[Rumor (Various)] AMD R7/9 3xx / Fiji / Fury

[RaulF]

I think that even if is the same chip but made at a different foundry is a refresh.

But hey just my opinion.

 

[jackstar7]

So are these all respins made by GlobalFo? Because there's some confusion if they're respins or rebadges or like the GTX480-GTX580 change.

Either way looking forward to June 16th.

In spite of all the chatter, no one knows until then.

 

[RussianSensation]

So are these all respins made by GlobalFo? Because there's some confusion if they're respins or rebadges or like the GTX480-GTX580 change.

Either way looking forward to June 16th.

We don't know yet but some are jumping the gun already implying that higher clocks and doubling of the VRAM will increase power usage beyond 290/290X 4GB cards.

NV's historical case:

GK104 680MX 28nm node = 122W TDP, 720mhz clocks, released October 23, 2012
GK104 880M 28nm node = 103W TDP, 954mhz clocks, released March 12, 2014

If we take NV's TDP at face value, in 1.5 years they managed to increase GPU clock speeds 32.5%, while lowering power usage 15.6%. Same node.

AMD's historical case:

AMD HD4870 = 750mhz
AMD HD4890 OC = 900mhz (+20% clock speed increase)

Power usage went up 14% per TPU.

Stock vs. stock 4890 was 15% faster than a 4870 at the same power usage. Same node.

 

[3DVagabond]

Let them get a new metric.

Perf/$ and Perf/w has always been important metrics.

If gamers loyal to NV won't buy it, that's fine also, but certainly reducing power usage will make LESS neutral gamers jump to the NV option.

Currently 970 $330 or R290X for $300, I will get the 970 just because of the 50-80W power use difference alone (total system power) since both are comparable on performance and OC v OC, still comparable, except the R290X uses 400W OC.

If you are really concerned about power usage don't O/C.

 

[Silverforce11]

If you are really concerned about power usage don't O/C.

All of these are important factors that contribute to the overall value of a product. Obviously the terrible marketshare for AMD dGPU means the masses see it that way.

AMD can only compete if they improve efficiency massively.

 

[shady28]

I actually decided to split my last post to really drive this point:

That's why I really like Computerbase.de. They call marketing BS right away when they see it.

Five Generations of NV GPUs compared (GTX470 to 970)

Total System Power Usage:

GTX670 (170W TDP) = 253W
GTX970 (145W TDP) = 278W
GTX470 (215W TDP) = 283W
GTX570 (219W TDP) = 292W
GTX770 (230W TDP) = 293W

NV's Maxwell power usage numbers for GTX970 GM204 are marketing lies, or is it another accidental mistake of the marketing department that didn't double-check their findings with their engineering department?

I think North American professional review sites aren't performing their journalistic duty to expose these misleading marketing practices which irrespective of AMD's TDP are not fairly representative of the power usage of an NV product. The average uninformed PC gamer uses TDP to mean power consumption and we all know it. If we as readers can notice these discrepancies, it should be a given that a professional review site that performs proper objective hardware reviews ought to inform their readers of the same. Alternatively, AMD might as well just assign arbitrary TDP values to its products as well since now AMD/NV are just playing TDP marketing game. At that point why just not call R9 390/390X 180W TDP and 200W TDP cards?



It would certainly be a lot better, but even if R9 390/390X use 150W of power, some other new metric will be used to downplay/discredit them, like lack of TXAA, poor performance in GW titles, lack of PhysX.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2NVRBbi5B4

Let's face it, people who are loyal to NV won't care if R9 390/390X use 100W less power and are 10% faster than 290/290X, they still won't buy them.

It's interesting you would link up some obscure site with overclocked 970s while back-handedly questioning the integrity of virtually all western review sites. The constant conspiracy theory thing gets old, and frankly it makes you and your references much more questionable than anything else.

AT has a long reputation of exposing poor business practices. The most recent includes determining how phone makers were borking benchmarks by having the OS detect a bench is being run and pushing the phone beyond normal thermal limits.

They did a lot of research to determine that. What did your site do? Nothing. That's right. Not ... one ... thing.

This is what AnandTech and Tom's sites say about R9 290 vs GTX 970 power, noise, and heat. They are both within a few watts of each other.

These two sites are some of the oldest I know of, with some of the best reputations in the enthusiast community.

The difference here is that AT has total system power, Tom's has just GPU power. So Tom's 205W + 70-80W system = 275-285W total.

 

[tential]

If you are really concerned about power usage don't O/C.

Or AMD will have to:
A) Reduce the price on the 290x to make up for the higher power usage
B) Improve power consumption in the future cards so people don't jump ship due to power consumption
C) Improve performance enough to the point where it justifies the power consumption increase

Or a combination of those.

