NVIDIA Pascal Thread

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JDG1980

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2013
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I still don't get why people insist on comparing Polaris to GP104. It's the equivalent of expecting 7850/7870 to beat 670/680.

The latest rumors have GP104 with only 2560 shaders, the same count as Polaris 10 is said to possess. If these rumors/leaks are true (and one or both of them may well be false), then I think GP104 and Polaris 10 are going to be a lot closer than a raw analysis of the die size would indicate. If both GP104 and Polaris 10 have 2560 shaders, then any advantage for the Nvidia GPU would have to come from higher shader IPC, higher clocks, or software trickery of some kind. Maxwell leveraged all three to some extent to edge out GCN. But Polaris is supposed to represent a major leap forward for AMD; we should see substantially higher shader IPC (Silverforce11 indicated that AMD even has a patent on shader hyperthreading, though we don't know whether that will make it into Polaris). We will also be seeing substantially higher clocks because of the FinFET process combined with improved power management capabilities; that said, it's likely that Pascal will still clock somewhat higher than 4th generation GCN. And Nvidia's luck on the software side is starting to run out; where they once had a substantial advantage with GameWorks and better DX11 drivers, AMD is starting to edge out victories with low-effort console ports that come pre-optimized for GCN.

Keep in mind that, on 28nm, AMD produced a 438mm^2 chip (Hawaii) that matched and in some cases beat a 561mm^2 chip from Nvidia (GK110). Then later in the 28nm cycle, Nvidia turned the tables, beating the first generation of Hawaii cards in most gaming applications with the 398mm^2 GM204 chip. Die size isn't everything. And while both AMD and Nvidia used the same TSMC 28nm process, we are seeing a divergence this time, with Nvidia going with TSMC 16FF+ while AMD will be using the Samsung/GloFo 14LPP process. The latter process is thought to be slightly denser - I've heard estimates of 2x 28nm transistor density for 16FF+ compared to 2.2x 28nm density for 14LPP.

Unless Polaris 10 goes far and above expectations but based on the supposed 232mm2 die size and what 2560 shaders, that thing would be lucky to tie or barely beat a stock Fury. I just don't see it.

R9 390 (with 2560 shaders) needs about a 23% increase in performance to catch up to Fury X at 1080p, and about a 35% boost in performance to catch up at 4K. Between architectural improvements and the substantial increase in clocks enabled by FinFET, this doesn't seem like much of a stretch. Personally, I think the most likely outcome is for Polaris 10 to fall behind Fury X a bit at 4K, but to outshine it at 1080p. (This is because of the reduced memory bus, assuming that it will be standard GDDR5 and not GDDR5X. If it's GDDR5X, then it should beat Fury X across the board.)

AMD set perf/watt increase of 2.5X over GCN1.0-1.1, NOT over Fiji. It's on their roadmap. That means slightly faster than 390X in say a 120W TDP.

Which roadmap slide are you interpreting as saying this? The one shown at Capsaicin (with 28nm -> Polaris -> Vega -> Navi) had the box for "28nm GPUs" located in late 2014. The only GPU that AMD released around that time was Tonga, which is GCN 1.2.

R9 390X performance at 120W would be rather disappointing for a full node shrink. GTX 980 can already match that in most titles at ~180W. The 390X is basically a factory overclocked part, and has one of the worst perf/watt ratings of any GPU. Pitcairn did much better on that score. Hawaii would have had excellent perf/watt if it had been run at 800-900 MHz with the memory controller at the 1250 MHz it was intended for, but we never got a SKU like that because it would have lost to GK110 and GM204 in raw performance.
 
Feb 19, 2009
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IMO, if AMD's new SMT shaders and shader-level power gating/boost tech makes it to Polaris 10, it's going to beat Fury X by a fair margin.
 

swilli89

Golden Member
Mar 23, 2010
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IMO, if AMD's new SMT shaders and shader-level power gating/boost tech makes it to Polaris 10, it's going to beat Fury X by a fair margin.

Which would be one of the most amazing events in silicon at least within the last 20 years or so. Tripling performance/mm2 would be truly incredible.
 
