AMD: Volcanic Islands R1100/1200 (8***/9*** series) Speculation/ Rumour Thread

[thatdude90210]

I still dont get why Nvidia cooler is so much better??
They are the same 75mm fan blowing the same vapor chamber aluminum slab iirc...ime Hawaii fan noise signature is acoustically better than Tahiti.

One thing that jumps out is that the fan is taller. It could move the same amount of air without spinning as fast. There's very little underneath the fan to get in the way of it's height. Seems like they designed their board around the fan position.

 

[cal_guy]

I still dont get why Nvidia cooler is so much better??
They are the same 75mm fan blowing the same vapor chamber aluminum slab iirc...ime Hawaii fan noise signature is acoustically better than Tahiti.

In future i do hope AMD consider some form of AIO H2O cooling addon...every threads i saw on H2O on GPU, the temps are significantly better even with simple AIO...

The Geforce fan is actually only 65mm.

 

[silent_guy]

The other detail we picked up on was the mutterings of a few lost souls claiming that Nvidia’s GTX 780/Ti/TITAN cooler has a BoM cost approaching $150.

Does anybody actually believe that?

On Newegg, you can find an EVGA GTX770 card without this cooler for $334. You can find another EVGA card with the cooler for $375. But it also has a core clock that's 50MHz higher.

An aftermarket cooler goes for ~$50. That's a very low volume product so expect margins to be very high. Nothing like the super high volume stuff that goes on a retail GPU. So let's throw out a number of $30 for a normal retail GPU cooler.

If Nvidia is selling theirs at $150, that'd mean EVGA is eating $80 ($150-$30-$40) out of their own margins just to be able to sell a good looking cooler.

Make your own conclusions.

 

[LittleJ]

Yeah there is no way its 150$. Hell that would cost as much as a 2gb gtx 650 Ti boost lol. I might be able to see 30-50$ for the fan combo.

 

[LordEC911]

Does anybody actually believe that?

$150 does seem quite high but it also is vastly more expensive than past stock coolers.
GTX480 cooler has a BOM of +$30, GTX580 was even more expensive.
Casting aluminum isn't cheap to setup. Hand applying shin-etsu isn't either. Painting/baking/bead blasting the shroud also adds up. Nickel plating the fins.

Edit- Around $100 would probably be more likely.

 

[kalelovil]

The marginal cost of the cooler can't be anywhere near $150, but perhaps it is an outdated figure reached for example by including fixed R&D costs and then ameliorating these fixed costs across just the original 690/Titan production runs.
Or it could just be a number pulled from thin air.

 

[Cookie Monster]

NV's cooler looks nice but in reality it probably doesn't perform that much better than the 290X unit. I bet if you could slap it on the 290x, the chip would still be in the same temp ballpark. AMD's temp and peformance target for the chip with a stock factory blower style heatsink/fan is simply pushing it, if you want a quiet card that is.

As Tomshardware has shown though, with aftermarket cooling the chip is quite a beast.

Im not so sure about that seeing as the GTX780 Ti has similar power consumption to the R290X yet the cooler is able to maintain ~83C at reasonable noise levels.

Maybe the bigger surface area is helping somewhat, but not all blower type coolers are created equal.

Imo they should have spent the extra resources to atleast improve upon their same blower design which time and time again showed that it just wasn't effective.. especially in the acoustic department. Even if that means the R290 for example ended up being $449. Would have been an overall better packaged product to the one we see now.

 

[silent_guy]

$150 does seem quite high but it also is vastly more expensive than past stock coolers. GTX480 cooler has a BOM of +$30, GTX580 was even more expensive. Casting aluminum isn't cheap to setup. Hand applying shin-etsu isn't either. Painting/baking/bead blasting the shroud also adds up. Nickel plating the fins. Edit- Around $100 would probably be more likely.

I think $100 is still outrageous, but I could believe $50. The GK104 die used in a 770 can't possible cost more than $75 max. And they're going to have a cooler that costs more than the die?

Edit: according to custompartnet.com, an aluminum cast shroud the size of a GPU should cost ~$6. That's obviously very much just a wild order of magnitude guess but it's not going to be a major contributor to your $100.

