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

[caveman-jim]

About Homeles's point on "microstutter", see AMD's annoucement that they fixed their driver. It was a deep and longstanding issue, with Dave Baumann apparently being credited.

I don't think the driver is available yet, so it's not fixed and I don't know about the deep and longstanding part, Dave would have to clarify if it's his baby or if this is based on what Scott @ TR highlighted bringing the issue to light - recall TR posting that he previous results had caused AMD to take a long look at it.

 

[Dave Baumann]

About Homeles's point on "microstutter", see AMD's annoucement that they fixed their driver. It was a deep and longstanding issue, with Dave Baumann apparently being credited.

That last sentence is not at all an accurate interpretation of my comments.

 

[3dilettante]

Is this an accurate reflection of your statement?

.stnemmoc ym fo noitaterpretni etarucca na lla ta ton si ecnetnes tsal tahT


In all seriousness, my interpretation of fragments from Tech Report and its comment section was that the situation is there are multiple factors, some of which can be fixed with CAPs. Some of the factors need driver changes, and a version of the driver that has been in development was found to improve latency and has been pushed forward in the pipeline.

I'm curious if there will be more detail on the memory management changes that came with GCN.
Obviously, the individual SIMDs/CUs are far more capable of interacting with memory without deferring to a central arbiter.

 

[jimbo75]

My god are you really so dense and myopic that you can't even get the facts of the Intel settlements/payments right.

AMD one-off payment from Intel was for the settlement of the anti-trust case and was $1.2 billion. That payment will never happen again.

Nvidia got $1.5 billion from Intel for licensing of the GPU patents that Nvidia owns and will be paid out over six years. After the six years are up another licensing agreement will be negotiated so expect these payments to reoccur.

Intel to Pay NVIDIA Technology Licensing Fees of $1.5 Billion

http://pressroom.nvidia.com/easyir/...CE9F579F09&prid=706607&releasejsp=release_157

NVIDIA Settles with Intel for $1.5 Billion

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2011/1/10/nvidia-settles-with-intel-for-2415-billion.aspx

Forgive me for not remembering the exact details of intels charity payout. That's what it is, and it's what Nvidia needs in order to maintain their business. 1.5 Billion over 6 years, how much of Nvidia's profit was that? Kept afloat by TSMC taking the hit during the Fermi fiasco and for years before with their "pay per good die" agreement, and now AMD is gifting them marketshare. The facts are clear - this company relies on the charity of others in order to break even.

 

[silent_guy]

The facts are clear - this company relies on the charity of others in order to break even.

The key to maintain an under the radar comedy act is to stay subtle and in character. I'm afraid you just jumped the shark on this one.

 

[Blazkowicz]

That last sentence is not at all an accurate interpretation of my comments.

sorry, I saw your name mentioned in a few places, so it sticked out (to me) due to you doing the communicating. I must have made a brain fart.

 

[jimbo75]

The key to maintain an under the radar comedy act is to stay subtle and in character. I'm afraid you just jumped the shark on this one.

Is the intel payment more than Nvidia's profit?
Did Nvidia have a pay per good die agreement in place at TSMC, so that in effect TSMC absorbed the Fermi fiasco?

You wonder why Nvidia has plenty of cash in the bank when everybody else is falling over themselves to hand out charity to them.

 

[caveman-jim]

In all seriousness, my interpretation of fragments from Tech Report and its comment section was that the situation is there are multiple factors, some of which can be fixed with CAPs. Some of the factors need driver changes, and a version of the driver that has been in development was found to improve latency and has been pushed forward in the pipeline.

I'm curious if there will be more detail on the memory management changes that came with GCN.
Obviously, the individual SIMDs/CUs are far more capable of interacting with memory without deferring to a central arbiter.

That's a good point, I would expect to see changes to the memory management model at the driver level but perhaps modifications of use of caches and LDS/GDS can be done at the CAP level for an existing profile? What does 'memory management' as a term cover, is it just the GDDR5 RAM and bus controller or is it cache, LDS, GDS store as well, or sometimes both?

 

[3dcgi]

Memory management can mean anything that needs memory and data can be in system (CPU) or local (GPU) memory. vertex buffers, textures, render targets, constants, etc.

 

[silent_guy]

Is the intel payment more than Nvidia's profit?

It's a $65M/quarter license fee. So no, not by a long shot.

Did Nvidia have a pay per good die agreement in place at TSMC, so that in effect TSMC absorbed the Fermi fiasco?

Per good die agreements are more expensive when yields are high, but cheaper when they are low. It was either excellent foresight or serendipity to negotiate just the right contract and sacrifice optimal prices for increased security. Furthermore, it's not as if it was Nvidia's fault that yields were low, so you're barking up the wrong tree.

And, of course, this happened almost 4 years ago. They added $300M non-license cash to the bank in the last 9 months, without a good die only deal in place. So I fail to see the relevance to today's business conditions.

 

[UniversalTruth]

S|A says no Sea Islands for Q1, moved back while they sell all these Radeon's stockpiled for the massive Windows 8 bubble that wasn't.

