AMD: Speculation, Rumors, and Discussion (Archive)

[Silent_Buddha]

Thing is,
are the 'reference' blower design models really worth it from a consumer gamer perspective and this applies to both AMD and Nvidia.
Neither company cards perform ideally when using blower design for gamers, but I appreciate those on a very tight budget may consider them although this then raises possibility of is a good custom 470 comparable/better than the 'reference' blower 480.
Cheers

I'm in a rare situation where a blower design is quieter than aftermarket axial designs due to the way my computer is constructed. 1 input fan and 1 semi-passive PSU fan. An aftermarket cooler would dump the heat into my case requiring either higher RPM from the 1 fan or adding additional fans in addition to potentially having to install a CPU fan, all of which would increase the noise of the system.

So despite blower style coolers being inherently noisier than aftermarket axial fan coolers, my overall system is quieter with a blower style fan. Hence, I went with the Asus non-reference blower cooled card. I had previously experimented with axial style aftermarket coolers with AMD cards, and greatly regretted it. The noise from the card was lower, but the cooling requirements for the case increased to such an extent that overall my computer was louder.

I prefer a less noisy solution. A water cooled GPU would have given the best of both worlds being able to dump the heat outside of the case, however, that's also significantly more expensive for very little gain, IMO, as I don't overclock.

Regards,
SB

 

[Razor1]

Cards coming up at MSRP.
Sure they were snatched away really fast because they're a lot cheaper than they were everywhere during the past couple of months. But it's a sign the prices are starting to fall back to MSRP and that's a discussion we've had in this thread.

Why did the link bother you so much that you had to create an account just to protest against it?

Microcenter rarely price gouges though, if ever, so I wouldn't look at them as proof of that. Online retailers are more likely to price gouge, and its still going on by quite a bit, the rx 470 is selling for rx 480 prices and the rx 480 prices are higher still.

And no they aren't going that fast Tottentranz, there is a major supply issue going on here, just keep track of reviews at Amazon and Newegg, for AMD rx products they are barely moving up, nV products have a steady increase each week.

PS

There is nothing scientific about this, so its just a trend.

 

[function]

Change of subject, but could anyone clarify the relationship between ROPs, memory channels, and shader engines in the 480 for me please?

I've been looking a the "at a glance" diagram on this page: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10446/the-amd-radeon-rx-480-preview

There are four "shader engines", each of which has a geometry processor and a rasteriser. Compute units seems to be separated into 3 x 3 blocks within each shader engine. Each Shader engine seems to have 2 "RBs" (Raster Backend?).

Is it correct to say that each RB can process 4 pixels a clock, meaning that there are effectively 8 ROPs per shader engine, and that the only way to increase the number of ROPs is to increase the number of shader engines?

Would it also be correct to say that the number of memory controllers (shown as 8, presumably 32 bits per channel and up to two chips on each) can be set independently of the number of shader engines (explaining Tonga)?

 

[CSI PC]

Yeah totally agree that the blower style is useful in those situations where the heat needs to be blown outside of the case, but this is not general gaming consumers (maybe a bad assumption on my part) who are not using the very small form factor cases.

I guess it would be better if I say those that are using more traditional PC cases does it make sense to consider a very good custom 470 or the blower 480.
As an example the Sapphire Nitro 470 8GB is within 4% of the blower 480 8GB model.
Scroll down for the performance tables: https://www.computerbase.de/2016-08/radeon-rx-470-test/3/
Challenge though is that not all the 470 8GB models use the same spec memory and care is needed.

Anyway quite a few variables I would say when comparing the best 470 custom cards to the 'reference' blower 480 cards including flexibility of performance/thermals/OCing, if venting is not a requirement.
No idea myself which makes more sense for the more general gamer as it is a close call IMO, maybe resolution a deciding factor.
Cheers

 

[3dilettante]

Change of subject, but could anyone clarify the relationship between ROPs, memory channels, and shader engines in the 480 for me please?

At least for GCN versions prior to Polaris, which has not shown to have deviated much from:
There is an architectural maximum of 4 shader engines per GPU, 16 CUs per shader engine, 16 ROPs per shader engine.
ROPs usually have a fixed association with a set of memory channels. Tahiti was one known exception where there was a crossbar that allowed its ROPs to share the extra 128 bits of GDDR5 above the 256 bits that would be statically split.

