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

[frozentundra123456]

Mr. Teal is probably correct about liquid cooling being for the cpu, not gpu. That said, I still stand by the rest of what I said, and ocre, you are very correct.

This could mean the 380 is all that and a bag of chips, or it could be some weirdly named OEM model that slots in below the 980, or something in between. The computers may be very nice, but speculation has gotten far out of hand. Also, if the 380 is some sort of sensational HBM efficiency masterpiece, it seems weird that it would go to HP, who does not exactly have a stellar record with gaming PCs, instead to to some high end boutique builder like Falcon Northwest, or the several other high end custom builders.

 

[Cloudfire777]

Here is the specs for R9 A360 just in case anyone was wondering

512 Shaders @ 725MHz. 2GB GDDR5 @ 128bit @ 1125MHz
Source: http://www.sisoftware.eu/rank2011d/...efdceddbe2d0e7c1b38ebe98fd98a595b3c0fdc5&l=en

 

[Cloudfire777]

Also HBM can`t be very expensive. I have the price for the R9 370X which will feature HBM and it will be a pleasant surprise for most people I think

Also,
R9 370 = 1280 shaders
R9 370X = ?
R9 380 =
R9 380X = ?
R9 390 =
R9 390X = 4096 shaders

These R9 200 chips is said to be part of the R9 300 lineup:
Tonga and Hawaii.
Tonga is 1792 and 2048 shaders
Hawaii is 2560 and 2816 shaders

It shouldnt really be that hard. They all fit perfectly between R9 370 and R9 390X

 

[Glo.]

R9 370X = 2048 GCN, 2 GB of HBM
R9 380 = 2560 GCN, 4 GB of HBM
R9 380X = 2816/3072 4 GB of HBM
R9 390 = ~3500 GCN, 4 GB of HBM

That is my prediction.

 

[raghu78]

Also HBM can`t be very expensive. I have the price for the R9 370X which will feature HBM and it will be a pleasant surprise for most people I think

Also,
R9 370 = 1280 shaders
R9 370X = ?
R9 380 =
R9 380X = ?
R9 390 =
R9 390X = 4096 shaders

These R9 200 chips is said to be part of the R9 300 lineup:
Tonga and Hawaii.
Tonga is 1792 and 2048 shaders
Hawaii is 2560 and 2816 shaders

It shouldnt really be that hard. They all fit perfectly between R9 370 and R9 390X

its almost assured that there is not going to be a straight rebrand of Hawaii and Tonga with no changes. There is no way we see any chip missing out on the latest microarchitecture which we will see in R9 390X. I think the sp count might be similar but there are going to be significant microarchitectural changes to call them completely new GPUs and their performance will reflect those changes. :biggrin:

 

[Cloudfire777]

R9 370X = 2048 GCN, 2 GB of HBM
R9 380 = 2560 GCN, 4 GB of HBM
R9 380X = 2816/3072 4 GB of HBM
R9 390 = ~3500 GCN, 4 GB of HBM

That is my prediction.

Not a totally bad guess there.

Remember that the HP desktop revealed today offer a choice between GTX 980 or R9 380. One may ask why not GTX 980 or R9 380X? Is it because R9 380 is in similar performance to GTX 980? 2560 shaders and GDDR5, would that be a good comparison against GTX 980 which we know is 10-15% faster than the R9 290X with 2816 shaders? If no, what could help it boost performance?

 

[xthetenth]

Mr. Teal is probably correct about liquid cooling being for the cpu, not gpu. That said, I still stand by the rest of what I said, and ocre, you are very correct.

This could mean the 380 is all that and a bag of chips, or it could be some weirdly named OEM model that slots in below the 980, or something in between. The computers may be very nice, but speculation has gotten far out of hand. Also, if the 380 is some sort of sensational HBM efficiency masterpiece, it seems weird that it would go to HP, who does not exactly have a stellar record with gaming PCs, instead to to some high end boutique builder like Falcon Northwest, or the several other high end custom builders.