Charlie writes epic articles. I personally wonder what will happen next:

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/14/microsoft-has-failed/#.UOdnK2_aXX8

In the end, the death spiral for Microsoft is in full effect, and management is expending a lot of effort to speed it up. Anyone who dares point out that the entire system is collapsing, or worse yet suggests an alternative, gets Sinofsky’d. Or was it Guggenheimer’d? In any case, Microsoft is unwilling to change, and that is very clear. Even if they wanted to, they are culturally far beyond the point of being able to. What was a slow bleed of marketshare is now gushing, and management is clueless, intransigent, and myopic. Game over, the thrashing will continue for a bit, but it won’t change the outcome. Microsoft has failed.

What kind of influence it will have on the other big players? Is it really possible MS fades away in few years?

 

[Kaotik]

Simply put, no.

 

[cal_guy]

My god are you really so dense and myopic that you can't even get the facts of the Intel settlements/payments right.

AMD one-off payment from Intel was for the settlement of the anti-trust case and was $1.2 billion. That payment will never happen again.

Nvidia got $1.5 billion from Intel for licensing of the GPU patents that Nvidia owns and will be paid out over six years. After the six years are up another licensing agreement will be negotiated so expect these payments to reoccur.

Intel to Pay NVIDIA Technology Licensing Fees of $1.5 Billion

http://pressroom.nvidia.com/easyir/...CE9F579F09&prid=706607&releasejsp=release_157

NVIDIA Settles with Intel for $1.5 Billion

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2011/1/10/nvidia-settles-with-intel-for-2415-billion.aspx

The rights granted are all patents (excluding several categories in Intel case) that currently owned by either Intel and nVidia as well as all patents that are filed by either Intel or nVidia before or on March 31 2017. The agreement itself will only end once the last patent that was covered on the agreement has expired or there is a termination with cause according to section 4.2 of the agreement. Note that this licensing agreement also terminated litigation between nVidia and Intel. Also while nVidia got more in dollar amounts the actual value of the payments are really similar to each other because AMD got their settlement in one lump sum and 1 year earlier.

 

[eastmen]

Charlie writes epic articles. I personally wonder what will happen next:

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/14/microsoft-has-failed/#.UOdnK2_aXX8

In the end, the death spiral for Microsoft is in full effect, and management is expending a lot of effort to speed it up. Anyone who dares point out that the entire system is collapsing, or worse yet suggests an alternative, gets Sinofsky’d. Or was it Guggenheimer’d? In any case, Microsoft is unwilling to change, and that is very clear. Even if they wanted to, they are culturally far beyond the point of being able to. What was a slow bleed of marketshare is now gushing, and management is clueless, intransigent, and myopic. Game over, the thrashing will continue for a bit, but it won’t change the outcome. Microsoft has failed.

What kind of influence it will have on the other big players? Is it really possible MS fades away in few years?

The navy and a bunch of the government just signed up with MS to upgrade to windows 8 .


MS and windows isn't going any where , its easy to hate on windows 8 (still to this day have no idea why) but the bad start of windows 8 is the direct fault of the hardware partners. MS expanding its product line will be a very good thing for them.

 

[snarfbot]

well at any rate its a bargain to upgrade to, although that may be considered a sidegrade to some folks, downgrade maybe...

 

[UniversalTruth]

MS and windows isn't going any where

I will tell you the truth. You never know. So, don't claim it with such high degree of certainty. You see where Nokia is for example today- in the middle of nowhere, and just few years ago no one would have predicted it...

its easy to hate on windows 8 (still to this day have no idea why)

Of course, there are multiple reasons and they are pretty well explained in the articles.
It's sad but as much as MS want to do it, they will never be able to force people to use and like their stupid changes.

but the bad start of windows 8 is the direct fault of the hardware partners..

Oh, it's very easy to blame someone else.

 

[Doomtrooper]

The navy and a bunch of the government just signed up with MS to upgrade to windows 8 .


MS and windows isn't going any where , its easy to hate on windows 8 (still to this day have no idea why) but the bad start of windows 8 is the direct fault of the hardware partners. MS expanding its product line will be a very good thing for them.

There is a couple of reasons why:

1) Household disposable income is very low in North America (there is alot of unemploment and uncertainity in the ecoonomy)
2)Windows 7 is still a great OS, for the average consumer there is no real reason to upgrade especially if your a gamer and your primary PC is a desktop.
3)Mobility rules the world right now, and APPS rule the OS, since Android and Apple have that market locked down M$ has a long road ahead.

 

[Helmore]

Eh, guys? Can we keep it on topic here? I don't think talking about AMD's and NVIDIA's financial situations is all that relevant to R1100 and neither is how Microsoft is doing.

Also, I don't think it's my job to tell you guys this, so I hope I'm not offending anyone by saying this.

That said, I can understand why we're getting sidetracked. There are pretty much no credible rumors regarding Sea Islands.

 

[caveman-jim]

There are pretty much no credible rumors regarding Sea Islands.

Pretty crazy given there's product shipping with SI in it already (new 8500M/8600M/8700M stuff)

 

[iMacmatician]

I thought that chip is another Southern Islands part?