Feb 19, 2009
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Which would be one of the most amazing events in silicon at least within the last 20 years or so. Tripling performance/mm2 would be truly incredible.

Fury X isn't good though, it's very poor perf/mm2.

Polaris 10 with the tech listed in the patent, will sail very fast in front of Hawaii/390X.

2,560 Polaris 10 SP vs 2,816 Hawaii SP... no contest with SP level SMT, power gating and turbo boost. Add to that the Primitive Discard Accelerator (scene complexity culling even before anything is rendered), improved Command Processor, Instruction Pre-fetch (doesn't need as much bandwidth), Cache and Memory Compression. Yeah, no contest at all.
 

USER8000

Golden Member
Jun 23, 2012
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Keep in mind that, on 28nm, AMD produced a 438mm^2 chip (Hawaii) that matched and in some cases beat a 561mm^2 chip from Nvidia (GK110). Then later in the 28nm cycle, Nvidia turned the tables, beating the first generation of Hawaii cards in most gaming applications with the 398mm^2 GM204 chip. because it would have lost to GK110 and GM204 in raw performance.

They didn't really,when Hawaii has a significant amount of DP performance,which is not reflected in actual gaming performance, and is probably one of the reasons it consumes more power. Hawaii is a marvel of miniaturisation when it packs so much compute performance and a 512 bit memory controller into a die which is barely 10% larger and one year older than the GM204,which had most of its DP performance stripped out and a smaller 256 bit memory controller.

Then you add the die area taken up by the TrueAudio bits too.

Nvidia had two lines of GPUs - the GK210 and GM204 which are both covered in their respective areas by Hawaii.

The commercial Hawaii based cards,have lower clockspeeds but appear to have much better performance/watt so it is probably more the case the gaming cards are also running pre-overclocked and past the optimal performance/watt voltage and clockspeeds for the GPU itself.
 
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mohit9206

Golden Member
Jul 2, 2013
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I not sure i agree with RussianSensation that prices on mid range video cards has gone up all that much. It used to be $200-300 and its still that much.
Same with hi end parts. 6800 ultra and 8800 ultra cost $600+ at launch.
And mid range parts continue to offer good value over previous generations in USA. Although video card prices have gone up in other countries but that's due to weak currency against us dollar.
A gtx950 which cost $150 at launch in aug 2015 offers better performance than gtx660ti which launched at $300 in August 2012.
And as for hi end cards getting more expensive who cares about that since enthusiasts are going to pay top dollar for the best performance regardless of the price.
My problem is with a market segment not many people talk about, the entry level. Performance gains over previous generations at the same price have been very disappointing at the entry level under $100 market which is where most of the sales for AMD and Nvdia come from.
As Derek Wilson put it in his Geforce 9500gt Anandtech review back in 2008, more performance for the dollar is required for under $100 cards than what we currently have. Although he was a difficult man to please given he was not impressed with the launch of 4670 at $99 which shook up the entry level market. Well he did call the 9500gt an EPIC FAIL in his conclusion as it was hardly any faster than the 8600gt and extremely poor value for money given that 4670 blew it away. Does Derek still write for Anandtech? Man i miss his awesome reviews.
 

Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
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I not sure i agree with RussianSensation that prices on mid range video cards has gone up all that much.

His argument was in terms of NV's margin. The price could very well remain fixed, but if they're able to lower their costs, they'll make more money even if the prices don't change.
 

hawtdawg

Golden Member
Jun 4, 2005
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If the GTX 580 released today it would be $1000. Of course the prices have gone up. :\

Yep, starting with the 680. They released a 300 dollar part as a 500 dollar one, and then released their 500 dollar part as a 700/1000 dollar one. People still bought them anyway (I sure as hell am not innocent, i bought 2 780's and then 2 980ti's a couple of years later).
 

A_Skywalker

Member
Apr 9, 2016
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What do you expect to be the price of gtx 1070 or whatever it will be called compared to 970?
If nvidia are going to increase again the prices maybe its better I upgrade to 970 now.
 
