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

[pjbliverpool]

Leaked benchmarks showed that the 290X was faster, and AMD told Kyle they were faster. The smart money is on the 290X being faster. But hey, if you're able to convince yourself otherwise based on how a few slides are worded, go for it. Whatever helps you sleep at night

Isn't this exactly what you're doing too? I want it to be faster too but so far there do seem to be some worrying contradictions which it would be naive to ignore.

 

[hurleybird]

Isn't this exactly what you're doing too?

No, that's why I said the "smart money" is on AMD being faster. It's entirely possible that Nvidia comes out with a super driver, or a Titan Ultra. There's also the (very) slim chance that both the leaked benchmarks were BS and an AMD rep mislead Kyle.

That's quite a bit different than convincing myself of an outcome based upon reading between the lines of what some press slides didn't say in the face of strong contradictory evidence.

 

[LittleJ]

Regardless if its only slightly faster or slower its a clear win for the consumer. 599.99$ is steep to be sure for a video card, but its a far cry from 999.99$!

 

[swaaye]

It will probably look somewhat like Cayman did against the competition. It's a refresh on the same process node. I bet it doesn't sell for $300-$370 like Cayman though.

 

[Shtal]

I would agree with Shtal that it's less than 5.5, but it could still be 5.4 and AMD would say over 5 teraflops.

If the 290X scores roughly 8000 points, and the 280X aka "7970 GHz edition" re-badge scores 6800 points (according to the two AMD slides), wouldn't it follow that AMD's own calculation is that the 290X is 17-18% faster than a warmed over 7970 GHz edition?

 

[kalelovil]

If the 290X scores roughly 8000 points, and the 280X aka "7970 GHz edition" re-badge scores 6800 points (according to the two AMD slides), wouldn't it follow that AMD's own calculation is that the 290X is 17-18% faster than a warmed over 7970 GHz edition?

AMD have not given a firestrike score for the 290X as far as I can tell.

http://iforce.co.nz/i/tkqezbhd.b2v.jpg
Does not show one, in contrast to the other cards in the lineup.

http://www.hardocp.com/images/news/13801278018dqw3Obvjp_1_1.jpg
Has the top of the graph blurred for the 290X but none of the others, probably meaning that the score is at leasst 8000 but could be higher.


My guess would be that AMD do not want Nvidia to know exactly what they are up against yet, so that they have left time to respond.
GTX Titan still has a SMX disabled and clock headroom, so Nvidia could still release a 'GTX Titan Ultra' if they need to to maintain the crown (at the cost of their margins and dies for the Quadro K6000).

 

[LittleJ]

AMD have not given a firestrike score for the 290X as far as I can tell.

http://iforce.co.nz/i/tkqezbhd.b2v.jpg
Does not show one, in contrast to the other cards in the lineup.

http://www.hardocp.com/images/news/13801278018dqw3Obvjp_1_1.jpg
Has the top of the graph blurred for the 290X but none of the others, probably meaning that the score is at leasst 8000 but could be higher.


My guess would be that AMD do not want Nvidia to know exactly what they are up against yet, so that they have left time to respond.
GTX Titan still has a SMX disabled and clock headroom, so Nvidia could still release a 'GTX Titan Ultra' if they need to to maintain the crown (at the cost of their margins and dies for the Quadro K6000).

Well GK110 has been in production since H2 2012 so they probably have a reasonable amount of binned 2880 core chips.

 

[Shtal]

Well GK110 has been in production since H2 2012 so they probably have a reasonable amount of binned 2880 core chips.

Could be a good reason not in production because power consumption is too high, similar Intel core i7 (sandy-bridge) six core processor with 2 cores disable but available in Xeon full 8 cores enabled.

 

[Shtal]

I didn't quite understand whether the special Battlefield 4 pre-order on October 3th was with the R9 290X, but if it is, we should surely know more about the card by then? At least the price!

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-r9-290x-battlefield-4-edition-8000-specs-pre-order_125224

 

[LittleJ]

Could be a good reason not in production because power consumption is too high, similar Intel core i7 (sandy-bridge) six core processor with 2 cores disable but available in Xeon full 8 cores enabled.

I doubt it. The difference in power consumption between Titan(2688 cores) and GTX 780(2304 cores) is negligble at best. Who knows though.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-r9-290x-battlefield-4-edition-8000-specs-pre-order_125224

The marketing is a little strange this time. Preorder without knowing the price and performance?.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

OCUK have said that R9 290x will be about the same price as GTX 780, but a bit faster.

 

[Shtal]

OCUK have said that R9 290x will be about the same price as GTX 780, but a bit faster.

http://www.techpowerup.com/191543/radeon-r9-290x-could-strike-the-599-99-price-point.html

AMD's next-generation flagship graphics card, the Radeon R9 290X, could strike a US $599.99 (or 499.99€, £399.99 before taxes) price-point, turning up the heat on the more expensive offerings by NVIDIA - GeForce GTX 780 and GTX TITAN. The card should be available from mid-October. Based on the new 28 nm "Hawaii" silicon, the card is expected to feature 2,816 GCN stream processors, spread across 44 SIMDs (11 computing units). Other specifications include 172 TMUs, 44 ROPs, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 4 GB of memory, which likely achieves its >300 GB/s memory bandwidth with a 6.40 GHz memory clock. The company is expected to launch 6 GB variants of the card a little later.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

http://www.techpowerup.com/191543/radeon-r9-290x-could-strike-the-599-99-price-point.html

That does say "could", so there is a bit of speculation.

Gibbo at OCUK (who are going to sell loads of these):

Also those are you thinking about the new cards, well this is what is happening:-

R270 is HD 7950 re-boxed and these shall be reference design in beginning and prices from £170 region, so same as our lowest price 7950's. So OcUK is already at the new price, the newly boxed R270's will arrive middle-end October.

R280X is the HD 7970 GHz re-boxed and these shall be reference design in beginning and prices shall be around £230 region, so same again as our lowest priced 7970's. This makes our current Asus 7970's a bargain as they are TOP and Platinum cards, the equivalent of these in R280 X shall be in the £250-£300 region and available in their R280 X packaging around end of October.

R290 X unfortunately I cannot release pricing or specification info yet, but price wise its similar to GTX 780 but slightly faster, right now, of course AMD could change the launch price at any time.

Note though, he does say at the end that AMD could change prices at any time.

 

[AnarchX]

So R9 270X is 2GiB (256-bit) and R9 270 is a 3GiB (384-Bit) HD 7950?
Hopefully the Korean guy will show some naked shot of his Curacao card soon, to clear up if there is a new GPU for 270s...

 

[lanek]

If that's the case, then we can give up on 2,816 shaders(which is possible because it hasn't been confirmed).

To give 5 TF, they need exactly 2500 cores at 1 ghz.

They have absolutely not give any precise metrics for the 290..

Its > of 5Tflops..... they dont want give any precision on core speed for Nvidia right now.. ( 2816SP at 1ghz = 5.6Tflops )

 

[fellix]

Here's Linus handling what appears to be a R9 290X ES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=U...v=3MU-DIKvY3U&feature=player_detailpage#t=697

Notice the lack of CF interface.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

Here's Linus handling what appears to be a R9 290X ES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=U...v=3MU-DIKvY3U&feature=player_detailpage#t=697

Notice the lack of CF interface.

The sync between cards is now made through the PCI express port.

 

[Wynix]

The sync between cards is now made through the PCI express port.

Have AMD talked about this in detail? is it PCIe 3.0 only? has it improved Xfire?

 

[flopper]

Have AMD talked about this in detail? is it PCIe 3.0 only? has it improved Xfire?

Indicate Improvements yes.