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

The GTX680 manages 33.3 GPixel/s with RGBA8 blending and 16 GPixel/s with 4xFP16 blending. This requires a bandwidth of 266 GB/s or 256 GB/s, which the GTX680 clearly doesn't have (192 GB/s).
Is this accounting for the effect of the L2 cache?
 
Well I guess there's advantages and disadvantages for a low-clocked 512bit vs. a high-clocked 384bit interface.
I like to think performance is affected too. Theoretically, a highly clocked, interface will not be able to sustain peak bandwidth all the time. DDR tend to cut bandwidth in half for address data and DDR5 needs some training to run at max frequency .

So depending on the frequency, a 512-bit bus could always be better than a 384-bit bus or vice-versa.
 
I think this is a proprietary benchmark they are testing with and it could be using optimized data set to align/fit the screen tiles nicely into the cache? :???:
No. AMD would profit too, at least a bit. It's probably just what I said, a bunch of screen filling quads.
Is this accounting for the effect of the L2 cache?
Is nV using the L2 also for caching ROP acesses? Anyway. It should trash the caches by design of the benchmark as the render target is much larger than the L2 and every pixel is only written once before the next quad comes. That's how I came to the idea above.
Imagination claims to have lossless color compression with a 2:1 average ratio. Maybe Nvidia does too. It's just the first thing that came to mind other than caching effects.
They have a TBDR. It's probably much easier to implement lossless compression for a tile there. For an IMR one wants relatively small tiles to load and store for ROP accesses to reduce the bandwidth overhead. But this makes general compression techniques harder to implement I guess (and the reason why compression is used only for MSAA render targets and bases on the simple fact that multiple samples belonging to the same triangle have necessarily the same color). Maybe hardware.fr should make fillrate tests with randomized content :LOL:.
 
Is nV using the L2 also for caching ROP acesses? Anyway. It should trash the caches by design of the benchmark as the render target is much larger than the L2 and every pixel is only written once before the next quad comes. That's how I came to the idea above.
Fermi made the L2 service all memory clients.
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/reviews/55/9

It is an assumption of mine that the arrangement is unchanged for it successor.
 
I dont want break any discussion, but is really this pixelfillrate advantage ( at least on some benchmark / test ) have any translation on real game usage ?

look negligible at best for me ( outside maybe some specific case )
 
I dont want break any discussion, but is really this pixelfillrate advantage ( at least on some benchmark / test ) have any translation on real game usage ?

look negligible at best for me ( outside maybe some specific case )

High resolutions and/or max/high AA settings.
I'm sure someone else can answer better.
 
High resolutions and/or max/high AA settings.
I'm sure someone else can answer better.

So we are back to bandwith constrain there.. if your bandwith dont follow, the pixel fill rate advantage become useless. ( i refer to the high res / high AA level performance difference between Kepler and Thaiti ) .

Hence why maybe you see the advantage on "pure" pixel fillrate benchmark ( 3Dmark etc ) and not on real usage . Look like AMD just choose a " right balance ". Increasing a little bit the number of Rop, L2 cache size and a bit more bandwith ( same 384bits bus + higher memory speed ), should provide a right config ( without having to over specs one or the other ) .
 
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since 4K gaming has come up as an issue with tearing and on current eyefinity the tearing on current cards and drivers is the "fix" from amd to make the new generation cards for 4K gaming the solution and not the older gen?
One reason I havent gone crossfire with my 7970 as the issues with eyefinity have a tendency to be problematic to say the least when things dont work as advertised.


http://techreport.com/blog/25399/here-why-the-crossfire-eyefinity-4k-story-matters
 
since 4K gaming has come up as an issue with tearing and on current eyefinity the tearing on current cards and drivers is the "fix" from amd to make the new generation cards for 4K gaming the solution and not the older gen?
One reason I havent gone crossfire with my 7970 as the issues with eyefinity have a tendency to be problematic to say the least when things dont work as advertised.


http://techreport.com/blog/25399/here-why-the-crossfire-eyefinity-4k-story-matters
I think a large part of the problem is that they tried pushing 4K too early; current cards just don't cut it.
 
A recent analysis of Ultra High Definition Gaming by Guru3d came to the same conclusion regarding crossfire/eyefinity.

Now frame pacing has improved massively ever since Catalyst 13.8 beta drivers. AMD open has stated that Ultra HD is not yet supported for frame pacing, only resolutions up-to 2560x1440 will benefit from frame pacing with the latest drivers. With that statement in mind I was a little reluctant to show you the charts below. Then again, it would not be good taste for a journalist to not show them. So here we go, and I have limited this towards to benchmark runs.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/ultra_high_definition_pc_gaming_benchmark_review_uhd,12.html
 
since 4K gaming has come up as an issue with tearing and on current eyefinity the tearing on current cards and drivers is the "fix" from amd to make the new generation cards for 4K gaming the solution and not the older gen?
One reason I havent gone crossfire with my 7970 as the issues with eyefinity have a tendency to be problematic to say the least when things dont work as advertised.


http://techreport.com/blog/25399/here-why-the-crossfire-eyefinity-4k-story-matters

Why is this not in its proper thread?
 
And correction to my earlier post, only the videocard photo was from DICE, PCB shots are from different source
 
Article also suggests hawaii may be a cutdown of a full firepro. Do you guys see this as a possiblility? Amd hasn't done this for quite a while and with 28nm mature at this point, I dont see the reasoning unless there is low yield.

would 512 bit also semi confirm 64 rops?
 
Article also suggests hawaii may be a cutdown of a full firepro. Do you guys see this as a possiblility? Amd hasn't done this for quite a while and with 28nm mature at this point, I dont see the reasoning unless there is low yield.

would 512 bit also semi confirm 64 rops?

Or they have large orders/contracts to fill and/or the PRO version will compete with Nvidia's offerings.

Tahiti made use of a crossbar to decouple the ROPs from the memory controllers.
I would say 48ROPs is much more likely than 64ROPs.
 
Or they have large orders/contracts to fill and/or the PRO version will compete with Nvidia's offerings.

Tahiti made use of a crossbar to decouple the ROPs from the memory controllers.
I would say 48ROPs is much more likely than 64ROPs.

Very true. They did say they are aiming at the enthusiast segment (id take that as 7950/7970 territory) rather then "ultra enthusiast" (7990?). Makes me think they may have had a full die top tier consumer planned before the 780, realized they could get away with a cut down and meet performance comparability and pushed off launch to fill stock.

This also leaves them with a comeback to a titan "ultra" full die, or even a middle card for between VI and PI
 
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