 

[function]

At least for GCN versions prior to Polaris, which has not shown to have deviated much from:
There is an architectural maximum of 4 shader engines per GPU, 16 CUs per shader engine, 16 ROPs per shader engine.

Thanks! That's interesting.

ROPs seem to come in blocks of four. Does this mean that a shader engine could have 4, 8, 12 or 16 ROPs in total?

ROPs usually have a fixed association with a set of memory channels. Tahiti was one known exception where there was a crossbar that allowed its ROPs to share the extra 128 bits of GDDR5 above the 256 bits that would be statically split.

It appears that the 480 has 8 "MCs", which I take to mean memory controller.

Would this mean that each shader engine can typically only access memory through it's own pair of statically allocated MCs? What happens when a ROP or texture unit needs to access memory not connected to its own MCs?

Finally (sorry for all the questions!) do you think Tonga had a similar arrangement to Tahiti, and it's just that the final 128-bits was never used? Is that how it was able to drop from 384 to 256 bit without losing shader engines?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah totally agree that the blower style is useful in those situations where the heat needs to be blown outside of the case, but this is not general gaming consumers (maybe a bad assumption on my part) who are not using the very small form factor cases.

I guess it would be better if I say those that are using more traditional PC cases does it make sense to consider a very good custom 470 or the blower 480.
As an example the Sapphire Nitro 470 8GB is within 4% of the blower 480 8GB model.
Scroll down for the performance tables: https://www.computerbase.de/2016-08/radeon-rx-470-test/3/
Challenge though is that not all the 470 8GB models use the same spec memory and care is needed.

Anyway quite a few variables I would say when comparing the best 470 custom cards to the 'reference' blower 480 cards including flexibility of performance/thermals/OCing, if venting is not a requirement.
No idea myself which makes more sense for the more general gamer as it is a close call IMO, maybe resolution a deciding factor.
Cheers

Actually I use a rather large case. A Silverstone RV03 modified with only 1 of the 180 mm input fans active. Without the top shield installed it's particularly good for mostly passive operation. I just wish they'd somehow been able to put the PSU at the top of the case with the exhaust facing upwards. I might have been able to go with a fully passive PSU in that case, oh well.

Regards,
SB

 

[3dilettante]

ROPs seem to come in blocks of four. Does this mean that a shader engine could have 4, 8, 12 or 16 ROPs in total?

I tried going through the wiki listings to find an exception, but for GCN GPUs I did not find any weren't powers of 2 per engine.

It appears that the 480 has 8 "MCs", which I take to mean memory controller.

There's actually something that doesn't seem right about the RX 480 diagram with regards to that.
Traditionally, there are controllers that each manage 2 32-bit channels each, which in the Polaris 10 diagram means there are too many DRAM channels drawn.
The Polaris 11 diagram has the relationship between controllers and channels set as expected.

Would this mean that each shader engine can typically only access memory through it's own pair of statically allocated MCs? What happens when a ROP or texture unit needs to access memory not connected to its own MCs?

The coherent vector memory/texture path goes through the L1-L2 hierarchy, which is separate from the incoherent ROP path.

Finally (sorry for all the questions!) do you think Tonga had a similar arrangement to Tahiti, and it's just that the final 128-bits was never used? Is that how it was able to drop from 384 to 256 bit without losing shader engines?

I think that is the case. The Tonga picture made it look like the region next to the CUs was arranged in a similar manner to Tahiti.

 

[liolio]

What is going with the red team? I've been waiting for the review of the Rx460 from Hardware.fr anandtech.com and pcper.com and I've finally given up.
They re no longer providing those sites with cards or there are others issues, i mean the card has been out for a while.

 

[CSI PC]

I'm in a rare situation where a blower design is quieter than aftermarket axial designs due to the way my computer is constructed. 1 input fan and 1 semi-passive PSU fan. An aftermarket cooler would dump the heat into my case requiring either higher RPM from the 1 fan or adding additional fans in addition to potentially having to install a CPU fan, all of which would increase the noise of the system.

So despite blower style coolers being inherently noisier than aftermarket axial fan coolers, my overall system is quieter with a blower style fan. Hence, I went with the Asus non-reference blower cooled card. I had previously experimented with axial style aftermarket coolers with AMD cards, and greatly regretted it. The noise from the card was lower, but the cooling requirements for the case increased to such an extent that overall my computer was louder.

