AMD: Southern Islands (7*** series) Speculation/ Rumour Thread

[mczak]

Given the comment on the fast PHY, I was primarily talking about speed. Density clearly plays a part on the planning process as well.

I am actually wondering about price difference on different speeds. Given that nvidia uses pretty high speed parts even on cards which don't benefit from them all that much I'd have to assume it's very small. OTOH though both Samsung and Hynix will make 5gbps, 6gbps and 7gbps 4gbit chips, so you'd think there's still some price difference.
What about a 7790 using 7gbps chips .

As you may have gleaned from the PS4 announcement we are also on the cusp of another transition from 64Mx32 devices to 128M32, later on 2GB frame-buffers on 128b GDDR boards will be commonplace in this configuration and 4GB can be achieved in x16 modes.

Yeah but 2GB could have been achieved already with 2gbit devices using x16 mode on 7790. But I guess the reference design just wasn't meant for that. Or maybe that's a market segment better served with 2GB 7850 for now.

 

[lanek]

I don't think so. Yes, TPU's results show, that Bonaire is 2-3 % slower than Barts, but the set of games seems to be a bit elderly to me. According to ComputerBase.de and Hardware.fr, HD 7790 is 28 - 29 % faster than HD 7770. Direct comparison with HD 6870 is missing, but the older reviews like this one (or another one) shows, that HD 6870 was just 18-27 % faster than HD 7770 (=> HD 7790 is very likely faster than HD 6870 in current games, maybe even quite close to HD 5870)

if i compare with the Guru3D review, it is more close of the 6970 in some games.. ( 5870 in other ) . for be honest i will have expect this type of performance from the 7770 when released.

 

[gkar1]

After reading a plethora of 7790 reviews all I want is a bonairex3 7970 replacement. Make it happen Dave

 

[liolio]

The initial planning configuration for this was 192b, but I was one of the proponents for moving this to 128b with the fast PHY due to the direction that the memory devices were taking. Obviously there are others trade-offs as well.

Thanks for the insight

I still wonder about the decision, I would think that it could have been beneficial to push out the card with 192 bit bus, in two configurations a 12 and 14 CUs and launch the products as HD 8770&8750.

I guess AMD can fight a bigger ship (though a salvage part) the 650ti with a lesser memory configuration (/simpler mobo), definitely an impressive product as it is.

The thing is that I wonder if AMD should go further that as I don't know what proper marketing data says but I feel like AMD is still lagging in brand recognition vs Nvidia. Most of the people I spoke with off late that were to update their GPU were quiet wary when I mentioned that AMD GPU perf/$, actually they dismissed the option before I could even present my pov /point to reviews.

Another thing is that the "standard" way of reviewing (average FPS) did not do Cap verde that much justice (techreport review presented the improvements way better). With the HD 66xx being mostly a HD 57xx, and reviews not presenting well enough the improvements cap verde brung on the table, I wonder if AMD offering on that segment could be consider quiet stagnant.

If I followed the mews properly it seems that AMD shares has slightly goes down vs Nvidia, I would think that AMD may have benefit from a product that set himself more significantly apart from the competition actually making it challenging for the competition to match their offer.

Overall I expect Nvidia to match AMD offers especially as it seems that their brand strength allow them to go away with lesser perf/$.

I feel like AMD has material here to come with a strong refresh in the x7xx segment: first 192 bit product in that segment for AMD, vs Cap verde 2 geometry engines, enough bandwidth to make the most of the ROPs throughput, etc.
I think the marketing team would have had proper material to work with and Internet is dumb I think that a hd 87xx product launch (even if still the good old GCN) would have attracted more attention and get more coverage.

 

[Wynix]

Thanks for the insight

I still wonder about the decision, I would think that it could have been beneficial to push out the card with 192 bit bus, in two configurations a 12 and 14 CUs and launch the products as HD 8770&8750.

If they rebadge the 7790 as a 8770 then i can see your point, an 8770 with ~100GB/s bandwidth would be a let down.

The thing is that I wonder if AMD should go further that as I don't know what proper marketing data says but I feel like AMD is still lagging in brand recognition vs Nvidia. Most of the people I spoke with off late that were to update their GPU were quiet wary when I mentioned that AMD GPU perf/$, actually they dismissed the option before I could even present my pov /point to reviews.

AMD have made alot of ground in the last few years but like what happened when the latency issue was found it set them back a few steps again, it's really hard to win over people who ignore your product until it's in the news for the wrong reasons.

Unfortunately the only way to overcome this issue is by releasing strong products again and again, AMD will overcome this issue within the next few series revisions.

I feel like AMD has material here to come with a strong refresh in the x7xx segment: first 192 bit product in that segment for AMD, vs Cap verde 2 geometry engines, enough bandwidth to make the most of the ROPs throughput, etc.

