One think, those rebrands came with Kepler. Today rebranding current 2xx series when Maxwell is in the game it is non-productive
Really?
What do you think the whole R2xx series with the exception of the 285/290/290X is then?:whiste:
They will do that. Not sure if its 1 or two cards thoughIf any rebranding is going on they need to be rebranding Tonga into different flavors.
http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-fij...dad-tobago-gpus-set-debut-computex/89325.htmlAntigua GPU will simply be rebranded Tonga.
One think, those rebrands came with Kepler. Today rebranding current 2xx series when Maxwell is in the game it is non-productive
They will do that. Not sure if its 1 or two cards though
http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-fij...dad-tobago-gpus-set-debut-computex/89325.html
If any rebranding is going on they need to be rebranding Tonga into different flavors.
I wouldn't even mind a lower clocked Hawaii, the power consumption massively increases once the voltage is increased. If you undervolt Hawaii, it massively cuts down on the power consumption. I can knock 50 watts off by going from 1.25v to 1.20v and 50mhz reduced clocks. AMD puts unnecessary voltage to their GPUs much like their CPUs IMO. Maybe the voltage was needed early on release, but certainly not these recent hawaii chips. That recent [H] review of the 290x PCS+ certainly sheds some light on it too.
Same will probably be done with the 390x, pumping too much voltage to the GPU to cover for high leakage chips.
Really?
What do you think the whole R2xx series with the exception of the 285/290/290X is then?:whiste:
NV also can just drop GTX970 to $269 and with that 1 move wipe out both the R9 380/380X if they are just re-badged R9 290/290X.
Tahiti and Pitcairn need to be EOL. They were great chips and still continue to reap the performance enhancements from Mantle and driver releases, but they cannot offer freesync, VSR on a hardware level, or XDMA crossfire. They need to go just like Kepler did now. People who still use GCN 1.0 since launch got the best value for their money IMO because that was one strong running architecture once the driver issues were ironed out towards the end of 2012 and continues to be to this day.
AMD should not increase Hawaii clocks, they need to cut down Fiji to a 3rd tier to flagship. Hawaii (Grenada) needs to be in between full blown Tonga, then cut down Tonga 3 tiers as well.
Fiji XT - 390x
Fiji Pro - 390
Fiji LE - 380x or what ever but cut the shaders/ROPs and bus width
Hawaii (Grenada) XT - 380x@ 950mhz/2816 SP
Hawaii (Grenada) Pro - 380 @ 900mhz/2560 SP
Tonga XT - 370x (4gb GDDR5/2048 SP @ ~1100mhz)
Tonga Pro - 370 (4gb GDDR5/1792 SP @ ~1000mhz)
Tonga LE - 360x 2gb GDDR5/1536 or less SP @ ~800mhz)
Anything below they should be safe to use Bonaire.
Like I said, if they were going the rebrand route, this example above, would be ideal.
Even if AMD rebadged the cards and lowered the price even further NV would not respond with a $269 GTX970. I don't believe for a second they will lower the price beyond $299 and IMO that would be in the case of serious sales issues or upcoming EOL for the card.
Nvidia has always been able to charge more for less. They continue to profit doing so and their partners continue to profit doing so. I don't see why they would change now.
I could see a drop in price for the 980 though, right now it is collecting a hefty premium over the 970. Once 980ti drops the two cards will end up over and under the current price point.
I think the biggest question is whether the R9 390X will support the SmartShader technology or not? Nvidia already supports this new technology via the nfiniteFX engine atleast in their current hi end cards.
Are you suggesting to rebrand Hawaii (R9 290X and 290) and at the same time regress performance as well with lower clocks ??
Not going to happen.
I think it goes back to something he was saying previously where he wants to also cut the voltage down a lot on those cards too so they work in a tighter power envelope which is apparently important to consumers now that Maxwell is out.
NV will only lower the price if it has a serious competitor, a rebranded Hawaii is not for the GTX970-980. If AMD will have a chip with 90-95% the performance of the GTX980 at half or less the price with lower power consumption than the GTX980, or if AMD introduce a 10-15% higher performance part at lower price than the GTX980, it will only then trigger a price cut response from NVIDIA.
The 290X vs. 290 scaling doesn't work because there is not a linear increase in ROPs/memory bandwidth. R9 390X should have more than double the effective memory bandwidth increase over R9 290X and more than 50% increase in shader, texture and pixel fill-rate. But even if we assume your 45.6% increase, that puts us 2-3% behind Titan X. At $700, that would already make it a better buy than the Titan X. Now imagine R9 390 nonX just 10% slower than an R9 390X --> we would end up with a chip 13-14% slower than the Titan X for $500. Say hello to 2 of those in CF! Good-bye Titan X! :biggrin:
As I said before, all the hype is centered around 390X but if you look back at the history of AMD (5850/6950 unlocked/7950/R9 290 nonX), it's those 2nd tier AMD cards, when overclocked, provide hands down the best value on the AMD high-end. Remember this article?
AMD tends to charge too high of a premium for the small difference for its flagship cards (remember X850XT PE vs. X800XT or 9800XT 256MB over 9800 Pro?) AMD can still entice gamers to step-up to the R9 390X at $700 over the $500 R9 390 nonX if the latter only has 4GB of VRAM+air cooling, but the former has 8GB+AIO CLC. That would provide a huge incentive for high-end gamers to step-up to the 390X.
good job ignoring everything he posted.D:Are you suggesting to rebrand Hawaii (R9 290X and 290) and at the same time regress performance as well with lower clocks ??
Not going to happen.
Good to know 390X will have programmable pixel and vertex shaders. Its a very important feature after all. Its the next most important feature after hardware T&L in my opinion. But do games even take advantage of these features? Because if you see this Anandtech article, it says there are still no games that take advantage of T&L so whether this programmable pixel and vertex shaders will be put to good use remains to be seen...SmartShader is an AMD technology (acquired when they bought ATI)... it dates to 2001. I'm thinking you mean something else.
Then again, nfiniteFX dates to 2002, it seems, so maybe you're just a decade or so late to the party?
Programmable shaders exist in all current products, AFAICT.
The cards are ready, the software (drivers) are not.
HBM is a brand new technology. I bet you that making drivers for those and making sure its 100% stable, aint an easy task. Probably new ways to move data in and out the memory stacks compared to traditional GDDR.
Like mentioned in the OP, pushing out a fast card but unreliable could hurt them way more than losing 2 months of sales. We all know how everyone justify and spin things, even reviewers
Good to know 390X will have programmable pixel and vertex shaders. Its a very important feature after all. Its the next most important feature after hardware T&L in my opinion. But do games even take advantage of these features? Because if you see this Anandtech article, it says there are still no games that take advantage of T&L so whether this programmable pixel and vertex shaders will be put to good use remains to be seen...
" We are just going to have to wait and see what real world advantages SMARTSHADER technology offers over NVIDIA's nfiniteFX technology. There is no question that the product will be impressive; let's just hope that the advantages offered will actually be used."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/800/4
No one is expecting new mid range sweat spot gpu and Spanish Inquisition.
good job ignoring everything he posted.D: