AMD Polaris Rumors and Discussion

[CSI PC]

I had the impression that rebrands are a consequence of OEMs wanting something new every year, and the slower pace of progress/increased costs to fabbing new designs is partially responsible on there.

Possibly true but then Nvidia is refreshing their 1060 and 1080 products while still keeping the same name, I would think these are also with OEMs.
Cheers

 

[AlNom]

Could be that their (nV) current marketing doesn't feel the need for this round of GPUs I guess. One thing to note possibly is the premium pricing of "OC" variants, which the 1060 refresh could easily fall under.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Well, here's the outcome of this release, as predicted:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/commen...ix_rx580_8g_in_my_country_its_470_us/dgi8ud1/

Oh how much i regret not getting the 200 euro strix 480 which was on offer 6 days ago. The 480s are now more expensive and the prices of the 580 in Europe are RIDICULOUS at the moment!

Here they did 270 for a decent 480 at least.... Meanwhile 580s are 300+. Sorry AMD if you don't show any release date before pray im buying a 1070 for like 350...

I have a freesync monitor and i am very tempted by the 1070 with the current prices...

 

[xEx]

I understand the OEM wanting new cards thats why in the past we had OEM only lunch and AMD could make a 485 or 475 to resolve the issue as well.

 

[CSI PC]

Well, here's the outcome of this release, as predicted:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/commen...ix_rx580_8g_in_my_country_its_470_us/dgi8ud1/

It could be worse.
The pricing of the 1060 with the new 9Gbps memory is now priced so high I cannot see why anyone would buy it instead of say a custom 1070 like the MSI Armor for say £50 more.

It does seem the trend of prices going up with both manufacturers rather than going down with time, further exacerbated for Nvidia due to their higher price in general for this tier.
Cheers

 

[Blazkowicz]

They have the RX 560 and 550 which are new cards and IMO more worth mentioning (worthier of being mentioned?)

 

[entity279]

And they'll have Vega soon. 5xx is intended to be perceived as an all new full lineup.

But maybe there's this risk of having your releases seen as `meh` and `nothing new over previous gen` that factors into the equation.

 

[Tofu]

I really would like to know how the rx480 -> rx580 BIOS flash can work at all.

Anandtech states on page 2 of his article: (sorry, I'm not allowd to link)
"Meanwhile AMD is also releasing a new revision of Polaris 10, which is being used in the RX 580/570 launch. These revised chips have received further tweaking to reach higher clockspeeds, allowing AMD to reliably clock up a bit higher and/or reduce power consumption a bit. The new revision also fixes a couple of minor issues with the GPUs.
... AMD’s chip quality has improved here though the combination of manufacturing improvements and revised silicon..."

So, Anandtech claims there is a new GPU stepping with fixed bugs.
How can the new rx580 GPU BIOS / driver operate on the old rx480 GPU if it thinks there are some bugs fixed and need not to be worked around? I'm puzzled.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

So, Anandtech claims there is a new GPU stepping with fixed bugs.
How can the new rx580 GPU BIOS / driver operate on the old rx480 GPU if it thinks there are some bugs fixed and need not to be worked around? I'm puzzled.

It's not a new chip. Contrary to what OEMs want you to believe, AMD didn't stop making Polaris 10 chips one day and started making Polaris 20 chips the next day. Polaris 20 is probably just the name they're giving to Polaris 10 chips that were fabbed after a certain number of tiny manufacturing changes were made, to achieve a certain process maturity. As far as I know, the PCI ID is the same 0x67DF, but they're calling it a new step (C7 do E7).

And they'll have Vega soon.

To be realistic, "soon" probably means "another 2 months until you actually know official performance and pricing info".
I was thinking of upgrading to Vega this summer for my main PC, but the pricing scheme that came for the RX500 cards suggests Vega won't be very competitively priced.

5xx is intended to be perceived as an all new full lineup.

Except Vega isn't part of the 5xx series. They already said it'll be called "RX Vega" (like the R9 Fury before it), so to Vega cards it would make no difference whatsoever if the new releases were called 4x5 or 5x0.

 

[entity279]

Except Vega isn't part of the 5xx series. They already said it'll be called "RX Vega" (like the R9 Fury before it), so to Vega cards it would make no difference whatsoever if the new releases were called 4x5 or 5x0.

