What will be AMD'S next Move?

[geoxile]

Huh, I am a little surprised AMD hasn't cut prices further yet. The 290 is still going for $360 on Newegg. I can't imagine they are selling that many now.

As we've seen with the jacked up prices during the mining craze, retailers can price hardware however they like. AMD just provides a recommended price.

 

[JDG1980]

Although they obviously won't be able to match the efficiency of Maxwell on the current iterations of GCN, I wonder how much extra perf/watt AMD could get by simply down-volting their chips and lowering the clock rates a bit. Back in the cryptomining days, many miners saved quite a bit of power with down-volting, without sacrificing stability (remember, these were full 100% GPGPU loads run 24/7 - most cards aren't going to be stressed anywhere near that hard). AMD is generally very aggressive on their default voltage settings (on both GPUs and CPUs, at least the FX series), which may help yields on marginal silicon and makes overclocking easier, but hurts efficiency. At this point in the 28nm process, they should be able to tighten up a bit.

 

[Abwx]

Is it possible to alter the driver to have lower peaks but higher average? I mean its demanding for the ps capacity and 970 could perhaps fit with one 6 pin if this tdp marketing showoff was lessened a little?

You can limit max throughput such that peak currents are reduced while increasing frequency when the throughput is way below the max value, this will act as a compression and will increase average power while reducing peak power, i guess that Nvidia Turbo boost work more or less like this, it s just that you must allow high peak power to get the peak perfs when necessary, for this purpose you allow the chip to reach high peak values but only for very short periods of time, if this is 10% of the total time this wont increase your average more than by 5% but you ll get say 20% more peak perfs wich are necessary when you need to have a max FPS number at competitive value.

 

[krumme]

Quick point of clarification: NVIDIA's hardware throttles the card. The drivers merely tell the hardware what the TDP limit should be and report back the current power consumption as a percentage of TDP.

As there is a gigantic 180W vs. 300W difference between reference and Gigabyte oc cards, the question of binning in combination with marketing comes into play.

Is reference 970/980 actually made in meaningfull numbers? - if the marketed card is not sold in numbers its just PR.

Secondly what is the real meassurable peak power consumption of the cards sold? - i do not talk about bios values but the real world consumption as shown by THG. The relevance of TDP as a messure is diluted, when production cost is moved from gfx card to Power supply.

You took a stand when the 290 uber was marketed, more or less saying AMD couldnt have a cake and eat it. Thats fair. But then the same consistent approach needs to be applied here - and it didnt. Its damn difficult -and time consuming - (time AMD or NV dont give you) to assess new gfx cards for power and perf, so a more open and explicit written approach to methology is needed more than ever. And as THG show better equipment should soon be mandatory to assess what actually happen.

Time to pass on the task for gfx reviews boss

 

[Gloomy]

http://videocardz.com/52834/full-amd-tonga-gpu-might-feature-384-bit-memory-interface



Performance predictions?

 

[desprado]

http://videocardz.com/52834/full-amd-tonga-gpu-might-feature-384-bit-memory-interface



Performance predictions?

No it wont even beat GTX 780 leave GTX 970 or GTX 980 alone.

 

[Cerb]

Secondly what is the real meassurable peak power consumption of the cards sold? - i do not talk about bios values but the real world consumption as shown by THG. The relevance of TDP as a messure is diluted, when production cost is moved from gfx card to Power supply.

If a maker can change the TDP, they should have to make a point of stating so clearly. If you're going to buy a hungry card, you should get a suitable PSU.

Gigabyte doesn't say up front the TDP, but recommendation of a 600W PSU is a sound substitute, IMO, given that any decent 450W PSU would be suitable for the stock card. It would be nice if they gave an actual TDP, though.

 

[krumme]

If a maker can change the TDP, they should have to make a point of stating so clearly. If you're going to buy a hungry card, you should get a suitable PSU.

Gigabyte doesn't say up front the TDP, but recommendation of a 600W PSU is a sound substitute, IMO, given that any decent 450W PSU would be suitable for the stock card. It would be nice if they gave an actual TDP, though.

Agree - i even think a good 400w ps would be fine. In one of my machines i have a 7850 at 1GHz running on a passive 300w ps on a single 6 pin. Man it would be nice if the 970 was a single 6 pin. And the plug it into that ps - that is some upgrade. Lol. I guess its not this time. It might have the same tdp but i have a feeling it could chew that old passive ps to small pieces.

