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

[mczak]

To me it sounds like someone misunderstood something along some point, which then got spread as news. "Deccan disappearing" could just aswell mean that "Deccan" will be known as Brazos 2.0 officially, if the news have any reality behind them.

Not sure if I believe Krishna/Wichita is scrapped (and yeah GloFo problems didn't make sense for that), but if it's indeed delayed to Q2 as was indicated by some roadmaps it could really make sense if there's a successor already in Q4 2012.
Reportedly there's also very limited capacity available initially for 28nm, so it just might not make sense to make a 28nm low-end chip in that timeframe.
AFAICT Brazos 2.0 is nothing more than a marketing update, maybe with a new stepping of the same chip.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Yes, I'm aware of those, "according to sources" stuff with no official info related to such, not even to this date.
Xbit for example mentions that "Brazos 2.0 will boost performance slightly" but won't "revolutionary" like Deccan was supposed to be, yet we already knew during summer that Krishna is supposed to use just enhanced Bobcat cores.
Also none of the sites broadcasting news about that seem to know that TSMC was already meant to be responsible for at least part of Krishna/Wichita chips.

To me it sounds like someone misunderstood something along some point, which then got spread as news. "Deccan disappearing" could just aswell mean that "Deccan" will be known as Brazos 2.0 officially, if the news have any reality behind them.
What could be true, of course, is GF problems, but that wouldn't affect all of Krishna/Wichita combo.

Given that most major hardware websites have forwarded these news about cancelled Krishna and Wichita, I think AMD would have issued some statement saying Wichita and Krishna are still on schedule.

Not sure if I believe Krishna/Wichita is scrapped (and yeah GloFo problems didn't make sense for that), but if it's indeed delayed to Q2 as was indicated by some roadmaps it could really make sense if there's a successor already in Q4 2012.
Reportedly there's also very limited capacity available initially for 28nm, so it just might not make sense to make a 28nm low-end chip in that timeframe.
AFAICT Brazos 2.0 is nothing more than a marketing update, maybe with a new stepping of the same chip.

Agreed. 4-5 months in the market probably wouldn't be profitable enough for AMD to spend money in marketing+support+distribution of a new line of products.




So Nordichardware's rumour about the December 5 launch were nothing but a lie..
That's too bad.. Is there any AMD presentation scheduled for December, at all?

 

[Man from Atlantis]

huh Tahiti bigger than 600mm2 ?
http://bbs.expreview.com/thread-48730-1-1.html

 

[UniversalTruth]

So Nordichardware's rumour about the December 5 launch were nothing but a lie..
That's too bad.. Is there any AMD presentation scheduled for December, at all?

Very strong words, given this:

It is not real launch event though, but a media event to let the media take part of what is about to come from AMD.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news/...o-be-presented-in-london-on-december-5th.html

There are also events in Munich, Germany; Paris, France, etc...
You can't expect information probably under NDA to be widely available immediately.
Be patient and wait for some leaks.

 

[denev2004]

Only 3 Verson of GCN? What the...

 

[Kaotik]

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?cc=de&lc=de&dlc=de&softwareitem=ob-100032-1

First of HD7-series "announced" in HP drivers

Systemvoraussetzungen: Supported Devices and Features
Mobile Intel HD Graphics
Radeon HD 6490M
Radeon HD 6770M
Radeon HD 7470M
Radeon HD 7690M XT

7690M is reportedly VLIW4

 

[Gipsel]

7690M is reportedly VLIW4

Reported where?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Very strong words, given this:

There are also events in Munich, Germany; Paris, France, etc...
You can't expect information probably under NDA to be widely available immediately.
Be patient and wait for some leaks.

A media event with NDA?
What's the point? Did that ever happen?

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?cc=de&lc=de&dlc=de&softwareitem=ob-100032-1

First of HD7-series "announced" in HP drivers

7690M is reportedly VLIW4

Actually, they were already "announced" through the specs of actual laptops being sold right now.