 

[LordEC911]

I think $100 is still outrageous, but I could believe $50. The GK104 die used in a 770 can't possible cost more than $75 max. And they're going to have a cooler that costs more than the die?

Edit: according to custompartnet.com, an aluminum cast shroud the size of a GPU should cost ~$6. That's obviously very much just a wild order of magnitude guess but it's not going to be a major contributor to your $100.

So it should cost barely more than the GTX580 cooler?

~$6 in materials, maybe, not what it costs them.

 

[silent_guy]

So it should cost barely more than the GTX580 cooler? ~$6 in materials, maybe, not what it costs them.

I have no idea about the price of the 580 cooler. But since the 580 consumed considerable more power than the 780 etc. it's not unreasonable to assume that its cooler was quite expensive too: in fact the non-ornamental part was likely more expensive.

The $6 is for the aluminum casing only obviously, since you mentioned that as a particularly expensive part. But since those things are cast, the non-materials costs should be trivial, just like the NRE give the huge volumes involved.

 

[gamervivek]

I still dont get why Nvidia cooler is so much better??
They are the same 75mm fan blowing the same vapor chamber aluminum slab iirc...ime Hawaii fan noise signature is acoustically better than Tahiti.

In future i do hope AMD consider some form of AIO H2O cooling addon...every threads i saw on H2O on GPU, the temps are significantly better even with simple AIO...

nvidia's fan is bigger, there are some comparison pics with the shroud removed and its blades are about twice as long as the one on 290x.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2352532&page=5

 

[no-X]

NV's fan has smaller diameter (70 vs. 75 mm), but wider (higher) blades.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think $100 is still outrageous, but I could believe $50. The GK104 die used in a 770 can't possible cost more than $75 max. And they're going to have a cooler that costs more than the die?

Edit: according to custompartnet.com, an aluminum cast shroud the size of a GPU should cost ~$6. That's obviously very much just a wild order of magnitude guess but it's not going to be a major contributor to your $100.

I can still see 150 USD for it. If it is only available from Nvidia and if Nvidia want to get a higher margin return on the cooler. Partners after all are able to source their own coolers unless Nvidia forces them to use the reference cooler which I can't see them doing.

Regards,
SB

 

[xDxD]

Kyle_Bennett HardOCP Editor-in-Chief, 16.5 Years

Status: Kyle_Bennett is offline
R9 290/X AIB Cards
Just talked to AMD as well as three big AIB partners and AMD as well as one big AIB told me that we should expect to see custom R9 290 and 290X cards in etail the second week of December. FYI....

 

[LordEC911]

The $6 is for the aluminum casing only obviously, since you mentioned that as a particularly expensive part. But since those things are cast, the non-materials costs should be trivial, just like the NRE give the huge volumes involved.

I never said the part was expensive, I said it was expensive to setup.
Are they ordering 100k or more? That's when the tooling is worth it.

There are a lot of variables involved, quite a few steps, that all add up.

 

[silent_guy]

I never said the part was expensive, I said it was expensive to setup. Are they ordering 100k or more? That's when the tooling is worth it. There are a lot of variables involved, quite a few steps, that all add up.

The custompartnet thing quoted $60k for a cast of that size. Nothing outrageous.

The numbers don't add up, but that has never stopped anyone to believe them.

 

[LordEC911]

The custompartnet thing quoted $60k for a cast of that size. Nothing outrageous.

The numbers don't add up, but that has never stopped anyone to believe them.

What sort of production volume?
How long does the cast last?

 

[xDxD]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_r9_290&num=1

 

[xDxD]

http://videocardz.com/48107/overclockers-uk-offering-pre-flashed-vtx3d-r9-290-290x

 

[gongo]

Hi Dave, AMD release catalyst 9.4b...while installing i noticed a new ACP application driver? Whats that? First time i seen it. Seems like a power management services has been installed.

But online search says ACP is an audio related thingie? Confused as fuck.

Played 30mins of BF4 and no black screen when it would in 10mins...the boosting felt more stable as the game is now as smooth as my old 7970 with the added 4xmsaa. GPUZ shows that case.

But damn AMD...you had to disable CCC OD?? While i can see actual memory clocks now and the sliders are more responsive...but i can not apply any settings to it....i guess thats how you guys fixed the black screen..by stopping OC???