"AMD’s next-generation family of high-performance graphics cards is expected to ship

[Silverforce11]

Not necessarily. Taking some write-up from AnandTech's GCN Pre-Review

GCN is the reason why i think the 7970 die size will be massive (as well as huge TDP), in the same ballpark as NVs large monolithic die. They clearly want to head down the general HPC pathway with a design that caters to both markets.

They have decent market share but its not doing a fantastic job on their margins and profits.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

GCN is the reason why i think the 7970 die size will be massive (as well as huge TDP), in the same ballpark as NVs large monolithic die. They clearly want to head down the general HPC pathway with a design that caters to both markets.

They have decent market share but its not doing a fantastic job on their margins and profits.

Nope. Here's the specs for the high-end parts:

Radeon HD 7800 Series:

• Node: TSMC 28nm HPL (High-Performance Low Power)
• Architecture: VLIW4
• GPU: Thames (die-shrinked Cayman)

1. Radeon HD 7850:

• Radeon cores: 1408
• Core/GPU frequency: 850MHz
• Effective Memory frequency: 5200MHz
• Type of Memory: GDDR5
• Texture Units (TU): 88
• Raster Operation Processors (ROP): 32
• Bus width: 256-bit
• Memory bandwidth: 166GB/s
• Amount of VRAM: 2GB
• TDP: 90W

2. Radeon HD 7870:

• Radeon cores: 1536
• Core/GPU frequency: 950MHz
• Effective Memory frequency: 5800MHz
• Type of Memory: GDDR5
• Texture Units: 96
• Raster Operation Processors (ROP): 32
• Bus width: 256-bit
• Memory bandwidth: 186GB/s
• TDP: 120W

Radeon HD 7900 series:

• Node: TSMC 28nm HP (High-Performance)
• Architecture: GCN
• GPU: Tahiti

1. Radeon HD 7950:

• Radeon cores: 1920
• Core/GPU frequency: 900MHz
• Effective Memory frequency: 7200MHz
• Type of Memory: XDR2
• Texture Units (TU): 120
• Raster Operation Units (ROP): 64
• Bus width: 256-bit
• Memory bandwidth: 230GB/s
• TDP: 150W

2. Radeon HD 7970:

• Radeon cores: 2048
• Core/GPU frequency: 1GHz
• Effective Memory frequency: 8000MHz
• Type of Memory: XDR2
• Texture Units (TU): 128
• Raster Operation Units (ROP): 64
• Bus width: 256-bit
• Memory bandwidth: 256GB/s
• TDP: 190W

Source

And yes, this is a confirmed leak. AMD wants better compute capability, but doesn't want to give up efficiency for it. Judging from the specs, Tahiti will probably be smaller than Cayman.

 

[3DVagabond]

And yes, this is a confirmed leak. AMD wants better compute capability, but doesn't want to give up efficiency for it. Judging from the specs, Tahiti will probably be smaller than Cayman.

There looks to be some interesting times ahead for AMD in the coming months for us to keep watch. AMD will be releasing its new "Bulldozer" architecture, along with the new GCN architecture for the 7900 series GPUs (if the information leaked is accurate).

Who's confirmed it? Tom's left themselves an out.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Who's confirmed it? Tom's left themselves an out.

It was leaked from a roadmap presented at an AMD event, the Fusion Developer Summit. These are definitely the specs.

 

[Silverforce11]

Nothing's confirmed until near launch. I only believe they will be launching 28nm this year, i dont believe any leak specs until AIBs have the final bios in cards ready for shipping.

 

[tviceman]

These are definitely the specs.

Would you care to place a bet on that?

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Nothing's confirmed until near launch. I only believe they will be launching 28nm this year, i dont believe any leak specs until AIBs have the final bios in cards ready for shipping.

LOL, is this a parody of the Bulldozer situation...? You can't be serious. Yes, these will be the specs we'll see in launch products.

 

[3DVagabond]

It was leaked from a roadmap presented at an AMD event, the Fusion Developer Summit. These are definitely the specs.

Interesting. I'm disappointed that we're only looking at 6900 performance for the 7800. Hopefully GCN gives a bigger improvement because if not then those 7900 specs don't look like they'll beat even a shrunk 580, never mind a new arch.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Would you care to place a bet on that?

