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

re: Are retail Radeon R9 290X cards slower than press samples?

They only had two 290x samples.
This is no where near enough to draw any conclusion.
That ONE of their 290x samples was faster than the other cards is purely random chance.

Get 100 290X samples and compare them to 100 retail cards and then they might have a valid comparison.
 
gongo said:
Dave you guys need to get your Powertune bios correct soon...please dont wait until next gen to make fix...
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There is nothing wrong with that. I don't know why you think that something being quick and reactive is a negative, this is a positive thing as it is providing more performance than it would be otherwise.
 
moozoo said:
re: Are retail Radeon R9 290X cards slower than press samples?

They only had two 290x samples.
This is no where near enough to draw any conclusion.
That ONE of their 290x samples was faster than the other cards is purely random chance.

Get 100 290X samples and compare them to 100 retail cards and then they might have a valid comparison.
Click to expand...

NVIDIA was confident enough that they picked 2 cards at random from Newegg and shipped them to TR. There is no grand conspiracy, it is a real issue and AMD is genuinely trying to come up with a solution.
 
moozoo said:
re: Are retail Radeon R9 290X cards slower than press samples?

They only had two 290x samples.
This is no where near enough to draw any conclusion.
That ONE of their 290x samples was faster than the other cards is purely random chance.

Get 100 290X samples and compare them to 100 retail cards and then they might have a valid comparison.
Click to expand...

This goes to the inherent danger I think TR and other sites might be facing, even if they are not acting out of bias.

It may very well be that they are measuring real problems, but being an ostensibly independent partner in this dance at the desire of Nvidia is asking a fox for pointers on how to protect the hen house from weasels.
The information given may be appropriate, but they aren't under an obligation for fairness or completeness. They didn't offer multiple 780s, as an example.
Artfully leaving just the right blanks to be filled in by eager reviewers can get them to say what you want with the added benefit of them thinking it's their idea.

I think Nvidia knows more about the situation than they've told. They have far more means and expertise, and they had to have more confidence in the outcome than a hunch.
 
Dave Baumann said:
There is nothing wrong with that. I don't know why you think that something being quick and reactive is a negative, this is a positive thing as it is providing more performance than it would be otherwise.
Click to expand...

As has been pointed out, it's simple psychology: it's down from the advertised max clock instead of up from some sort of base clock. In practice, it's exactly the same thing, but psychologically it's not perceived so.
 
That doesn't relate to a "PowerTune correction BIOS" (?) though. To me that's talking about specifics of the operation shown by the trace.
 
moozoo said:
re: Are retail Radeon R9 290X cards slower than press samples?

They only had two 290x samples.
This is no where near enough to draw any conclusion.
That ONE of their 290x samples was faster than the other cards is purely random chance.

Get 100 290X samples and compare them to 100 retail cards and then they might have a valid comparison.
Click to expand...


To further expound, there is definitely some variability in the sustained boost clocks of NVIDIA cards. This is actually the reason they call it a boost clock and not the base clock.

NVIDIA does however provide a base clock that their cards are guaranteed to run at. If the card does not maintain that clockspeed it is considered defective and can be RMAed.

I have a GTX670 and HD7950 Boost in two separate machines. They both stay pegged at their advertised Boost clocks all the time (the 670 actually runs a bit above the boost clock). Point is, AMD got too aggressive with Hawaii. The R290 is an oustanding value in its own right, it was simply marketed beyond its capabilities. They should have stuck with the original spec or (preferably) gone with a better reference cooler.
 
Dave Baumann said:
That doesn't relate to a "PowerTune correction BIOS" (?) though. To me that's talking about specifics of the operation shown by the trace.
Click to expand...

Yes but you wouldn't get this reaction if it were marketed better: people would be happy to see the card occasionally turbo above its promised clock speed and wouldn't complain.
 
If the DVFS is responsive enough, it can drop below the "base" clock with no performance impact for reasons besides throttling.
Fixating on the clock number without knowing the reason for every spike or dip doesn't provide an accurate picture of the situation.

While I don't know if AMD does it, dropping clocks briefly in transient periods where the GPU is idling on queues or IO could build up thermal credits for when it can drive clocks back up again.

What is needed is a complete message, and the tools to get it across.
The fear is that this will just confuse the message further.
Not providing it, as we've seen, doesn't mean there isn't someone else willing to give a message in your stead.
 
no-X said:
Alexko: Every site showing a photo of the die / PCB / memory modules etc. had to remove the cooler.
Click to expand...
AMD and NVIDIA typically provide us with board shots of high end products for this reason. They don't want us using compromised cards any more than we do.
 
Yes there is some psychology....and i also felt what could have been if AMD is more aggressive and design HawaiiXT to run at 1Ghz quiet mode...with 50-60mhz more on the core i think will close the gap between 780Ti. I certainly runs my flashed HawaiiXT at 1Ghz constant...but it needs fanspeed at 60-65% to keep temps under 80C.

I think they need a Rev B silicon maybe...wonder what took them so long to response...if they had made SI at a larger die size from the start and disable CUs? Could we see a change to AMD strategy?

Would be interested if AMD 'leak' this bios....looks like more recent build than retail cards...
retail-card-flashed-645x612.jpg


Another interesting 290X review at 4K against a overclocked 780Ti....at a 70mhz deficit, it performs 13% slower..like 2-5fps on average...what can a 290X at 1.05-1.1Ghz achieve?
http://www.legitreviews.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-780-ti-vs-amd-radeon-r9-290x-at-4k-ultra-hd_130055/10
 
pharma said:
Funny they did not include any OC results for either card ... these days most people run their cards slightly - to - moderately OC'ed 24/7 even on non-reference cards.
Click to expand...

The 780TI SC is an overclocked SKU....hence i said if only ref 290X Hawaii can go higher or even just stays constant at 1Ghz core...how much difference it would result in AMD brutal battle with Nvidia
 
Yikes... Newegg currently has one 290 in stock for $499. The rest are listed as auto-notify and all are listed at $499. AMD better start cranking them out: 1 to take advantage of the demand, and 2 to avoid pissing off customers (unless that's a stealth price increase we didn't hear about). The 290x are all out of stock and listed at $599 or above.

I was starting to feel I shouldn't have ordered one at launch, I thought the demand wouldn't be there as everyone and his mother would be waiting for custom cards. Now I'm glad I did.
 
thatdude90210 said:
AMD better start cranking them out: 1 to take advantage of the demand,
Click to expand...
Shows how little you know. Cards are selling out within hours of making it into Newegg, Amazon and other retailers' systems. They are barely off the pallets and they're sold out.
http://www.nowinstock.net/computers/amdr9290x/full_history.php
The link above is only for the 290X, the vanilla 290 and 280x are also selling out within minutes of being available and there is stock coming in pretty much every single day.

2 to avoid pissing off customers (unless that's a stealth price increase we didn't hear about). The 290x are all out of stock and listed at $599 or above.
Click to expand...
:LOL: Pissing off who? The thousands of people who buy out every single card available every day? If you didn't know Newegg has an automated script that increases the price of high demand items. The fact that it is up so high and the cards continue to sell out is a compliment to the popularity of the cards.
 
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