Either way, he wants to OC, the GTX 970 offers better power usage than the 290x when both are OCd. The performance isn't that different between the two. Either is the price. It makes sense to go for the GTX 970 there as long as that extra bit of VRAM won't effect him.

 

[OatisCampbell]

If these really are all refreshes/rebrands, something went seriously wrong at AMD.

They've been talking about new cards coming for a long time now, and selling the 290X again would be a death sentence.

Guys like me with 290s or 290Xs don't care if they refresh- we can overclock our existing parts if we want 10%. (or close to it)

BIG difference in the GTX>GTX285 refresh is it came six, not TWENTY months later.

I really hope this isn't true. :-(

 

[boozzer]

All of these are important factors that contribute to the overall value of a product. Obviously the terrible marketshare for AMD dGPU means the masses see it that way.

AMD can only compete if they improve efficiency massively.

actually, if amd has gpus at or around maximum clocks, but the gpus has the performance to show for it, I am 100% fine with amd doing the OC for me :thumbsup: actually, please do the oc for me

I never understood why someone who buys a $300+ gpu and cares about perf/w. as long as a single gpu doesn't go above 350 watt on full load and has the performance to back it up, it really shouldn't be an issue.

Noise levels is a way bigger issue and a real one.

@oatis don't worry about it till you see the numbers on the 16th. if amd can lower the power usage by 50 watt and up the performance by 20%, it would be golden. I personally wouldn't mind 30%+ performance increase for the same wattage as 290x. :biggrin:

 

[3DVagabond]

All of these are important factors that contribute to the overall value of a product. Obviously the terrible marketshare for AMD dGPU means the masses see it that way.

AMD can only compete if they improve efficiency massively.

I thought you were speaking for yourself. Sorry I misunderstood.

As far as the masses go, most of them don't know the difference. Any gamers I know who aren't hardware enthusiasts just buy nVidia, period. Power usage is the last thing they worry about.

 

[3DVagabond]

Or AMD will have to:
A) Reduce the price on the 290x to make up for the higher power usage
B) Improve power consumption in the future cards so people don't jump ship due to power consumption
C) Improve performance enough to the point where it justifies the power consumption increase

Or a combination of those.

Either way, he wants to OC, the GTX 970 offers better power usage than the 290x when both are OCd. The performance isn't that different between the two. Either is the price. It makes sense to go for the GTX 970 there as long as that extra bit of VRAM won't effect him.

If concerned about power usage then the 980 or 980 ti without O/C'ing would be the way to go. Buying a 970 and O/C'ing it is shooting for perf/$. But he already said he was talking the general public, not himself. Anyone who's a regular on these forums knows there are a multitude of other reasons, besides perf/W to choose a GPU.

As far as your point, yes AMD has to continue to improve their performance.

 

[tential]

If 50 watts is the difference between heating up a room or not, then everyone should game in complete darkness. Although I will say, turning off the 10 lights in my basement did help sometimes to alleviate heat in my room.
But that's a lot more power consumption than 50 watts so again, I don't see this heating up a room argument being valid....

 

[BryanC]

Forget about the ultra high end until 2016 and focus on the midrange.

What happened to the "sweet spot"?

 

[iiiankiii]

I'm not digging these rebrands. But, if priced well, would still be a good buy. The real competition is still the GTX 960 and the GTX 970. If AMD can own those price points, it would force people to think twice before going with the default (Nvidia).

 

[BryanC]

The other important thing when looking at system power consumption is that it's measuring other things besides the GPU. When frame rates go up, the CPU works much harder as well. Difficult to isolate GPU power increases from system power measurements.

 

[raghu78]

guys here is an indication that the rebrand theory is going awfully wrong.

http://videocardz.com/56182/amd-off...t-for-radeon-r9-300-and-r7-300-graphics-cards

"What is also not surprising, but definitely interesting, is that AMD managed to include Bonaire and Pitcairn-based Radeon R7 360 and R7 370 series to this list. VSR is without a doubt much easier to implement than all in-house features like FreeSync or TrueAudio, so I wouldn’t see this as an indicator for other technology to be ported into new series, but hopefully I’m wrong."

Funnily wccftech now tries to defend its rebrand theory. But the truth is this rules out Pitcairn and Bonaire as they do not have the necessary hardware to support VSR.

If AMD is taking the effort to include VSR then Freesync and TruAudio + Tonga improvements (and even more further architectural improvements as I expect) will make it to the R9/R7 series. Anyway its just a week away before these rumours are settled once and for all. :whiste:

 

[Silverforce11]

AMD did say all their new lineup in 2015 will include Freesync, VSR, TrueAudio. So yes, it won't be a straight rebadge on the 360/370. The rumor here is Hawaii will be a rebadge. I also don't think that's gonna happen, a non competitive product won't be competitive with a new name. Reviewers will blast it apart and the stigma will hurt more than the hot & power hungry reference R290X fiasco.

