AMD: Sea Islands R1100 (8*** series) Speculation/ Rumour Thread

[UniversalTruth]

AMD also sent TechReport an Intel based motherboard to benchmark this GPU! Whoever came up with that idea likes to live dangerously.

True. Probably they care only to showcase the current product in best light. But they don't think about their employment position and that when (if) AMD goes bankrupt they will need to look for a new job... Or maybe they think it's the better option after all...

 

[ninelven]

The closest you are to 1-to1 performance between the APU and GPU the better things are for Dual-Graphics.

From the perspective of the people a product of this level is targeting, dual-graphics sucks. Enthusiasts may put up with it, but they are not enthusiasts. They want a product that just works and has great battery life. And no matter how great a dual-graphics system you may have, it is not going to "just work" as well as a single-graphics system. In fact, I would wager that by promoting dual-graphics for people who don't want it, you are actually chasing them away.

 

[boxleitnerb]

From the perspective of the people a product of this level is targeting, dual-graphics sucks. Enthusiasts may put up with it, but they are not enthusiasts. They want a product that just works and has great battery life. And no matter how great a dual-graphics system you may have, it is not going to "just work" as well as a single-graphics system. In fact, I would wager that by promoting dual-graphics for people who don't want it, you are actually chasing them away.

Fully agree.
As long as SLI/CF depend on AFR, this is just no good solution for the uninformed masses. Personally I think it is unethical to sell them such a thing in the first place suggesting

...double performance (which they won't get)
...smooth gameplay (which they won't get either due to microstuttering that AMD has still not acknowledged publicly nor implemented at least a patchwork solution like Nvidias framemetering)
... hassle-free operation (due to the reliance on profiles not possible as well. Late profiles or even missing profile for your game, negative scaling, graphics glitches etc.)

My 2 cents.

 

[UniversalTruth]

...double performance (which they won't get)

Isn't this true for all cases? Double the raw power gives you much less than 100% performance increase?

 

[boxleitnerb]

Isn't this true for all cases? Double the raw power gives you much less than 100% performance increase?

Depends what factor you mean. Bandwidth, fillrate, GFLOPs...
The 680 for example has 50% more bandwidth than the 560 Ti and is still almost twice as fast on average.

If you sell "dual" graphics, people will naturally assume that it is twice as fast, especially when both GPUs have the same specs. If I buy a 7970 over a 7870, I know the former is faster, but the name doesn't indicate how much, so it is not misleading.
My main problem with dual-graphics is that like all AFR solution it is essentially a quick&dirty solution that may or may not work. For tweak-friendly enthusiasts like me that is okay in the high end, but for average Joe, it is an impertinence.

 

[flopper]

Isn't this true for all cases? Double the raw power gives you much less than 100% performance increase?

we are moving into enough power with one card even at eyefinity resolutions and then the technical issues with dualcards configurations slowly becomes a non issue.
scaling with two cards tend to be a complicated issue with several variables.
a patch can mess things up for example.

really happy with my single 7970 at 5040x1050 rez.

 

[Pressure]

Tom's Hardware is having a preview of the Radeon HD 8790M as well, with benchmarks.

 

[UniversalTruth]

we are moving into enough power with one card even at eyefinity resolutions

That's essentially false. With new and more demanding photorealistic graphics, you will need the power of a supercomputer to run future games.
It's like that nonsense from Samsung:

Samsung Delivers Strong 14 nm FinFET Logic Process and Design Infrastructure

http://www.techpowerup.com/177624/S...-Logic-Process-and-Design-Infrastructure.html

"As we move closer to true mobile computing, chip designers are eager to take advantage of the gains in performance and significantly lower power of 14 nm FinFET to deliver PC like user experience on a mobile device," said Dr. Kyu-Myung Choi, senior vice president of System LSI infrastructure design center, Device Solutions Division, Samsung Electronics.

really happy with my single 7970 at 5040x1050 rez.

How does Crysis 3 run at those settings?

 

[boxleitnerb]

I wouldn't even want to play with a single 7970 GE at 1600p. In many titles it won't provide 60fps by far.

 

[OpenGL guy]

That's essentially false. With new and more demanding photorealistic graphics, you will need the power of a supercomputer to run future games.

We're already there.

 

[silent_guy]

We're already there.

Every once in a while, a link like this is useful to regain some perspective of how far we've come in just a few years.

850KW for 1TFlops!

 

[OpenGL guy]

Every once in a while, a link like this is useful to regain some perspective of how far we've come in just a few years.

850KW for 1TFlops!

ASIC Red did have a bit more RAM than your typical GPU (1.2 Terabytes)

 

[Ailuros]

Tom's Hardware is having a preview of the Radeon HD 8790M as well, with benchmarks.

I'm impressed. Well done AMD.

 

[Blazkowicz]

and they did it on Pentium Pro! (later replaced with Pentium 2 overdrive)

ASIC Red did have a bit more RAM than your typical GPU (1.2 Terabytes)

But it was in thousands of small chunks. 9298 CPUs on dual-socket nodes, that works out at 256MB per node.

 

[ECH]

Does anyone know if the 8000 series will improve load times in multiplayer games or is that solely dependent on drivers? Games like BF3, MW2, BO2, PlanetSide 2, etc

 

[DeF]

Does anyone know if the 8000 series will improve load times in multiplayer games or is that solely dependent on drivers? Games like BF3, MW2, BO2, PlanetSide 2, etc

How much RAM do you have in your system?

 

[ECH]

How much RAM do you have in your system?

It's not about ram in this case. Drivers do appear to play a role in how fast maps load. Take a look at the most recent patch for BO2.
http://community.callofduty.com/message/413552518#413552518

Improved loadtimes when using AMD hardware

I've noticed this since COD WaW. One change in CCC can greatly improve load times. However, I was wondering if the 8000 would improve on that from a HW point of view instead of making changes in CCC.

 

[flopper]

That's essentially false. With new and more demanding photorealistic graphics, you will need the power of a supercomputer to run future games.








How does Crysis 3 run at those settings?

dont play consol ports.

pc gaming industry havent gone forward since crysis 1.
Nintendo got it right, its not visual but gameplay that counts one reason I avoid crysis.

the games I play at the settings I use the 7970 absolutly rocks

 

[DeF]

It's not about ram in this case. Drivers do appear to play a role in how fast maps load. Take a look at the most recent patch for BO2.
http://community.callofduty.com/message/413552518#413552518


I've noticed this since COD WaW. One change in CCC can greatly improve load times. However, I was wondering if the 8000 would improve on that from a HW point of view instead of making changes in CCC.

Well i play a lot of BF3 and upgrading form PII940 + 4GB of ram to I7 2600K + 16GB of ram made a huge difference in map loading time. I am almost as fast as my friends with SSDs.
Hence my question.

 

[ECH]

Well i play a lot of BF3 and upgrading form PII940 + 4GB of ram to I7 2600K + 16GB of ram made a huge difference in map loading time. I am almost as fast as my friends with SSDs.
Hence my question.

I'm not talking about the almost instant load times of BF3 maps in the same rotation. BF3 is still a 32bit .exe so that won't make a difference there.