Every single performance per watt chart on the internet shows nothing close to 2.8x.
You HAVE to scale the GPU for the process-derived improvement to become visible. Remember that the RX 480 is clocked over 20% higher. When you clock Hawaii to that level the power usage climbs dramatically.
You have to compare apples to apples.
Nonsense. You can't add and subtract shaders and the like to 'fit' performance and power characteristics. Or boost or lower clock speeds.
Especially the nonsense comparison to cut GM104 when the 1060 is GP 106 and a noncut die.
Except you absolutely can - and must. The numbers won't be 100% accurate, but the scientific method requires a leveling of all but one variable prior to being able to make a statement about that one variable.
That means the clock speeds need to equalized, as well as the amount of hardware in play (SPs, CUs, RAM, VRMs, etc.).
We are trying to determine the ability of 14nm LPP to save power. You can only do that if all other factors have been accounted for - RX 480 doesn't exist on 28nm, so we have to take the nearest GPU like it and scale it to fit the RX 480 specifications - then, and only then, can we determine what effect 14nm LPP had on the GPU.
Now consider that the GPU is using a smaller relative portion of that power.
On R9 290, the RAM is pulling about 45~50W of power.
On RX 480, the RAM is pulling about 25~30W of power.
For both, there is between 15W and 20W lost to the VRM and other components.
So the 290 GPU is using 350~370W at 1.15Ghz on my system.
And RX 480 GPU is using 125~130W of power.
That gets you right around 2.8x of improvement on the GPU for efficiency at the same frequency. The improvement will be notably diminished when considering the power improvements that were made after Hawaii
.
Also, I didn't fiddle with the numbers to make the 2.8x figure, it just came out that way :thumbsup:
-----EDIT: Duh, I need to use the cut-down version of the R9 290 to match RX 480 specs...
So basing the figures from a 390W starting point
Cut R9 290 GPU: 310~330W
And RX 480 GUP: 125~130W
Improvement: 2.48~2.64x for the GPU alone.
----RESUME:
Fury et. al. can't be compared without considering that the GPU is most of the power being consumed - the memory only uses a few watts. And Fury Nano is a low clocking chip, running well in the peak efficiency range of the process and architecture.
Take Fury, and overclock it to 1.2Ghz and it blows right past 400W during stress tests. An efficiency comparison is highly compromised by the loss GDDR5 memory controllers, so we can't even begin to estimate the efficiency change between Fury and RX 480 without adding the power draw from 8 GDDR5 controllers... things which we know are quite power hungry.
420W for a 290X is also astonishingly high.
Yes it is, but that's what I see with my equipment once I start to overclock. Without overclocking, the card is much more efficient, but I have to push it to that level to equalize the clocks. The other alternative is to drop both to 1Ghz, which I'd prefer to do, but I don't have an RX 480 for testing.
I'm also using stress-testing power usage figures across the board. I can be off by 20% and my point still remains valid - 14nm LPP is providing significant efficiency improvements - easily more than 2x.
Then there is the argument that Polaris is NOT a Hawaii replacement. More of a Pitcarin replacement (Hawaii as a ton of DP).
And entirely irrelevant, beyond which GCN versions are being compared - not that there have been massive efficiency improvements beyond Fury's use of HBM.