I prefer a less noisy solution. A water cooled GPU would have given the best of both worlds being able to dump the heat outside of the case, however, that's also significantly more expensive for very little gain, IMO, as I don't overclock.

Regards,
SB

I think since the AMD 3xx days the good custom axial has been quieter than the 'reference' blower design, same can be said about Nvidia since Maxwell, however context is the good custom axial designs such as MSI/etc.
3xx range was still a pain though and best required triple slot but were definitely quieter than blower, while it can be seen with Nvidia the blower 980ti is nowhere near as quiet as the best custom models, and with the latest models this probably stands out more especially with AMD.

As an example from Guru3d, the blower 480 8GB model at load has a noise of 42 dBA, while the MSI custom model at load has a noise of 38 dBA, that is a really big difference; even the custom MSI 390x Gaming card is quieter at 41 dBA. (again Guru3d)
Temperature for same cards at load, 480 8GB model was 83degrees, while the MSI custom model was 73 degrees.
With a normal case my preference would still tend to be a balanced air flow case design and use axial rather than blower GPU, unless doing say crossfire with enthusiast design Hawaii GPUs

There has been tests looking at this and generally it does not seem the axial design is an issue with a well considered setup, in fact most recent test comparing open bench temps to enclosed case with axial car was by JayzTwoCents and his results showed the custom MSI 1070 GPU was marginally cooler in the case when compared to the open bench with same GPU fan speed; and the case had a fair amount of the front air flow blocked by a radiator.
Although certain mGPU setups would probably be better with blower but then they can be tricky still pulling the air, and I guess most enthusiasts would say such higher power setups should be water cooled.

I mentioned as well Nvidia and the reference blower 980ti at load has a noise of 41 dBA, while the MSI custom was 39 dBA.
Temps for reference blower was 84 degrees and the MSI custom 72 degrees.

But just to re-iterate yeah I agree there are times blower style is the only option, other times coin flip, and general gamers custom axial design makes sense with a good case setup.
Not disagreeing with you but just expanding that the axial design is actually better than can be assumed, more so with every new generation of GPUs and CPUs.
Cheers

 

[Kaotik]

There's actually something that doesn't seem right about the RX 480 diagram with regards to that.
Traditionally, there are controllers that each manage 2 32-bit channels each, which in the Polaris 10 diagram means there are too many DRAM channels drawn.
The Polaris 11 diagram has the relationship between controllers and channels set as expected.

It just begs the question does Polaris 11 actually have 2x 64-bit controllers instead of 4x 32-bit controllers

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I mentioned as well Nvidia and the reference blower 980ti at load has a noise of 41 dBA, while the MSI custom was 39 dBA.
Temps for reference blower was 84 degrees and the MSI custom 72 degrees.

You have to realize that most of the cooling in my case is via passive cooling. The one intake fan I have runs at 500 RPM. And I only have that due to overclocking the CPU a bit (2500k at 4.4 ghz to 4.1 ghz depending on core activity). If I didn't overclock and didn't need a GPU, my system would be fully passively cooled. The only component that wouldn't be affected is the PSU which in this case is located at the bottom of the case and vents the air out of the side of the case. If I had an RV05, I could likely go with a fully passively cooled PSU as it's oriented such that passive cooling is much more feasible, unfortunately, the internal storage options for that case are abysmal.

Anyway, having a GPU dumping heat into my system would require 1 or more of the following.

1. Increased RPM on the intake fan.
2. Adding an additional intake fan.
3. Adding a fan to the CPU cooler.

All of which would increase the overall noise profile of the system at the expensive of a quieter GPU. It's not worth it. While the blower fan on the GPU when gaming contributes a significant amount of noise it's still lower than using an axial fan and having to add additional cooling to the case to deal with that.

Most people are going to have far noisier systems than mine with an overabundance of fans. I've taken the opposite philosophy in designing my system to be as quiet as possible while still being able to do gaming. An axial fan cooling system dumping the heat into the case is counterproductive to my having a quieter system.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 13524]

What is going with the red team? I've been waiting for the review of the Rx460 from Hardware.fr anandtech.com and pcper.com and I've finally given up.
They re no longer providing those sites with cards or there are others issues, i mean the card has been out for a while.

@Ryan Smith has yet to post his Polaris architecture breakdown, so my guess is all Polaris 10/11 reviews are being held up by that.
Even the PS4 Pro analysis looked way too short because it seemed he was hesitant to talk too much about Polaris (because a full article may be imminent). This last part is my own gut feeling, though.