Hmm, who do I believe more? A leaked roadmap from AMD, or some guy with unfounded skepticism?

Do YOU want to place a bet? You know you'll lose. These are leaked specs from AMD.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Interesting. I'm disappointed that we're only looking at 6900 performance for the 7800. Hopefully GCN gives a bigger improvement because if not then those 7900 specs don't look like they'll beat even a shrunk 580, never mind a new arch.

As far as performance itself goes we have no leaks, so it would just be speculation. But the HD 7900 series does see a huge increase in the number of ROPs and TUs. We've yet to see how much GCN will improve performance on top of that.

We don't have very concrete info regarding the specs of the high-end cards NVIDIA will launch with Kepler, but that's probably because it'll be launched some months after AMD launches their cards.

 

[Silverforce11]

LOL, is this a parody of the Bulldozer situation...? You can't be serious. Yes, these will be the specs we'll see in launch products.

Yes and also from their previous launches. Nothing is concrete til there's products ready for shipping.

 

[iCyborg]

Hmm, who do I believe more? A leaked roadmap from AMD, or some guy with unfounded skepticism?

Do YOU want to place a bet? You know you'll lose. These are leaked specs from AMD.

Anandtech was present at that summit event where the roadmap was supposedly leaked. And there was a 5-6 page article about it, but no such specs. How come there seems to be only a single source (Nordic HW) and Tom is qualifying it with if?
And if Tahiti is supposed to have GCN, how come it has ~2000 Radeon cores, supposedly GCN is more similar to nVidia cores than previous VLIW.

Anyway, I'm willing to take the bet as well

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Yes and also from their previous launches. Nothing is concrete til there's products ready for shipping.

We knew a lot about Bulldozer well before it was released, including the specs and pricing. The leaked benchmarks painted a bleak picture and as it turned out all of them were very accurate. Not the best argument to pick.

You may use the same arguments that JFAMD used to say like "oh, it's not the final product" but at this stage the GPUs are already in full production (the HD 7800 series, anyway). Nothing about the specs themselves is gonna change this late in the game, as we've seen in the past.

 

[RussianSensation]

2. Radeon HD 7970:

• Radeon cores: 2048
• Core/GPU frequency: 1GHz
• Effective Memory frequency: 8000MHz
• Type of Memory: XDR2
• Texture Units (TU): 128
• Raster Operation Units (ROP): 64
• Bus width: 256-bit
• Memory bandwidth: 256GB/s
• TDP: 190W

Source

And yes, this is a confirmed leak. AMD wants better compute capability, but doesn't want to give up efficiency for it. Judging from the specs, Tahiti will probably be smaller than Cayman.

1. 2048 x 1000mhz vs. 1536 x 880mhz = 51.5% greater pixel fill-rate
2. 128 TMUs x 1000 mhz vs. 96 TMUs x 880mhz = 51.5% greater texture fill-rate
3. 256 GB/sec vs. 176 GB/sec = 45% more bandwidth.

Either these specs are fake, each SP/TMU/ROP is way more powerful in GCN, or HD7970 will get clobbered by Kepler. A card that has 45-51% faster specs on paper on average will at best be 50% faster than HD6970, which will put it only 30% faster than a GTX580 (100% = HD6970, 115% = GTX580, 150% = HD7970).

I am going to say these specs are too conservative or AMD has another 20% or so increase in efficiency hiding in redesigned TMUs and SPs or HD6970 was ROP starved?

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Anandtech was present at that summit event where the roadmap was supposedly leaked. And there was a 5-6 page article about it, but no such specs. How come there seems to be only a single source (Nordic HW) and Tom is qualifying it with if?
And if Tahiti is supposed to have GCN, how come it has ~2000 Radeon cores, supposedly GCN is more similar to nVidia cores than previous VLIW.

Anyway, I'm willing to take the bet as well

Because even though those cores are faster and more efficient than those with the VLIW4 architecture they're nowhere near as fast as each core NVIDIA uses? Seems fairly obvious, especially looking at the clock speed and the quantity of them. Which isn't to say NVIDIA has an advantage there when it comes to the design (for consumers); GPUs applications are made to be extremely parallel.

