AMD: R9xx Speculation

[Silent_Buddha]

Don't be angry.

It all depends on what you define as "performance part".

Personally, I don't see how calling a chip that presumably reaches GTX 470 performance a "performance part" makes any sense. It probably comes @ a similar die size as RV770. Think about it. It would have been more Juniper-like @ 32nm. But as it stands now, Barts is probably closer to Cypress in die size and power draw than it is to Juniper. You just can't make everybody happy. Many people would have complained about price and power draw if they had actually launched it as HD 67** series. Now some people (like you) might complain about performance (though tessalation performance should still get very interesting).

I'd still label Barts XT as HD 6850 to strike the best possible balance, though

Releasing a 68xx part with virtually no performance gain over the equivalent 58xx part would make far far less sense.

Nvidia will be laughing its arse off if AMD does that. That would have been similar to AMD thinking. You know, we just can't stand the fact that 5850 and 5870 are so much faster than GTX 260 and 280. We'll have to either slow them down or make them 59xx cards. Since you know, it'd be stupid to release a 5850 and 5870 that was actually faster than the 4850 and 4870.

Regards,
SB

 

[no-X]

...
Your speculation is at least partly wrong, both Antilles cards are Cayman based.
...

OBR is also suggesting, that there's no HD67xx model based on Barts GPU.

 

[thop]

I don't understand why websites plaster their logos or URLs in big letters all over the slides.

 

[Alexko]

I don't understand why websites plaster their logos or URLs in big letters all over the slides.

Ever heard of that little thing called advertisement?

By the way, what's the point of these slides? I don't see anything new in there. Actually, I don't really see anything except boring legal stuff.

 

[UniversalTruth]

Releasing a 68xx part with virtually no performance gain over the equivalent 58xx part would make far far less sense.

Nvidia will be laughing its arse off if AMD does that. That would have been similar to AMD thinking. You know, we just can't stand the fact that 5850 and 5870 are so much faster than GTX 260 and 280. We'll have to either slow them down or make them 59xx cards. Since you know, it'd be stupid to release a 5850 and 5870 that was actually faster than the 4850 and 4870.

Regards,
SB

+1. Absolutely true.

.... You just can't make everybody happy....

Here you will make absolutely nobody happy. They will begin to ignore you aand NVidia will return stronger than ever. And you will be punished because you missed the golden chance. People will be laughing at you. I promise.

 

[Mianca]

Here you will make absolutely nobody happy. They will begin to ignore you aand NVidia will return stronger than ever. And you will be punished because you missed the golden chance. People will be laughing at you. I promise.

Personally, I won't be laughing at a Barts XT card with GTX 470ish performance and a HD 5850ish price-tag - I'll just buy it

Seriously, you guys care way to much about some ultimately unimportant numbers. Let's face it:

• People who already own an HD 5870 will most likely wait for Cayman-based cards anyways.
• People who already own an HD 5770 will find the Barts-based offerings refreshingly attractive and well-priced (better price/perf than Cypress is very probable).
• OEMs will blissfully cheer about unprecedented profit margins (smaller chip, but almost same performance as the current high-end gen).
• Nvidia will despair over the question of whether or not to start price fighting a chip probably just a few mm2 bigger than GF106 with a chip nearly as big as Cayman (GF104) or indeed almost twice as huge as Barts (GF100)
• Later this year, GTX 480 will get spanked silly by Cayman XT, a chip presumably only 2/3 of GF100's die size, yet up to 1.3 times its performance.

Everyone will be happy - except for (a) Nvidia and (b) those of you who actually attach more value to name badges than hardware.

 

[thatdude90210]

Wow, some of you are way hung up on the 67xx,68xx,69xx stuff. Who gives a rat's ass. If the 69xx is an upgrade to my 5870, I'll get that. Or if AMD decide to call it "rats ass" I might still get that. And if 67xx or 68xx is an upgrade to people's 48xx or 57xx, they'll get that. It's that simple.

 

[flopper]

waiting for cayman xt.
who cares about bart?

