a single chip at the relevant performance-pair (pro and XT) levels. Perhaps covering mainstream, performance and enthusiast segments with 6 configurations (1, 2 and 4 chips - all three in pro and XT variants).
In a similar fashion to how Fiji was the "HBM pipe cleaner", I'm expecting Navi to be the "MCM pipe cleaner". So what Wang says might merely align with that plan. I'm not trying to suggest it's a non-subtle hint by him or some kind of confirmation, merely pointing out that what he said might not be coincidence. And that MCM scalability is what makes this "not a coincidence".
It may be that either one of "scalability" and "nextgen memory" is lost in Navi. e.g. it only results in 1 and 2 chip variants (has scalability) and uses GDDR6 (so not nextgen memory). To me GDDR6 is just kicking the can down the road while waiting for HBM to get cheaper, so doesn't qualify as "nextgen".
