AMD: Volcanic Islands R1100/1200 (8***/9*** series) Speculation/ Rumour Thread
My money is on the 260X being a rebrand as well, just with some new features unlocked. An entirely new chip exactly the same quoted speed as a HD 7790 doesn't make much sense to me while leaving the rest of the lineup untouched.
UniversalTruth
Veteran
Especially with the 280X. A big mehIt could be Bonaire certainly. I'm not sure what that audio stuff really needs in terms of hw, my bet would be not much that should be just like other ordinary compute tasks I guess. Possibly it could require something new in GCN 1.1 though like the more ACEs (with way more queue entries), explaining why it's absent on the other rebrands.
From what I understand it requires a dedicated audio DSP that's embedded in the GPU: TrueAudio.
Why would you use a dedicated DSP if you've got those tons of shader alus right next to it?
edit: looks like you're right though, I missed that in the other thread. Doesn't make much sense to me however.
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The audio stuff sounds awesome to me, can't wait to hear more. Finally a return of high end audio in the PC, and with no separate sound card needed either! The fact that it's come just in time to meet the next gen consoles is also a bonus. Wonder how long it will take for Nvidia to match this feature? I'm guessing it's not going to be an option as soon as Maxwell.
Yes, Dave posted as much in another thread.
It just seems strange that they'd do an entirely new chip just of that particular one. Unless it's also reliant on some of the other new GCN features present in Bonnaire (and as such a much easier makeover), it could be that the functionality/HW block was always there; they just weren't prepared to launch all this audio hoopla at the time the HD 7790 was ready to go.
It's definitely a dedicated DSP, Dave has confirmed in another thread already. I'm guessing they just figured the impact on the CU's would be too great given they want to be able to use these audio features while still staying competitive with NV.
Bare in mind that the chip will hopefully make it's way down to lower end products eventually with far less CU cycles to spare.
Probably because the FF DSP can do it fast enough with little power, and without eating into graphics resources.
Not only is a DSP leveraging routines specifically designed for the task, but the other issue with using shader cores is synchronization.
Have the Pro/non-X models been announced yet? i've missed large parts of the stream.
Interesting. That might have import for any system designed to rely on asynchronous compute to make up for a dearth of dedicated silicon and less than top of the line CPU cores.
hurleybird
Newcomer
Dave, did the TrueAudio block make it into PS4 or the Xbone?
Neither one.
Yeah but will it be Balanced (tm) ?? ( xlr balanced that is
... dodges garbage and ... 
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