Big Maxwell is a very very small jump - a bit more than an upscaled gm107, yes, but not that much more. gm107 though was definitely a big jump.I think we can agree that Fermi and Kepler and big Maxwells were major jumps, but what about gm107?
In terms of architecture this is a rather small change though.Big Maxwell brought the 2x FP16 performance from Tegra X1.
If a game uses that extensively (ahem Gameworks ahem), then it might show a sizeable performance/area and performance/power boost.
I think this is mistaken. Pascal has the 2x FP16 throughput, but Maxwell doesn't - except for TX1.Big Maxwell brought the 2x FP16 performance from Tegra X1.
If a game uses that extensively (ahem Gameworks ahem), then it might show a sizeable performance/area and performance/power boost.
Correct. Packed FP16 instructions won't come to discrete GPUs until Pascal.I think this is mistaken. Pascal has the 2x FP16 throughput, but Maxwell doesn't - except for TX1.
Why do you need to "clear the channel" if you are rebranding existing products?the big question is: Is there a new GPU family coming or is it Fiji + Rebrands for R3X0.
The rumors saying otherwise are sure being persistent, then..Why do you need to "clear the channel" if you are rebranding existing products?
It is a new family likely with 3, maybe 4, ASICs.
Getting the graphics cards back and burning new firmware is not a simple operation. It's a logistics nightmare. And it's costly as hell.
A family rebrand on the same process makes total sense if you don't have major architectural improvements. Maxwell warranted the expense of redoing their full product lineup in the same technology.A family rebrand just doesn't make sense.
The only explanation that doesn't consist of clickbait BS, is that someone was defining the performance range of the new family and the recipient misunderstood.
A family rebrand on the same process makes total sense if you don't have major architectural improvements. Maxwell warranted the expense of redoing their full product lineup in the same technology.
The key question is if AMD has something similar as well. If not, what'd be the point of redoing?
Of all those, the only thing that could really help performance is the color compression. The rest are non-essential side features of varying importance. FreeSync would be nice, but is that worth redoing a whole chip for when you're desperately short on resources that are needed to make the next gen on a smaller process?Surely between full DX 12_1 support, the greatly enhanced memory bandwidth efficiency of the new colour compression tech, true audio and (I'm not totally sure on this one) freesync support, the answer is a clear yes.
Also XDMA Crossfire, HSA improvements, faster tessellation, mixed rotation Eyefinity, 4k VSR, HDMI 2.0, VCE & UVD improvements and H.265 decoding support (if the leaked slides are accurate).Surely between full DX 12_1 support, the greatly enhanced memory bandwidth efficiency of the new colour compression tech, true audio and (I'm not totally sure on this one) freesync support, the answer is a clear yes.
Bonaire, Tonga, Hawaii and Fiji have XDMA CF, only Pitcairn (and low-end Oland) wouldn't have it. Faster tesselation isn't really needed below Tonga, while Hawaii already has 4 primitive pipes and larger cache for buffering compared to Pitcairn/Tahiti, so I guess it passes as "good enough" in that regard, certainly not an important enough factor to refresh Hawaii just for better tesselation. And HSA improvements are - let's face it - currently irrelevant for games.Also XDMA Crossfire, HSA improvements, faster tessellation, HDMI 2.0, VCE & UVD improvements and H.265 decoding support (if the leaked slides are accurate).
Hawaii and Tonga already have XDMA. That covers most of the target market for Xfire. HSA and faster tessellation are niche features with limited gaming performance upside. HDMI 2.0: only useful for 4K TVs. Monitors use faster DP.Also XDMA Crossfire, HSA improvements, faster tessellation, HDMI 2.0, VCE & UVD improvements and H.265 decoding support (if the leaked slides are accurate).
Moral this moral that. If you're bleeding money, the moral thing is to do take the course with the highest odds of survival. Wasting resources on a process with a short remaining lifetime may not be that course.Then there's the age-old moral issue of re-branding something old (sometimes very old) and calling it new. It has never really been ethically acceptable IMO, ever since GPU makers first started doing this.