AMD: R9xx Speculation

[eastmen]

Because when they started they 580 didn't exist (in fact I don't think the 480 did). So they're setting their own line in the sand, and the line is defined not solely by competitor performance but by performance target, cost target, power and heat budgets, and requests from partners. There are many different influence pulling many different ways.

So why would they target performance on par with cayman ? They would increase performance as they allways do with new hardware. THe 580 didn't exist and neither did the 480. However amd could certianly see the target performance they were shooting for and what nvidia would be able to reach with larger chips. To top it off , the 480 has been around for close to 6 months , amd could have easly figured out what performance they would have reached with the chip.

You want a $400 card from AMD that outperforms a $500 card from NVIDIA? Yeah we all do, but will AMD make one? If they could then all kinds of decisions come up - is it responsible to the business and the shareholders to make a faster card for $100 less? Isn't it more responsible to price it competitively? What about the product pricing line up? Do you leave gaps to fill in or design for a product performance/value/power target, and stick to it? Will you sell more cards and gain more market and mindshare by selling $400 GPU's instead of $500 GPU's? Barts launched into the $150-$250 price point because that's where the money is for the enthusiast gamer. $300+ is higher margin, much lower sales. Why then target an even smaller segment with $500+ products?

All depends doesn't it. Amd got pretty close to gtx 480 performance over 6 months before the gtx 480 came out with a smaller , cheaper and more energy efficent chip. Whos to say that they can't do better now ? After all nvidia has had what 4-5 months since the gtx 480 came out and were able to raise performance 20-30%. Why can't amd have done more with over a year ?

Aiming for the farthest yard stick with a single throw gives you R600's and GF100's - you miss the market.

Meh , expecting 40% or so improvement over a year old part from amd isn't us thinking they are going for the farthest yard stick

Even if you disregard them knowing what nvidia was up to .... why would amd not target better performance with a brand new chip over cypress. It makes no sense for amd to target only a 20% increase . They would have gone for more imo. 20% is not out of the range of an overclock on cypress.

 

[SimBy]

Okie dokie. We're on the 20th here so that means we're about 20 days from the slated release, right?

Two dates floating around, 7th and 13th.

 

[Jawed]

At the risk of inciting a riot, it's occurred to me that it might be delayed purely because of terrible scores Cayman was getting in 3DMark 11. If the architecture is substantially changed then it seems likely it'll require a lot of driver work.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I just don't see that two weeks delay is very significant of anything much. NDA was supposed to end 22nd Nov, with shipping a week later. AFAIK, NDA is still at the same time and shipping is mid-December. What can be done in a couple of weeks? Not really much of anything except build a bit more stock, or sell a bit more of the 5000 series. Two weeks isn't time to do much of anything at all. Are they wanting to give the reviewers a bit more time? A bit more work on the drivers?

I wonder what can be worth more than missing a couple of pre-christmas weeks?

 

[hatter]

At the risk of inciting a riot, it's occurred to me that it might be delayed purely because of terrible scores Cayman was getting in 3DMark 11. If the architecture is substantially changed then it seems likely it'll require a lot of driver work.

Doesn't seem likely. The launch was supposed to be on Nov 23, a week before the arrival of 3D Mark 11. Instead of postponing the launch, which has pretty serious ramifications for business, AMD could have simply released a hotfix on Nov 30.

 

[Mianca]

At the risk of inciting a riot, it's occurred to me that it might be delayed purely because of terrible scores Cayman was getting in 3DMark 11. If the architecture is substantially changed then it seems likely it'll require a lot of driver work.

I don't know.

If I had to market a card knowing that it won't do all too well in a very important upcoming benchmark, I'd rather choose to quickly ship a few cards to the most important review sites BEFORE that benchmark was released than push my launch date back in the faint hope of still finding some really significant short-term performance tweaks ...

To me, it looks more like AMD actually knows that Cayman will do very well in 3DMark 11 - so they made sure 3DMark11 is out and used by every major review site before the HD69** series is launched ...

 

[trinibwoy]

At the risk of inciting a riot, it's occurred to me that it might be delayed purely because of terrible scores Cayman was getting in 3DMark 11. If the architecture is substantially changed then it seems likely it'll require a lot of driver work.

There aren't any details so far on the techniques used in 3DM11 but I don't see anything that suggests Cayman would be particularly inefficient at it (at least compared to games). Seems like a lot of light sources are in play so it's probably a deferred engine and there's a bit of tessellation. No word on shadowing algorithm or a custom AA implementation. The physics test should be fun but it's DirectCompute/Bullet based and I don't think AMD is currently lacking there based on the Bullet demos released so far.

 

[LordEC911]

Two weeks isn't time to do much of anything at all. Are they wanting to give the reviewers a bit more time?

I wonder what can be worth more than missing a couple of pre-christmas weeks?

Well it certainly isn't for reviewers since according to Sampsa they won't be getting cards for another two weeks...