 

[fbuffer]

Wow, some of you are way hung up on the 67xx,68xx,69xx stuff. Who gives a rat's ass. If the 69xx is an upgrade to my 5870, I'll get that. Or if AMD decide to call it "rats ass" I might still get that. And if 67xx or 68xx is an upgrade to people's 48xx or 57xx, they'll get that. It's that simple.

Exactly.. they can call it "Turd on a Stick 3.1415" and "Crap in a Bucket 3.2" if it performs better with same or more features at a reasonable price they will sell.

 

[Kaotik]

By the way, what's the point of these slides? I don't see anything new in there. Actually, I don't really see anything except boring legal stuff.

They're apparently releasing more (or all of it?) tomorrow or something

Then the question is wether there's actually "real fake slide decks" going around, and possibly several different ones, for the smoke'n'mirrors effect

 

[Davros]

I like the bit thats says "if you dont agree to the terms dont read this document"
and where do they put it, the final sentence

 

[UniversalTruth]

Personally, I won't be laughing at a Barts XT card with GTX 470ish performance and a HD 5850ish price-tag - I'll just buy it

Seriously....

I am serious. I will not buy such a card. It is too expensive and underperforming. I want a Barts XT card as replacement of HD 5770, its price tag and a performance of something better than 5850. I don't care that there is no competetion and stuff like that, bla, bla, bla.
And seriously, we have GTX 470ish type of performance for one year now. Please, don't tell me that I was waiting this whole year just to see this perversion.


PS: I said "Laughing at AMD", not "laughing at the card".
470 is 2-3-10 % (different resolutions) faster than 5850. It can be easily reached just with changing the core and memory frequences. 5850 was released one year ago. Isn't it funny?

 

[Harison]

Releasing a 68xx part with virtually no performance gain over the equivalent 58xx part would make far far less sense.

It would really depend on the cards (all lineup) performance and pricing. Of course it would make little sense from naming perspective, but its possible to pull this off and making everyone happy (except NV, of course ).

If cards released as:
Bart XT as 6830 for for 250$ (I still think it'll be 6770)
Cayman Pro as 6850 - 299$
Cayman XT as 6870 - 350$

50+% speed for their respective positions, and everything is fine in my book :smile:

 

[Berek]

What I'm most interested in from AMD is how this latest series is going to increase DX11 feature performance, especially tessellation. Nvidia seems to have this down, but from what I've seen, AMD is behind yet. Will that change now?

 

[Miksu]

By the way, what's the point of these slides? I don't see anything new in there. Actually, I don't really see anything except boring legal stuff.

The slides do state the words "HD 6800 Series Launch Guidelines" which kind of confirm that Bart = 68xx.

 

[aaronspink]

I'll be shocked if AMD changes the wavefront size to 80. It would make programming the thing so much harder, for little to no gain in hardware efficiency, and at a steep hardware and software design cost.

In my book, any rumor that says wavefront size is 80 is just shoddily and hastily constructed. It's a non-starter.

I don't see where these wavefront size increases are coming from.

16x4x20 = 1280. Its just as likely that they are using 2x10 arrays with each array being 16x4. This is the exact same thing as 870 just replace the 5x16 with 4x16.

 

[neliz]

What I'm most interested in from AMD is how this latest series is going to increase DX11 feature performance, especially tessellation. Nvidia seems to have this down, but from what I've seen, AMD is behind yet. Will that change now?

Probably, is the best we can give you.

 

[CarstenS]

Probably, is the best we can give you.

Is that also the most probable thing?

 

[Harison]

Is that also the most probable thing?

Probably

My guess is, since Nvidia overdid tesselation, and AMD under-delivered, 6xxx generation will be in between. Or maybe egos were hurt, and AMD will overdo as well, we'll see soon enough

 

[Berek]

Probably

My guess is, since Nvidia overdid tesselation, and AMD under-delivered, 6xxx generation will be in between. Or maybe egos were hurt, and AMD will overdo as well, we'll see soon enough

Silly question perhaps, but how did Nvidia overdo it? Or maybe the more important question in addition to ask, is why?