Whatever - its impressive cards. Good for us. We need some lower prices. Its like it have been the same for 2 years. Unfortunately in my country its not us prices especially for nv but it will come in time.

 

[Vesku]

Oddly the GTX 780 has dropped to roughly GTX 970 MSRP but the R9 290s are still mostly above $350. Perhaps having 4GB of RAM and a 512 bit bus is decently strong marketing points to the 'average' purchaser?

 

[jpiniero]

http://videocardz.com/52834/full-amd-tonga-gpu-might-feature-384-bit-memory-interface



Performance predictions?

Difference between the 285 and the 970 is roughly 35-50%. 15% more cores isn't going to make up the gap. Now, if it could hit 1300-1400 Mhz, that would make things much closer. Unless the 290 is super expensive to make (possible) it just makes sense to cut the 290's price down to 290ish (heh) and just not bother.

 

[Gloomy]

Wow guys, I really did not think a full 285 was going to match a 970, thanks for assuming I am insane though.

 

[tviceman]

I will eat a small child of Tonga has a 384-bit memory bus. Why in the world would AMD not release a full version of Tonga out of the gate? 28nm is very mature now and Tonga is the same size as Tahiti so yields should be absolutely fine. A full Tonga could have launched for more than $249, helping AMD's ASP and bottom dollar more. Even GK110, a much larger chip, never launched with a memory bus so castrated. It makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[el etro]

http://videocardz.com/52834/full-amd-tonga-gpu-might-feature-384-bit-memory-interface



Performance predictions?

Don't know if this card will really come, but if yes i presume 1GHZ tonga = GTX 770 performance.

 

[buklau]

Agree - i even think a good 400w ps would be fine. In one of my machines i have a 7850 at 1GHz running on a passive 300w ps on a single 6 pin. Man it would be nice if the 970 was a single 6 pin. And the plug it into that ps - that is some upgrade. Lol. I guess its not this time. It might have the same tdp but i have a feeling it could chew that old passive ps to small pieces.

Whatever - its impressive cards. Good for us. We need some lower prices. Its like it have been the same for 2 years. Unfortunately in my country its not us prices especially for nv but it will come in time.

I'm hoping the gtx960 will only require 1x 6 pin power connector.

 

[tviceman]

I'm hoping the gtx960 will only require 1x 6 pin power connector.

None of the GK104 based products used a single 6 pin power connector. GM204 consumes close to the same power, so I highly doubt it will be any different.

 

[geoxile]

Difference between the 285 and the 970 is roughly 35-50%. 15% more cores isn't going to make up the gap. Now, if it could hit 1300-1400 Mhz, that would make things much closer. Unless the 290 is super expensive to make (possible) it just makes sense to cut the 290's price down to 290ish (heh) and just not bother.

TPU's review showed the 970 being over 50% better than the 285 on average.

That said, there are some cases where the 285 is 15% better than the 280 and matches or beats the 280X. If those are due to architectural improvements a 285X could be up to 15% better than the 280X. That would still leave the 970 over 20% better but it's closer.

If it's true that AMD's next series will feature HBM maybe full Tonga is being stockpiled for use in a 380X with HBM? While the harvested Tonga chips are being put on the market so they can get feedback for software development.

This is just all conjecture though

 

[jpiniero]

None of the GK104 based products used a single 6 pin power connector. GM204 consumes close to the same power, so I highly doubt it will be any different.

The 960 is a different chip - GM206. Probably 1280 cores. I'd expect only needing one 6-pin.

 

[raghu78]

The 960 is a different chip - GM206. Probably 1280 cores. I'd expect only needing one 6-pin.

yeah that would be right. I expect GM206 to go with a 2 GPC setup and a 192 bit memory bus. TDP should be around 100 - 110w. kind of doubling the GTX 750 Ti on all resources except the memory bus width. I think this chip will be around 240 - 250 sq mm and be very good for Nvidia's margins as it can easily sell for USD 199 - 229 and will beat the R9 285 quite easily. AMD is screwed for the next 6 months until they release a more competitive GCN 2.0 architecture. AMD has fallen behind Nvidia in terms of perf / sq mm which traditionally used to be in AMD's favour. This is going to hurt AMD's margins badly. Nvidia is far ahead in perf / watt too so they are going to extend their notebook market dominance.

