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

[hoom]

Are there even any vaguely useful rumors of specs yet?
All I see seem to be ones linked to the diagram with a Bulldozer on-die -> very unreliable.

 

[Alexko]

Nothing yet, as far as I'm aware.

 

[lanek]

Are there even any vaguely useful rumors of specs yet?
All I see seem to be ones linked to the diagram with a Bulldozer on-die -> very unreliable.

Not really, and most rumored specification look more based on "Sea island" instead of VI.. i know some known poster on XS have got an engineer sample, but sadly it seems they are not ready to tell anything about what is inside it ... I was hoping for something like the AFDS of August 2011 for get at least some information about the architecture.. but right now, all the invit i got from AMD are far in september.. ( dont ask me. im never able to go there in Sanfrancisco ( the day they do one in europe, i will be able to go there, but i cant leave all for 2-3 days in the middle of the week ).

 

[hoom]

My sig is feeling a bit long in the tooth.
We should have had some tasty googletranslate mangled rumors by now.

Guess I could use one of those ones about the Serial Processing Units...

 

[Kaotik]

Since it's still apparently 28nm, I'd expect ALU count to go up by max 25%, the rest is all up in the air, is there actual changes to make things work even more effectively than they currently do or something? Who knows

 

[boxleitnerb]

Are there even any vaguely useful rumors of specs yet?
All I see seem to be ones linked to the diagram with a Bulldozer on-die -> very unreliable.

Kind of. Some guy who is active at Anandtech and XS forums apparently knows the specs and has been spoilering a little. He said in April/May that Hawaii silicon as up and about (A0 I believe) and he indicated that the 9950 (or what it will be called) would have 2560 shaders and consume less power than the 7970 (non GHz). The 9970 would then possibly have 2816 or 2880 shaders. It seems, AMD is shooting for a very large performance increase.

 

[gkar1]

Depending on clocks that could put them ahead of the 780 and Titan respectively. The reduced power consumption bit is a little hard to swallow though. Surprise us AMD.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Only for the 2560 shader part, though. And it can be like 5W less or so, we don't know.

 

[hoom]

So a big but low clocked 28nm part?

I'm still hoping for it to be early 22nm, though not for any especially good reason other than it'd be cool if they could pull that off.

They have plenty of room to be bigger than Tahiti & still be a lot smaller than GK110 on 28nm though.

 

[LordEC911]

So a big but low clocked 28nm part?

Higher than 925mhz supposedly.

(snip) there actual changes to make things work even more effectively than they currently do or something? Who knows

Quite a few. Newer-ish games tend to show some of Tahiti's weakpoints.

 

[UniversalTruth]

Kind of. Some guy who is active at Anandtech and XS forums apparently knows the specs and has been spoilering a little. He said in April/May that Hawaii silicon as up and about (A0 I believe) and he indicated that the 9950 (or what it will be called) would have 2560 shaders and consume less power than the 7970 (non GHz). The 9970 would then possibly have 2816 or 2880 shaders. It seems, AMD is shooting for a very large performance increase.

Depending on clocks that could put them ahead of the 780 and Titan respectively. The reduced power consumption bit is a little hard to swallow though. Surprise us AMD.

Given the prehistory and the fact that in recent times AMD has never achieved to have a faster single-chip card on the same manufacturing process, then I would assume that we need to be much more conservative with the expectations.

I don't believe they will be able to introduce a card faster or on the same level with GTX 780...

Anyhow, do you have any estimations on die size of this new thingie. It should be relatively large for AMD's standards...

 

[no-X]

I don't believe they will be able to introduce a card faster or on the same level with GTX 780...

GTX 780 is ~15-18 % faster than HD 7970 GE. Do you expect, that AMD's target is a GPU performing 10 % better than its predecessor?

 

[jimbo75]

AMD hasn't attempted to have the fastest single chip card (since the 2900XT), the huge difference in die-sizes between the top end chips is testament to that.

 

[UniversalTruth]

GTX 780 is ~15-18 % faster than HD 7970 GE

Actually, if you take a look at latest review at TPU, you will see for instance the MSI GTX 780 TwinFrozr Gaming just 10$ above normal ones, while offering ~30% higher performance...

In the other case, it is 20%, not 15-18%

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_780_TF_Gaming/26.html

Do you expect, that AMD's target is a GPU performing 10 % better than its predecessor?

I don't expect anything from them, especially good. I mean, if I have high expectations, I am always disappointed by them.

So, yes, maybe they will be able to release something like 15% faster

 

[boxleitnerb]

Given the prehistory and the fact that in recent times AMD has never achieved to have a faster single-chip card on the same manufacturing process, then I would assume that we need to be much more conservative with the expectations.

I don't believe they will be able to introduce a card faster or on the same level with GTX 780...

Anyhow, do you have any estimations on die size of this new thingie. It should be relatively large for AMD's standards...

First time for everything. I would think 420mm2 or more is a good estimate.
AMD could do this, especially if they just use a gaming GPU and ditch the 1:4 DP ratio and other stuff.

 

[jimbo75]

Call me crazy but I'm gonna go for ~500mm2.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Crazy!
No honestly, too much. 450 tops.

 

[UniversalTruth]

They have already done something crazy with those FX processors, perhaps they have decided to go all in

I am eager to see it

 

[Nemo]

Actually, if you take a look at latest review at TPU, you will see for instance the MSI GTX 780 TwinFrozr Gaming just 10$ above normal ones, while offering ~30% higher performance...

In the other case, it is 20%, not 15-18%

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_780_TF_Gaming/26.html

Latest German or French reviews shows, that GTX 780 is ~10-15 % faster than HD 7970 GE in 1080p/1440p.

GCN1.1 Bonaire has better performance than GCN1.0 in tesselation/geometry and GPGPU. I think that GCN2.0 for Hawaii has more features and better performance than GCN1.1 for Bonaire.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Depends on the boost how large the advantage really is. Either it's 25% faster and uses more power or it's 15% faster and uses a little less power. Both points are valid, depends on the cooling. The 780 Palit Super Jetstream boosts well above 1080 MHz consistently, thus it will be significantly faster, for example. The temperature stays below the 80°C threshold where Boost 2.0 usually begins throttling.