In that case, this 5xx series brand is not helpful for the customer, IMO.

 

[xEx]

In that case, this 5xx series brand is not helpful for the customer, IMO.

That is the problem [emoji6]

Enviado desde mi HTC One mediante Tapatalk

 

[Anarchist4000]

Except Vega isn't part of the 5xx series. They already said it'll be called "RX Vega" (like the R9 Fury before it), so to Vega cards it would make no difference whatsoever if the new releases were called 4x5 or 5x0.

There has to be something that differentiates the SKUs though. An 8CU APU and 64CU discrete card won't be performing identically. There is Vega 10, presumably 11 we haven't seen yet, and various APUs. Somehow those have to fit into the stack with the Polaris refresh, unless they're a year out.

My only thought is APUs, 590, and Vega/X/Nano? Leave Polaris as smaller discrete cards.

 

[3dilettante]

In that case, this 5xx series brand is not helpful for the customer, IMO.

That would be the distinction between the end consumer and the partners that buy AMD's chips. Prodding consumers to buy partner boards does help AMD's customers.

 

[xEx]

Well the 5xx are just customs 4xx with a different name.

Enviado desde mi HTC One mediante Tapatalk

 

[Deleted member 13524]

That would be the distinction between the end consumer and the partners that buy AMD's chips. Prodding consumers to buy partner boards does help AMD's customers.

What you actually mean is AMD gets to be dragged around by OEMs, even though this often causes a worse case for the consumers, because the company is still in a position of weakness?

Sounds like the situation of the very decent Carrizo mobile APUs in terrible laptops with 1-channel memory or matching discrete GPU with Hybrid Crossfire forcefully turned off.

 

[3dilettante]

What you actually mean is AMD gets to be dragged around by OEMs, even though this often causes a worse case for the consumers, because the company is still in a position of weakness?

Nvidia for the most part sells chips to partners who build the boards sold to consumers--hence why various Nvidia chips have sometimes long chains of rebrands as well.
Some of the examples of when GPU silicon gets to consumers without an intermediate partner are Nvidia's Founders Edition cards, which I've not seen viewed as a better deal.

Consumers are not the customers, and so neither vendor is serving their actual customers by benefiting consumers.

 

[Kaotik]

Nvidia for the most part sells chips to partners who build the boards sold to consumers--hence why various Nvidia chips have sometimes long chains of rebrands as well.
Some of the examples of when GPU silicon gets to consumers without an intermediate partner are Nvidia's Founders Edition cards, which I've not seen viewed as a better deal.

Founders Edition is no different from the other reference cards, which all or most OEMs do anyway. Only difference is the brand you put on the box, NVIDIA doesn't actually manufacture them themselves.

 

[3dilettante]

Founders Edition is no different from the other reference cards, which all or most OEMs do anyway. Only difference is the brand you put on the box, NVIDIA doesn't actually manufacture them themselves.

The difference is that the FE boards are sold to consumers or can be, which is when they would be considered a customer of Nvidia.
Although in that case, consumer situation doesn't seem to be benefited much.

Perhaps that just means benefiting consumers isn't the goal for the parties involved.

 

[xEx]

One thing I don't underhand is the 570 is around 480 performance for 170 so you would expect the 480 to be like 190 and the 470 for around at least 150 new and 120 used. But the new 470 is 200+ so more expensive than the 570... It doesn't make sense and no1 should buy that is a very "interesting" way to clear stock....

Enviado desde mi HTC One mediante Tapatalk

 

[Ryan Smith]

It's not a new chip. Contrary to what OEMs want you to believe, AMD didn't stop making Polaris 10 chips one day and started making Polaris 20 chips the next day. Polaris 20 is probably just the name they're giving to Polaris 10 chips that were fabbed after a certain number of tiny manufacturing changes were made, to achieve a certain process maturity. As far as I know, the PCI ID is the same 0x67DF, but they're calling it a new step (C7 do E7).

Quick note: while GPU-Z reads the chip revision registers correctly, AMD is not using it correctly. When I asked W1zzard about this, he told me that AMD is using the chip revision as another identifier, in place of a longer device ID. So the chips aren't actually C7 or E7.

But unless AMD is outright lying about simple facts, it is a new stepping of P10. And you generally don't break support for old steppings with new BIOSes.