I think a 192 bit bus is well suited to the upcoming 8770, combine that with 1.5GB GDDR5 @ 6Gbps and it should make a compelling card for those who cannot afford the 8850, also AMD should not replicate the performance disparity between the 7770 and the 7850 with the upcoming 8770/8850.

I think the marketing team would have had proper material to work with and Internet is dumb I think that a hd 87xx product launch (even if still the good old GCN) would have attracted more attention and get more coverage.

This i do not agree with, you are thinking about short term gain at the cost of a long term loss.
AMD would be consistently on the back-foot about when the rest of the 8000 series cards would release, which is meant to be the final quarter of this year, listening to consumers and media whining for the next 6+ months? even as a consumer i want none of that.

 

[liolio]

Let say I do not agree, waiting for the sake of waiting is useless especially has the next wave of product is set to be released in late 2013, not too mention those cards are labelled by OEM as HD87xx already.

The naming is a mess and so is the matching communication.
If I look at the console realm a few years ago when I was saying that actually using wider bus should be considered everybody disagreed including mods, now we have 2 systems using 256bit bus.

In the gran scheme of thing with no major release till late this year, slightly decrease in market share, AMD should have make its move now, pressuring Nvidia and offering a significant increase on a segment which could be perceived as stagnant.

Another thing is that I read a review that shown how good the card (or GCN overall) are at compute, absolutely crushing Nvidia offering. Now Nvidia get more coverage for its upcoming Kyala (sucky CPU and GPU compare to up coming Kabini), one has to wonder about the noise Jen-Hsun would do if it has such a line of product to push.

Overall I understand AMD less and less, all this doesn't make sense.

 

[swaaye]

At which point in time do you think you most understood AMD's grand plan?

 

[3dilettante]

There is a broad swath of reasons for why SMT has not been fully introduced and a rumored range of reasons why APUs took so long, almost none of which are relevant to this thread and have been discussed in more appropriate threads.
(EDIT: as to SMT) There are costs in terms of design complexity and design validation that AMD either could not shoulder or would not risk, but that wasn't done out on a whim.

The discussion about the ATI acquisition, product margins, and its tactical and strategic decisions have been done to death in a doom and gloom thread that exists for this very discussion.

That is at best a distantly relevant topic to Southern Islands.

 

[liolio]

for the sake of clarity 3Dillentante answered a post I deleted because it was OT and to prevent further answer to something OT... well I deleted it.

 

[iMacmatician]

From PC World: "AMD provides a sneak peek at its Radeon HD 7990."

We’re not saying much about it other than it’s two series-7900 GPUs on a single card, and it’s whisper quiet.

They also announced the Radeon Sky series for data centers and game servers.

 

[UniversalTruth]

The Radeon HD 7990 will compete with Nvidia’s Titan for fastest video card on the planet when the card ships (unless Nvidia manages to come out with a dual-Titan card). Expect to see cards like this at retail before the end of the first half of the year, because AMD is expected to ship its Radeon HD 8000 series GPUs in the second half.

Perhaps they don't know about the existance of the GTX 690...

Such a laugh story.

 

[Dave Baumann]

From PC World: "AMD provides a sneak peek at its Radeon HD 7990."

It also powered the BF4 demo's.

 

[thatdude90210]

Maybe I smoked too much crack, or perhaps not enough, but I thought the 7990 came out months ago. So this is just AMD official version instead of the Powercolor version? What's so exciting about that?

 

[Malo]

I believe the previous release was only a vendor design, not an official build by AMD. I have no idea if this is somehow better though.

 

[Homeles]

What's so exciting about that?

Press exposure.

 

[Alexko]

From PC World: "AMD provides a sneak peek at its Radeon HD 7990."

They also announced the Radeon Sky series for data centers and game servers.

Two series-7900 GPUs, eh?

Maybe it's not Tahiti.

 

[Kaotik]

Two series-7900 GPUs, eh?

Maybe it's not Tahiti.

Are you suggesting there will be new 7900-series GPUs then? Since ATM only Tahitis are 7900's

 

[gongo]

honestly Dave...i would choose the 650TiB if i was looking for a <199 GPU....no offence...650TiB hits the sweet spot better than 7790 imho. Bonaire should have come with 1.5GB and 192bit bandwidth....or it should go cheaper...it is not like 7790 overclocks better than 650TiB...last i heard both them can hit 1.2ghz on the core....

I think 7790 is an interesting product...at $110-129.
Thats the price AMD is ..i suspect targeting for the Haswell crowd....

 

[Alexko]

Are you suggesting there will be new 7900-series GPUs then? Since ATM only Tahitis are 7900's

I don't know, but until a few days ago, Cape Verde was the only 7700-series GPU. It's just an idea, but AMD is up to some strange things with its lineup.

 

[UniversalTruth]

They were speaking about Malta or something? Malta being the reference 7990, and New Zealand the old 7970 X2?