I've been speculating that they are all redesigned chips, renewed features and made by GloFo. We'll see soon enough.

 

[shady28]

guys here is an indication that the rebrand theory is going awfully wrong.

http://videocardz.com/56182/amd-off...t-for-radeon-r9-300-and-r7-300-graphics-cards

"What is also not surprising, but definitely interesting, is that AMD managed to include Bonaire and Pitcairn-based Radeon R7 360 and R7 370 series to this list. VSR is without a doubt much easier to implement than all in-house features like FreeSync or TrueAudio, so I wouldn’t see this as an indicator for other technology to be ported into new series, but hopefully I’m wrong."

Funnily wccftech now tries to defend its rebrand theory. But the truth is this rules out Pitcairn and Bonaire as they do not have the necessary hardware to support VSR.

If AMD is taking the effort to include VSR then Freesync and TruAudio + Tonga improvements (and even more further architectural improvements as I expect) will make it to the R9/R7 series. Anyway its just a week away before these rumours are settled once and for all. :whiste:

Not necessarily as far as VSR goes.

VSR may be implementable on older AMD hardware - via driver updates ->

From Dec 2014 :

http://techreport.com/news/27483/vsr-is-amd-answer-to-nvidia-dsr-tech


"AMD says it plans to add support for Radeon R-series cards from the R7 260 up, but only in a "phase 2" driver due in January or February 2015. The company says adding support for those lower-end cards requires it to "explore a new implementation vs. what's in Omega," which will "take additional time"—hence the delay."

I do hope that they at least put some of the Tonga optimizations into Bonaire though. Was really hoping the R9 370/370X would be a Tonga variant with under 150W consumption. The whole desktop GPU thing is going to get right boring just like CPUs are now if AMD doesn't shape up.

 

[3DVagabond]

AMD did say all their new lineup in 2015 will include Freesync, VSR, TrueAudio. So yes, it won't be a straight rebadge on the 360/370. The rumor here is Hawaii will be a rebadge. I also don't think that's gonna happen, a non competitive product won't be competitive with a new name. Reviewers will blast it apart and the stigma will hurt more than the hot & power hungry reference R290X fiasco.

I've been speculating that they are all redesigned chips, renewed features and made by GloFo. We'll see soon enough.

Obviously we don't know, but I wouldn't put it past AMD to redesign new chips with the same basic specs. Then litter drivers with misinformation.

I'm not saying that this is what they've done, just that it's something I could see them doing.

 

[shady28]

AMD did say all their new lineup in 2015 will include Freesync, VSR, TrueAudio. So yes, it won't be a straight rebadge on the 360/370. The rumor here is Hawaii will be a rebadge. I also don't think that's gonna happen, a non competitive product won't be competitive with a new name. Reviewers will blast it apart and the stigma will hurt more than the hot & power hungry reference R290X fiasco.

I've been speculating that they are all redesigned chips, renewed features and made by GloFo. We'll see soon enough.

TrueAudio and Freesync would definitely imply some reworking of the GPUs.

Where did AMD say they would all have Freesync?

 

[3DVagabond]

TrueAudio and Freesync would definitely imply some reworking of the GPUs.

Where did AMD say they would all have Freesync?

I seem to recall this too, but if it was one of the marketing guys it's not worth the bandwidth it used to report it.

 

[96Firebird]

AMD did say all their new lineup in 2015 will include Freesync, VSR, TrueAudio.

I believe the quote was all their future GPUs would be Freesync-capable. Using an old GPU would not be a "future GPU".

 

[Silverforce11]

That rules out a re-badge for the low-end. So we just lack info on 390/X.

Edit: Only Fiji interests me personally, but AMD definitely needs their entire stack to be competitive. The 750ti, 960 and 970 is doing the damage.

 

[shady28]

That rules out a re-badge for the low-end. So we just lack info on 390/X.

Edit: Only Fiji interests me personally, but AMD definitely needs their entire stack to be competitive. The 750ti, 960 and 970 is doing the damage.

It doesn't rule out a re-badge. VSR can be done in software on existing 200 series cards R7 260 and up. TrueAudio or Freesynch would rule out a rebadge though :

Reference :

http://techreport.com/news/27483/vsr-is-amd-answer-to-nvidia-dsr-tech

"Nvidia's DSR works on plenty of older GPUs, including the GeForce GTX 400, 500, and 600 series. Considering DSR also exposes smoothness and scaling multiplier controls, I'd say the Nvidia technology still has a leg up for the time being.

AMD says it plans to add support for Radeon R-series cards from the R7 260 up, but only in a "phase 2" driver due in January or February 2015. The company says adding support for those lower-end cards requires it to "explore a new implementation vs. what's in Omega," which will "take additional time"—hence the delay."

 

[LTC8K6]

Well, we are 4 months or so into that VSR enabling driver delay...