I really don't know why everyone makes a big deal about pre-Christmas. Certainly Black Friday is a big day/weekend but that is usually last minute stuff or major deals, don't think expensive niche products like +$300 cards sell overly well. Back to school and new OS systems always seem to be the most important time but that might be due to OEM wins.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

I just don't see that two weeks delay is very significant of anything much. NDA was supposed to end 22nd Nov, with shipping a week later. AFAIK, NDA is still at the same time and shipping is mid-December. What can be done in a couple of weeks? Not really much of anything except build a bit more stock, or sell a bit more of the 5000 series. Two weeks isn't time to do much of anything at all. Are they wanting to give the reviewers a bit more time? A bit more work on the drivers?

I wonder what can be worth more than missing a couple of pre-christmas weeks?

2 weeks would be a huge increase compared to Barts. Reviewers had at most a week with Barts before NDA expiration, and that was only if you lived in California and were able to take your sample cards back to test the same day you received them at the press briefing.

Rumors I'm hearing indicate AMD wants more time with drivers.

Well it certainly isn't for reviewers since according to Sampsa they won't be getting cards for another two weeks...

This is not accurate. I can't say more.

 

[Mianca]

Well it certainly isn't for reviewers since according to Sampsa they won't be getting cards for another two weeks..

Newer rumors seem to suggest that Cayman will actually launch December 7th (i.e. ~ 1 week after 3DMark11).

I wouldn't be surprised if the first review cards were distributed as early as next Monday - maybe accompanied by one or two hints concerning ongoing driver tweaks. They certainly won't wait longer than the Monday after that (November 29th) - as they'll want to make sure reviewers have Cayman cards in their hands when they give first evaluations of 3DMark11 performance (although reviewers won't be allowed to openly talk about Cayman's 3DMark11 performance until another week after that - they'll at least have some "background" insight on Cayman to put any big performance differences between Barts and GF110 into perspective).

 

[digitalwanderer]

Newer rumors seem to suggest that Cayman will actually launch December 7th (i.e. ~ 1 week after 3DMark11).

I wouldn't be surprised if the first review cards were distributed as early as next Monday - maybe accompanied by one or two hints concerning ongoing driver tweaks. They certainly won't wait longer than the Monday after that (November 29th) - as they'll want to make sure reviewers have Cayman cards in their hands when they give first evaluations of 3DMark11 performance (although reviewers won't be allowed to openly talk about Cayman's 3DMark11 performance until another week after that - they'll at least have some "background" insight on Cayman to put any big performance differences between Barts and GF110 into perspective).

Do you really think they're holding back the cards just based on timing or whims though? Your idea seems to involve them being able to put out cards whenever they want...

 

[neliz]

2 weeks would be a huge increase compared to Barts. Reviewers had at most a week with Barts before NDA expiration, and that was only if you lived in California and were able to take your sample cards back to test the same day you received them at the press briefing.

I think everyone seems to be happy with a 5 days lead on the cards (including the weekend), just like the GTX580.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

I think everyone seems to be happy with a 5 days lead on the cards (including the weekend), just like the GTX580.

I doubt that. Most of us have full time jobs so the more time we have to write reviews the better the end product.

 

[Mianca]

Do you really think they're holding back the cards just based on timing or whims though? Your idea seems to involve them being able to put out cards whenever they want...

I don't think they're deliberately "holding back" cards - but I do think that the final launch date they choose will be more dependend on driver status and timing than lacking DrMOS parts or any other problems in that direction ...

 

[digitalwanderer]

I don't think they're deliberately "holding back" cards - but I do think that the final launch date they choose will be more dependend on driver status and timing than lacking DrMOS parts or any other problems in that direction ...

That I'm agreeing with, I just thought you were implying that the delay was a purely strategic thing...which I highly doubt. (DISCLAIMER: I don't know why they were delayed, I'm trying hard to not have anyone tell me so I can have fun guessing too. )

 

[ECH]

Please. For the last pages at least, I've been skipping about 5 out of 6 posts.

All these last minute frequency adjustments, graphic chips countering each other and strategic delays has gone obsessive.

I don't think anyone knows for sure. Dave did say that it would take a few months. So if frequencies was changed it was probably done during the summer, not recent.

 

[DarthShader]

http://bbs.expreview.com/viewthread.php?tid=37918&from=recommend_f

Only 160GB/s bandwidth? Only 1250mhz memory clock?

 

[hoom]

Oh thank **** finally some specs rumor

 

[no-X]

I think the number of TMUs is more interesting. R7xx/8xx had 4 TMUs per SIMD, but Cayman doesn't.

 

[leoneazzurro]

I think the number of TMUs is more interesting. R7xx/8xx had 4 TMUs per SIMD, but Cayman doesn't.

So or the slide is fake or there is a typo or the TMU are "decoupled" now (á la R600)?