That HP is the one that leaked does not mean that HP is the only one with it.

And we're still running on conjecture, and fitting well into a small case gives weight to the case that it's at least not inefficient.

 

[B-Riz]

This is crazy, I never thought I might consider a pre-built Win 10, Skylake, AMD R9 300 series from a large OEM, but warranty AND OC support?

What is happening in PC land? This is all nuts.

 

[2is]

Not a totally bad guess there.

Remember that the HP desktop revealed today offer a choice between GTX 980 or R9 380. One may ask why not GTX 980 or R9 380X? Is it because R9 380 is in similar performance to GTX 980? 2560 shaders and GDDR5, would that be a good comparison against GTX 980 which we know is 10-15% faster than the R9 290X with 2816 shaders? If no, what could help it boost performance?

It could be that. It could also be the 380 is a lower performing option that's cheaper than a 980. We just don't know.

 

[Alatar]

Remember that the HP desktop revealed today offer a choice between GTX 980 or R9 380. One may ask why not GTX 980 or R9 380X? Is it because R9 380 is in similar performance to GTX 980? 2560 shaders and GDDR5, would that be a good comparison against GTX 980 which we know is 10-15% faster than the R9 290X with 2816 shaders? If no, what could help it boost performance?

Or maybe HP is being reasonable and instead of offering redundant similarly priced / similar performance choices from AMD and Nvidia they've got a pair of differently priced cards with different performance as well.

Kinda like the current Envy line that offers a choice from a GTX 770 a R9 270 and a GTX 745.

380 being a 290/290X rebrand would make perfect sense in that case. Offer a 980 as the top choice for the most money, 380 as the middle one for a couple of hundred less and then something lower end for $100-150 less.

Of course it could be that they're offering a more expensive, lower performance, higher power consumption 980 as well as a brand new HBM 380 with watercooling like some users seem to be speculating.

 

[SimianR]

I would like to think that the R9 380 lines up against the 980 but I wouldn't necessarily assume that because it's offered as an alternative by HP that it does. It could be the "budget" part or it could be an upgrade. Who knows.

 

[guskline]

I would be very leery of the numbering system of an OEM. There are a number of examples through the years where a video card is mentioned yet the OEM version is stripped down on either clock or memory.

I wouldn't read a lot into the HP announcement. Wait until the products ship and can be tested.

 

[R0H1T]

I would be very leery of the numbering system of an OEM. There are a number of examples through the years where a video card is mentioned yet the OEM version is stripped down on either clock or memory.

I wouldn't read a lot into the HP announcement. Wait until the products ship and can be tested.

Which might be a good thing for once, who knows we might see the 370x beat the 980

 

[maddie]

Not a totally bad guess there.

Remember that the HP desktop revealed today offer a choice between GTX 980 or R9 380. One may ask why not GTX 980 or R9 380X? Is it because R9 380 is in similar performance to GTX 980? 2560 shaders and GDDR5, would that be a good comparison against GTX 980 which we know is 10-15% faster than the R9 290X with 2816 shaders? If no, what could help it boost performance?

You're a mean, mean man.

Any idea when we will know the facts?

 

[Cloudfire777]

Or maybe HP is being reasonable and instead of offering redundant similarly priced / similar performance choices from AMD and Nvidia they've got a pair of differently priced cards with different performance as well.

Kinda like the current Envy line that offers a choice from a GTX 770 a R9 270 and a GTX 745.

380 being a 290/290X rebrand would make perfect sense in that case. Offer a 980 as the top choice for the most money, 380 as the middle one for a couple of hundred less and then something lower end for $100-150 less.

Of course it could be that they're offering a more expensive, lower performance, higher power consumption 980 as well as a brand new HBM 380 with watercooling like some users seem to be speculating.

Consider this:
R9 370X: 140W
Price: From my contact: $2xx

GTX 980: 165W
Price: $550

TDP of R9 390 is said to be ~220-230W btw (not from my contact).