 

[AtenRa]

yeah that would be right. I expect GM206 to go with a 2 GPC setup and a 192 bit memory bus. TDP should be around 100 - 110w. kind of doubling the GTX 750 Ti on all resources except the memory bus width. I think this chip will be around 240 - 250 sq mm and be very good for Nvidia's margins as it can easily sell for USD 199 - 229 and will beat the R9 285 quite easily. AMD is screwed for the next 6 months until they release a more competitive GCN 2.0 architecture. AMD has fallen behind Nvidia in terms of perf / sq mm which traditionally used to be in AMD's favour. This is going to hurt AMD's margins badly. Nvidia is far ahead in perf / watt too so they are going to extend their notebook market dominance.

The market is not working like enthusiasts think. Although GM104 Maxwell is in the market since February and in the hands of NVIDIA partners earlier than that, in Q2 2014 AMD increased its discrete Mobile GPU shipments by 30%.

http://jonpeddie.com/publications/market_watch/

AMD’s shipments of desktop heterogeneous GPU/CPUs, i.e., APUs increased 16.7% from the previous quarter, and increased 10.3% in notebooks. AMD’s discrete desktop shipments decreased 10.7% and notebook discrete shipments increased 30.6%. The company’s overall PC graphics shipments increased 11%.

A 400mm2 GM204 will not not have a big impact in market share since it is a low volume high price GPU(for mobile).

 

[Alatar]

Read the quote, their shipments increased by 30% in the notebook discrete market. This alone tells us absolutely nothing about marketshare.

Nvidia's notebook discrete shipments increased by ~7% in the same quarter. With AMD's marketshare in notebooks (discrete) being as low as it is it wouldn't surprise me at all if their marketshare actually remained mostly stagnant.

30% more compared to previously really small sales is still small sales.

 

[3DVagabond]

Read the quote, their shipments increased by 30% in the notebook discrete market. This alone tells us absolutely nothing about marketshare.

Nvidia's notebook discrete shipments increased by ~7% in the same quarter. With AMD's marketshare in notebooks (discrete) being as low as it is it wouldn't surprise me at all if their marketshare actually remained mostly stagnant.

30% more compared to previously really small sales is still small sales.

Well, hopefully for AMD they can suffer another 30% shipment increase.

 

[AtenRa]

Read the quote, their shipments increased by 30% in the notebook discrete market. This alone tells us absolutely nothing about marketshare.

Nvidia's notebook discrete shipments increased by ~7% in the same quarter. With AMD's marketshare in notebooks (discrete) being as low as it is it wouldn't surprise me at all if their marketshare actually remained mostly stagnant.

30% more compared to previously really small sales is still small sales.

First you are right, it is 30% shipment not market share. I have edited my post.

Secondly, from the same link

AMD
The company’s overall PC graphics shipments increased 11%.

NVIDIA
The company’s overall PC graphics shipments decreased 8.3%.

This is with Maxwell GM107 in the market for more than 4-5 months.

 

[raghu78]

This is with Maxwell GM104 in the market for more than 4-5 months.

you mean GM107 aka GTX 750 Ti. btw Nvidia is just getting started with GM204. GM204 has just launched and will reflect in Q4 market share gains for Nvidia both in desktop and notebook market.

 

[AtenRa]

you mean GM107 aka GTX 750 Ti. btw Nvidia is just getting started with GM204. GM204 has just launched and will reflect in Q4 market share gains for Nvidia both in desktop and notebook market.

heh yeap i mean GM107,

What im trying to communicate here is that GM107 Maxwell which is a lower price high volume part that didnt hurt AMDs Mobile shipments for the last 4-5 months. GM204 Maxwell which is a low volume high priced SKU will not affect AMDs Mobile shipments like people believe it would.

 

[KaRLiToS]

I have no trust in AMD anymore.

They need to do something like...now.

Read the quote, their shipments increased by 30% in the notebook discrete market. This alone tells us absolutely nothing about marketshare.

Nvidia's notebook discrete shipments increased by ~7% in the same quarter. With AMD's marketshare in notebooks (discrete) being as low as it is it wouldn't surprise me at all if their marketshare actually remained mostly stagnant.

30% more compared to previously really small sales is still small sales.

Hey Olli, do you miss me? Because I do miss you man. :'(