[BitsAndChips]390X ready for launch - AMD ironing out drivers - Computex launch

[Cloudfire777]

The reliable site, bitsandchips, have posted an article which was very interesting.

According to what we have learned from speaking directly to the leaders of the GPU companies that make GPUs from AMD, R9 390X have been ready for a long time. But AMD are waiting to perfect drivers and a big announcement will be made at Computex.

Although this means waiting a couple of more months while GTX 970 and 980 roam free without any competition on the market, this will allow AMD to present a card without any defects regarding drivers, which was seen with some 7xxx cards, and was hurting AMD because reviews wrote about it.

One last thing to note concerning the recent rumors on the internet regarding the performance of the R9 390X, it seems that R9 390X performance are much higher than whats been posted on the internet.

Source: http://www.bitsandchips.it/9-hardwa...onte-ma-amd-aspetta-che-i-driver-siano-maturi

 

[n0x1ous]

if it was ready, they wouldn't be waiting months to launch.....I call bs on this

 

[wand3r3r]

Same here. Wait 2 months while losing market share to "improve drivers" seems highly unlikely.

 

[Cloudfire777]

The cards are ready, the software (drivers) are not.

HBM is a brand new technology. I bet you that making drivers for those and making sure its 100% stable, aint an easy task. Probably new ways to move data in and out the memory stacks compared to traditional GDDR.
Like mentioned in the OP, pushing out a fast card but unreliable could hurt them way more than losing 2 months of sales. We all know how everyone justify and spin things, even reviewers

 

[Vesku]

It would explain why current GCN card owners haven't seen a driver update since Omega, all hands on deck for 300 series. Also would mean this is a big architecture improvement as AMD wouldn't need this kind of time to polish drivers if it was just incremental change from Tonga's GCN 1.2. If it really is going to allow AMD to claim top performance single GPU I can understand why they don't want the launch tarnished by Nvidia encouraged harping on some minor flaws, when they spot something to attack it tends to bounce around the internet for a long time.

On the downside this could mean the driver improvements for current GCN cards will peter out, AMD actually has done a good job providing improvements to overall GCN card performance with driver updates.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

Or maybe its a lie and AMD could drop them at any time.

 

[sm625]

The should have already had an HBM proto built on a Hawaii XT before they even fabbed the 390. That part of it should have been done a long time before the 390 came back from the fab.

 

[Vesku]

HBM was just recently production ready and a premium part requiring the extra expense of a silicon interposer to implement. Not really the conditions for producing a test SKU like they did going from GDDR3 to GDDR5 with the 4770.

 

[Cloudfire777]

Or maybe its a lie and AMD could drop them at any time.

What better event than Computex?
All AIB get to show their cards to the public. Maximum coverage.
Nvidia had their own GPU conference where they got to show and present Titan. Its about finding the best coverage

It sucks that its another 2 months, but at the same time, maybe we will have Skylake ready by then too? And NVMe SSDs. And more affordable DDR4.

I think summer will be a great time to build a new computer

 

[n0x1ous]

as long as it performs and has reference CLC ill be in for 2, but getting tired of waiting

 

[Paul98]

Sounds good to me, feels like recently AMD has really been trying to get their act together. I am expecting to buy one of these new cards.

 

[dangerman1337]

At this point AMD needs something out now, While HBM is new for the 390 they should release a 380(x) like next month than waiting for the 290s to clear stock (they are not going to clear themselves at their current price point).

 

[ShintaiDK]

The cards are ready, the software (drivers) are not.

HBM is a brand new technology. I bet you that making drivers for those and making sure its 100% stable, aint an easy task. Probably new ways to move data in and out the memory stacks compared to traditional GDDR.
Like mentioned in the OP, pushing out a fast card but unreliable could hurt them way more than losing 2 months of sales. We all know how everyone justify and spin things, even reviewers

I dont see what HBM and drivers have in common. For the drivers its just plain VRAM.

390X ready for a long time and just waiting for drivers is a big pile of BS.

 

[gradoman]

Hamstrung by software -- seems like a likely problem with this new tech. I'd like to see their response to NV, but I think it's better to get all the ducks in a row first.

 

[raghu78]

I dont see what HBM and drivers have in common. For the drivers its just plain VRAM.

390X ready for a long time and just waiting for drivers is a big pile of BS.