Feb 19, 2009
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What do you expect to be the price of gtx 1070 or whatever it will be called compared to 970?
If nvidia are going to increase again the prices maybe its better I upgrade to 970 now.

My guess, $399 for the 970 replacement.

No need to price it lower since its going to be a lot faster than the 970 and it's gonna have 8 (or 7.5GB) of vram.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
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1. If Polaris 10 is 232mm2 then at 28nm it would be more than 460mm2. That means bigger than Hawaii (438mm2).

2. Now if Polaris 10 only has 256bit memory, it should have more transistors dedicated to Front-End and Shader Engines than Hawaii (512bit memory takes more space).

3. Add all the improvements of GCN 4.0 and we should expect more than 30% faster than Hawaii at 1080/1440p.

I really want to see how it will compete against GP204 or if GP204 will be significantly faster.
 

Adored

Senior member
Mar 24, 2016
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My guess, $399 for the 970 replacement.

No need to price it lower since its going to be a lot faster than the 970 and it's gonna have 8 (or 7.5GB) of vram.

Nvidia's biggest issue is they are competing with themselves. A cut-down 294mm2 die on 16FF+ is likely quite a bit more expensive to produce than GM204 on 28nm, yet they are still charging over $400 for the 980.

Not sure how you explain to investors that the new cards are making less money than the old ones, but it really shows how crazily successful they've been recently.
 

vissarix

Senior member
Jun 12, 2015
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Yep, starting with the 680. They released a 300 dollar part as a 500 dollar one, and then released their 500 dollar part as a 700/1000 dollar one. People still bought them anyway (I sure as hell am not innocent, i bought 2 780's and then 2 980ti's a couple of years later).

dude the gtx680 was faster then a 7970 and more power efficient...how could they sell it for $300 when the slower 7970 was $550?

why did amd sell the 7970 $550 when the 6970 was $350 then?
 
Feb 19, 2009
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Nvidia's biggest issue is they are competing with themselves. A cut-down 294mm2 die on 16FF+ is likely quite a bit more expensive to produce than GM204 on 28nm, yet they are still charging over $400 for the 980.

Not sure how you explain to investors that the new cards are making less money than the old ones, but it really shows how crazily successful they've been recently.

You're right.

But they need 970 and 980 owners to upgrade.

So GM204 has to be a worthwhile upgrade, and it should be.
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
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A lot of people skip a generation ... I'm still rocking a gtx770. I'll definitely be upgrading and probably to a gtx1080.

Same. I am shocked the GTX 770 runs The Division so well. But I am planning on getting one of these new chips from AMD or Nvidia in the fall.
 

steve wilson

Senior member
Sep 18, 2004
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Same. I am shocked the GTX 770 runs The Division so well. But I am planning on getting one of these new chips from AMD or Nvidia in the fall.

I only really play CS GO and Rocketleague now. So the 770 is just fine for now, it's just not going to cut it for VR.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
14,003
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fixed

We still don't know if those changes described in patents have been implemented already or if it will be used in Vega or Navi uarchs.

Im not talking about the patent, im talking about the new upgrades AMD has already said Polaris will have on GCN 4.

 

amenx

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
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dude the gtx680 was faster then a 7970 and more power efficient...how could they sell it for $300 when the slower 7970 was $550?

why did amd sell the 7970 $550 when the 6970 was $350 then?
And a good thing (for AMD) the 680 didnt sell for $300. Imagine a "mid-range part" performing same or better than competitions $550 flagship. Never happened in history of the GPU market.
 

Dribble

Platinum Member
Aug 9, 2005
2,076
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Price is simply a factor of supply and demand for these cards. I expect price to start a bit high as the supply will be limited but then drop as everything matures. No point nvidia pricing very competitively if they could sell all the chips they can make for 25% more.
 

steve wilson

Senior member
Sep 18, 2004
839
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Price is simply a factor of supply and demand for these cards. I expect price to start a bit high as the supply will be limited but then drop as everything matures. No point nvidia pricing very competitively if they could sell all the chips they can make for 25% more.

Exactly. How people fail to understand this is beyond me. Every business does it.
 
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