 

[RussianSensation]

380 being a 290/290X rebrand would make perfect sense in that case. Offer a 980 as the top choice for the most money, 380 as the middle one for a couple of hundred less and then something lower end for $100-150 less.

I still think some posters on our forum use the term re-brand incorrectly. If you take Hawaii XT made on 28nm TSMC, but manufacture it at GloFo and add HBM, that's not a rebrand. The chip not only has different transistors, but entirely different perf/watt and memory sub-system characteristics. How can you call an R9 380X with 15% more performance and 80-100W less power vs. the 290X a rebrand? (Just using hypothetical performance and power metrics here). The point is, a re-brand is taking the same chip and at most just bumping the GPU and memory clocks and releasing it at a lower price --> for example GTX680-->770 or HD7970 --> HD7970Ghz. Even the minor changes from GTX480 -> 580 is already not a rebrand. Similarly 470 -> 570 is not a re-brand.

Consider this:
R9 370X: 140W
Price: From my contact: $2xx

GTX 980: 165W
Price: $550

TDP of R9 390 is said to be ~220-230W btw (not from my contact).

But you said 370X ~ 780 and 780 < $240 R9 290 and even slower than an R9 280X. Sure from a perf/watt, it's probably a huge leap but selling 780 level of performance in the $200-250 range isn't exactly mind-blowing when R9 290 regularly sells for $240. I guess compared to the turd that is the 960, it will be a huge win for those who have power usage as a key priority to have 780 level of performance with 140W power usage below $250. As far as $550 MSRP of 980, that price has always been questionable as the card was overpriced from day 1 imho. That $500-550 price for a 980 is laughable when cards like the Gigabyte GTX970 Windforce go on sale for $295.

Right now 980 is 8-15% faster than a 290X, maybe 25% if we use reviews full of GW titles but it costs 70% more than a 970 and 80-90% more than an R9 290X. I have a 1000W Platinum PSU so I don't really care if 980 uses 200W or 300W. For me the fair price of a 980 today is $399 tops based on its performance and features. Therefore, if R9 380X ~ 980, it should really be priced at $379-399 or otherwise we are still in mid-range overpriced land.

Another way of looking at it, HD7970Ghz was $549 and when AMD released R9 200 series, that level of performance became available at $299 in the R9 280X. That means AMD should really aim for R9 380 to be priced at $299 and have R9 290X level of performance.

On the performance level I would like to see:

R9 380 = $299 as fast as R9 290X reference card
R9 380X = $399 as fast as GTX980 reference card
R9 390 = $549 15% faster than a GTX980 reference card (so 87-89% as fast as the Titan X for nearly half the price)
R9 390X = $699 as fast as the Titan X

 

[Alatar]

Consider this:
R9 370X: 140W
Price: From my contact: $2xx

GTX 980: 165W
Price: $550

TDP of R9 390 is said to be ~220-230W btw (not from my contact).

Is this the same contact that says that the 300 series is 20nm?

Because I'm not sure that I'd trust him/her at all in that case.

I still think some posters on our forum use the term re-brand incorrectly. If you take Hawaii XT made on 28nm TSMC, but manufacture it at GloFo and add HBM, that's not a rebrand. The chip not only has different transistors, but entirely different perf/watt and memory sub-system characteristics. How can you call an R9 380X with 15% more performance and 80-100W less power vs. the 290X a rebrand? (Just using hypothetical performance and power metrics here). The point is, a re-brand is taking the same chip and at most just bumping the GPU and memory clocks and releasing it at a lower price --> for example GTX680-->770 or HD7970 --> HD7970Ghz. Even the minor changes from GTX480 -> 580 is already not a rebrand. Similarly 470 -> 570 is not a re-brand.

I wouldn't call that a rebrand. Hawaii reworked to have HBM and made on a different process isn't hawaii anymore at all.