AMD's current drivers and CF profiles are not in good shape. Freesync driver is not yet released. Freesync single GPU comes this month and Freesync CF comes next month. The CF profiles for games like Evolve, Dying Light, Farcry 4 are not yet available. 15.3 beta seems to address it but frametimes for CF are still not great in these games (especially Farcry 4). hwc says CF is broken at 4K in Dying Light, Farcry 4, Hitman Absolution. Metro LL is underperforming on both single R9 290X and R9 295x2

http://techreport.com/review/27969/nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x-graphics-card-reviewed/4

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...992-nvidia-titan-x-performance-review-12.html

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...992-nvidia-titan-x-performance-review-13.html

So until AMD improves the overall driver performance and quality its a mistake to launch R9 390X , as its a flagship card with a lot of innovation - tiled GCN, HBM etc and deserves the best possible software on launch.

The second and more important reason is production volume and launch volume. Both Hynix with HBM and GF with 2.5D packaging have just started high volume production in early 2015. Yield challenges might lead to volume constraints and so it makes sense to build a good volume for launch. Salvage SKUs like a R9 385X need to be planned and launched later to maximize overall yields. This is not a simple launch as you might think. So AMD needs to plan such that both hardware is available in good volume and software is in the best shape. If AMD is serious about taking the GPU crown and keeping it for a while their software needs to be much better than how it is now.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

Dunno how long they'll keep it, Nvidia might have a 980 Ti really to go.

 

[Cloudfire777]

I dont see what HBM and drivers have in common. For the drivers its just plain VRAM.

390X ready for a long time and just waiting for drivers is a big pile of BS.

I dont know the details of the HBM, but memory management seems quite a bit different with HBM compared to GDDR5. Stacking them instead of spreading them out across the card, different memory bus vs those two, crossbar with memory controller per VRAM vs whatever solution HBM got

At this point AMD needs something out now, While HBM is new for the 390 they should release a 380(x) like next month than waiting for the 290s to clear stock (they are not going to clear themselves at their current price point).

XFX R9 370 is releasing in April.
Recent rumors suggested GTX 780 performance so it should be able to compete with GTX 960 and beat it.
Thats where they will start I think.

Dunno how long they'll keep it, Nvidia might have a 980 Ti really to go.

Beating Titan X by how much, 5%?

 

[SlowSpyder]

The last few AMD video card launches have felt a bit rushed. I could see them taking some time to add polish. Hopefully this gives their board partners time to have non-reference designs out at launch or soon after.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

Beating Titan X by how much, 5%?

Could be a stripped down version with 6 GB or something like that. Early Titan X adopters get screwed once more, but Nvidia won't care.

 

[Vesku]

The last few AMD video card launches have felt a bit rushed. I could see them taking some time to add polish. Hopefully this gives their board partners time to have non-reference designs out at launch or soon after.

Good point, delaying until Computex and NOT having non-reference options on most SKUs would be underwhelming.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I dont know the details of the HBM, but memory management seems quite a bit different with HBM compared to GDDR5. Stacking them instead of spreading them out across the card, different memory bus vs those two, crossbar with memory controller per VRAM vs whatever solution HBM got

It doesnt matter. Its all handled by hardware.

 

[chimaxi83]

It doesnt matter. Its all handled by hardware.

You know that for a fact, or is this more armchair engineering and assumptions?

 

[Cloudfire777]

It doesnt matter. Its all handled by hardware.

I dont think you know this for sure. There will be nothing in the drivers that explains to the GPU on what to do with memory in this and that?
How does games improve with newer drivers then? Hardware does it all by itself according to you...
Why did Nvidia say they could improve GTX 970 VRAM issue with new drivers?

 

[ShintaiDK]

You know that for a fact, or is this more armchair engineering and assumptions?

The driver loads long after the card is initialized. And memory controllers are fixed hardware. At best you can change timings via a vBIOS.

I dont think you know this for sure. There will be nothing in the drivers that explains to the GPU on what to do with memory in this and that?
How does games improve with newer drivers then? Hardware does it all by itself according to you...
Why did Nvidia say they could improve GTX 970 VRAM issue with new drivers?

A driver is a translation layer to the hardware. Nothing more.

 

[Vesku]

Wouldn't actually using HBM's bandwidth in existing game titles involve driver tweaking? I mean AMD and Nvidia have been known to completely rewrite shader models and the like for AAA titles in their drivers and similar code altering stuff.