 

[Deleted member 2197]

Maybe AMD isn't sending Polaris cards to be reviewed .... or if they are perhaps they are being very cautious who receives them. It won't be the first time it's happened.

 

[Anarchist4000]

Maybe AMD isn't sending Polaris cards to be reviewed .... or if they are perhaps they are being very cautious who receives them. It won't be the first time it's happened.

They could always go out and purchase one...

The bigger issue would seem to be that architectural details on Polaris are limited. I don't think access to a 480 is that problematic for a review site right now. I'd think it's more along the lines of the product is released, but some sites are still under NDA or AMD simply never made the details available for any number of reasons.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Anandtech has Polaris 10 cards because they have already done a performance preview for the RX 480.

 

[Ryan Smith]

I suspect you guys think there's more to Polaris than there actually is. I do want to get back to it (the architecture) at some point, but there's really not a ton left to cover, as a good chunk of what I know has already been written up.

Anyhow, I have cards. Just very, very busy.

 

[lanek]

I suspect you guys think there's more to Polaris than there actually is. I do want to get back to it (the architecture) at some point, but there's really not a ton left to cover, as a good chunk of what I know has already been written up.

Anyhow, I have cards. Just very, very busy.

You need to hire someone to help you, find a good student for cheap ( witthout abuse of this )... I start to tthink they have left you alone for take care of Anandtech . With all your knowledge, peoples you know, let alone you are maybe one of the only left who know what you are talking about in this industry, if you are unhappy, open your own site . And if you are happy, take the lead, hire peoples for help you, push the lines, ... sorry offtopic

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I do want to get back to it (the architecture) at some point, but there's really not a ton left to cover, as a good chunk of what I know has already been written up.

So there's no Polaris overview? No RX480 and RX 470 review? That makes me a bit sad...
What do you say to people who didn't want to read it elsewhere because they wanted to give anandtech their clicks?

You need to hire someone to help you, find a good student for cheap ( witthout abuse of this )... I start to tthink they have left you alone for take care of Anandtech . With all your knowledge, peoples you know, let alone you are maybe one of the only left who know what you are talking about in this industry, if you are unhappy, open your own site . And if you are happy, take the lead, hire peoples for help you, push the lines, ... sorry offtopic

Agreed.
I think anandtech's "core audience" are those who want to read about CPU/GPU architectures and more recently smartphones, because they're the best at it IMO. But it seems the old crew got either too busy with other stuff or were spread too thin..
They have new guys, but they don't seem to be giving a hand in these major GPU/CPU articles. GPU articles have been getting really late, especially with all 2016 releases so far.
Smartphones seem to be going the same way.. The HTC 10 review is something like 5 months late. And at the same time, we see Brandon dedicating his time to embarrassingly irrelevant phones, and Ian to terrible bargain bin chinese "VR" headsets (shocking conclusion: they all suck) that will only appear in the West if they're ordered through aliexpress or something.

 

[CarstenS]

Agreed.
I think anandtech's "core audience" are those who want to read about CPU/GPU architectures and more recently smartphones, because they're the best at it IMO. But it seems the old crew got either too busy with other stuff or were spread too thin..
They have new guys, but they don't seem to be giving a hand in these major GPU/CPU articles. GPU articles have been getting really late, especially with all 2016 releases so far.

I am not AT nor affiliated with them, though I know Ryan as well and am in the same kind of business. Let me say this: This year's been extremely busy and hectic with all those "rolling thunder" approaches PR seems to like so much lately. You just cannot focus on a project any more without being constantly being interrupted by some "preview-trailer date announcement" and whatever it is.

If you're in charge, like Ryan is, it's probably even more difficult, because he has to organise everything, doing lots of trips to editor's/tech days, more informal briefing and of course the big IT fairs.

On top of that, at least for us Euro-guys, AMD and Nvidia have not been very open about their latest architectures, clouding everything in fancy words that's just really adding another dimension to vertex handling for example. Or making meaningless comparisons in their press material that gets leaked at some asian site and you have to explain far and wide to your audience why this and that comparison does or does not make sense. It does not help that some people tend to believe everything that's on a slide even if it is against all common sense. And that's true for all IHVs and their respective fanboys.

So don't be mad with Ryan or AT and do not think he/they defocussed their core audiences!

Sorry, just had to interject here.