However, there's the (high) chance that the HD76xxM series are just renamed HD67xxM.
With the new naming scheme, HD77xxM should use the same GPUs as desktop HD76xx, leaving HD76xxM with no rumoured successor so far (most probably it's not a VLIW4 Cape Verde / Lombok).

 

[neliz]

A media event with NDA?
What's the point? Did that ever happen?

Loooooooooooooooooooooool

Google ATI + Ibizi +R520 for a good idea. or AMD +Evergreen +Hornet.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Loooooooooooooooooooooool

Google ATI + Ibizi +R520 for a good idea. or AMD +Evergreen +Hornet.

Neither were comparable.
Both the Ibiza and the USS Hornet events were openly discussed by the invited media and was primarily aimed at investors afaik. No hardware/performance details were given but they at least disclosed the NDA lift date and some hints about what to expect.


This supposed "London event" appeared only in the nordichardware site and no one mentioned it at all.

BTW: spare the sarcasm, if you please.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Both the Ibiza and the USS Hornet events were openly discussed by the invited media and was primarily aimed at investors afaik. No hardware/performance details were given but they at least disclosed the NDA lift date and some hints about what to expect.

No these were press tech days aimed at giving the details of the product, architeture and other updates under embargo.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

No these were press tech days aimed at giving the details of the product, architeture and other updates under embargo.

So.. erm.. did this thing happen at London or not?

 

[LordEC911]

huh Tahiti bigger than 600mm2 ?
http://bbs.expreview.com/thread-48730-1-1.html

Maybe in reference to New Zealand?

 

[caveman-jim]

So.. erm.. did this thing happen at London or not?

Guess what, if you needed to know that you would already know.

Not every site gets invited to every briefing, and not every breifing has the same embargo restrictions. Companies like AMD have a lot of balls in the air at one time for a lot of products, not every media outlet they work with covers all their products or announcments.

 

[iMacmatician]

huh Tahiti bigger than 600mm2 ?
http://bbs.expreview.com/thread-48730-1-1.html

LOL WHAT?

Is that even possible? And if so, why?

A shrunk Cayman would be 195 < x < 259 mm^2 (my bounds are 0.5 and 0.67) depending on how good the shrink is and if they add some stuff to it. Let's say that a hypothetical VLIW-4 chip that gives enough (gaming) performance to be worth making is at least 33% bigger than the shrunk Cayman, that's at most 346 mm^2. Now I assume that Tahiti "has to be" bigger than 600 mm^2, in that it takes a chip that big to match a 33% bigger Cayman in (gaming) performance. 601/346 mm^2 = 1.74, I don't see how Tahiti would need to be 74% bigger than Cayman to match it?

My guess is either Tahiti is < 600 mm^2 or they want Tahiti to be much more powerful than Cayman (like 2x).

Or it's a reference to New Zealand as LordEC911 says.

 

[Gipsel]

Maybe in reference to New Zealand?

Right, two Tahiti dies combined on a silicon interposer behaving like a large single GPU.

 

[mczak]

Right, two Tahiti dies combined on a silicon interposer behaving like a large single GPU.

Well for two tahiti dies the size sounds about right at least...
There's imho no way a single chip will exceed even 400mm².

 

[neliz]

Did anyone run a double confirmation on those numbers?

 

[chavvdarrr]

Right, two Tahiti dies combined on a silicon interposer behaving like a large single GPU.

Lets pray this won't be a "GPU-bulldozer"

 

[UniversalTruth]

Lets pray this won't be a "GPU-bulldozer"

No,
there is always something good in all the bad things that happen.
Last period when prices had been relatively low was when ATI (or AMD) had to catch up performance wise. So, the relatively low performance can be a factor to keep prices in check, rather than go sky rocket.

Bulldozer shows negative performance scaling in many applications when you compare it to the old X6 1100T.
With Radeon HD 7000 we should see at least 20-30 % performance improvement (yeah, it might be relatively low increase, but it's better than none or negative) over Cayman in all applications. I mean there is no way in hell we will see Tahiti being slower than Cayman, in any application.
The good thing for AMD is that this time they will not have competition for several months and that should give them time to release a second generation GCN product just in time to counter.