This was a leak from September. If you had knowledge of the industry you'd know that's far too late to make changes to the production line short of perhaps a revision; nothing affecting the GPU design itself. These are supposed to launch in Dec or Jan.

 

[Rifter]

It was leaked from a roadmap presented at an AMD event, the Fusion Developer Summit. These are definitely the specs.

Then provide proof from AMD or stop claiming they are real.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

1. 2048 x 1000mhz vs. 1536 x 880mhz = 51.5% greater pixel fill-rate
2. 128 TMUs x 1000 mhz vs. 96 TMUs x 880mhz = 51.5% greater texture fill-rate
3. 256 GB/sec vs. 176 GB/sec = 45% more bandwidth.

Either these specs are fake, each SP is way more powerful in GCN, or HD7970 will get clobbered by Kepler. A card that has 45-51% faster specs on paper on average will at best be 50% faster than HD6970, which will put it only 30% faster than a GTX580 (100% = HD6970, 115% = GTX580, 150% = HD7970).

I am going to say these specs are too conservative or AMD has another 20% or so increase in efficiency hiding in redesigned TMUs and SPs.

And you know that how? NVIDIA is said to be focusing on making a GPU with a smaller die than GF110. Apart from that, we don't have specs for any high-end Kepler card.

And naturally, each SP will be faster than those in VLIW4 and more efficient. If not, they wouldn't have switched to it. AMD's GPU engineers aren't anywhere near as dumb as their CPU engineers.

 

[iCyborg]

Because even though those cores are faster and more efficient than those with the VLIW4 architecture they're nowhere near as fast as each core NVIDIA uses? Seems fairly obvious, especially looking at the clock speed and the quantity of them. Which isn't to say NVIDIA has an advantage there when it comes to the design (for consumers); GPUs applications are made to be extremely parallel.

This was a leak from September. If you had knowledge of the industry you'd know that's far too late to make changes to the production line short of perhaps a revision; nothing affecting the GPU design itself. These are supposed to launch in Dec or Jan.

I'm not saying AMD has decided to make changes since September. I'm saying the leaked info is an educated guess and not much more.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Then provide proof from AMD or stop claiming they are real.

Um, wat. AMD themselves don't confirm anything before launch, and sites have NDAs to sign. Everyone knows this. Doesn't make it any less bit real.

How about you provide proof to the contrary? I already gave evidence for mine.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I'm not saying AMD has decided to make changes since September. I'm saying the leaked info is an educated guess and not much more.

Proof?

 

[Rifter]

How about you provide proof to the contrary? I already gave evidence for mine.

Really, where? all i see is links to other sites that are not AMD, even toms left themselves an out in there statement. I dont need to disprove something you have failed to prove in the first place.

Im aware AMD doesnt leak anything, im also aware that untill its out anything can change. Dont you remember all the BS that was spread around during/prior to the 6xxx launch?

 

[notty22]

By the way, Charlie says those are fake.
http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=132861&postcount=1160
Take it for what it's worth

Guys,
Let me be blunt here, THERE IS NO XDR2 IN SI/HD7000/GCN. Trust me on this, the spec list floating is complete bull, and you can tell by who is re-posting it and who is not. Some people know, and they are being VERY quiet on the subject.
This is not meant to knock XDR2 and/or Rambus, it is just a statement about what is in and what is not in the next GPU.

 

[iCyborg]

Originally Posted by iCyborg
I'm not saying AMD has decided to make changes since September. I'm saying the leaked info is an educated guess and not much more.

Proof?

Well, the onus should be on you to prove it's legit. One website and a couple of references to it from other sites with cautionary statements ain't cutting it.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

By the way, Charlie says those are fake.
http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=132861&postcount=1160
Take it for what it's worth

And who is this "Charlie"?

Well, the onus should be on you to prove it's legit. One website and a couple of references to it from other sites with cautionary statements ain't cutting it.

I already did. You people here are funny. Reminds me of the people in denial when Bulldozer was gonna launch in a few months.

 

[Rifter]

And who is this "Charlie"?

You cant possibly be serious

I already did. You people here are funny. Reminds me of the people in denial when Bulldozer was gonna launch in a few months

No, no, you didnt.