That's why I said hawaii rebrand, I still find it the most likely scenario that the 380 is actually a proper hawaii rebrand. As in a new stepping at most. Could be something else too but given the current information if I had to put money on something I'd put it on a hawaii rebrand.

 

[frozentundra123456]

So which models, if any, has AMD *officially* stated will have HBM? Have they officially even released the model numbers?

No speculation, no "personal contacts", no extrapolations from assumptions, but confirmed statements from AMD.

 

[flopper]

So which models, if any, has AMD *officially* stated will have HBM? Have they officially even released the model numbers?

No speculation, no "personal contacts", no extrapolations from assumptions, but confirmed statements from AMD.

June.
Was confirmed to be used with VR demo.
Thats it.

 

[RussianSensation]

Is this the same contact that says that the 300 series is 20nm?

The problem is it's already been proven many times that not only can you not compare NV's TDP within NV's own product stack, you definitely cannot compare NV's TDP to AMD's GPU TDP. 370X with 140W TDP vs. 980 with 165W TDP tells me absolutely very little about the real world power usage of MSI Gaming/Gigabyte Windforce 370X vs. MSI Gaming/Gigabyte Windforce 980 as an example.

At TPU, reference 980 peaks at 184W and Gigabyte Windforce 980 at 204W. For those of us who buy mostly after-market cards, those reference TDP ratings are marketing BS. Also, as other posters mentioned, AMD often overstates their TDP but NV has a tendency to understate it. Until we can compare real world gaming power usage, it's hard to reach accurate conclusions here.

That's why I said hawaii rebrand, I still find it the most likely scenario that the 380 is actually a proper hawaii rebrand. As in a new stepping at most. Could be something else too but given the current information if I had to put money on something I'd put it on a hawaii rebrand.

Then I would be shocked if on the same 28nm without HBM, Hawaii can be re-spun to increase clocks 15% to match 980 but drop real world power usage to 190W. I don't see how that's possible as that's similar perf/watt revolution a full node jump or a brand new architecture would accomplish. Without a new architecture or some new revolutionary power tune algorithm and the card completely shutting off all DP transistors, I don't see how this is even possible on the same node.

If we take the approach that R9 380X is slower than a 980 but only uses 170-180W, that's a meh release for a lot of people at $399 because 970 fulfilled that environmental role since Sept 2014. I think 380X needs to be as fast as a 980 or really within a hair of it to make a splash. If R9 380X is only as fast as a 290X but uses way less power, most of the brand loyal consumers will still keep buying the 970! So this strategy would be a pretty big fail. If AMD is to price 380X above 970, it has to be faster.

 

[Cloudfire777]

But you said 370X ~ 780 and 780 < $240 R9 290 and even slower than an R9 280X. Sure from a perf/watt, it's probably a huge leap but selling 780 level of performance in the $200-250 range isn't exactly mind-blowing when R9 290 regularly sells for $240. I guess compared to the turd that is the 960, it will be a huge win for those who have power usage as a key priority to have 780 level of performance with 140W power usage below $250. As far as $550 MSRP of 980, that price has always been questionable as the card was overpriced from day 1 imho. That $500-550 price for a 980 is laughable when cards like the Gigabyte GTX970 Windforce go on sale for $295.

Right now 980 is 8-15% faster than a 290X, maybe 25% if we use reviews full of GW titles but it costs 70% more than a 970 and 80-90% more than an R9 290X. I have a 1000W Platinum PSU so I don't really care if 980 uses 200W or 300W. For me the fair price of a 980 today is $399 tops based on its performance and features. Therefore, if R9 380X ~ 980, it should really be priced at $379-399 or otherwise we are still in mid-range overpriced land.

Another way of looking at it, HD7970Ghz was $549 and when AMD released R9 200 series, that level of performance became available at $299 in the R9 280X. That means AMD should really aim for R9 380 to be priced at $299 and have R9 290X level of performance.

On the performance level I would like to see:

R9 380 = $299 as fast as R9 290X reference card
R9 380X = $399 as fast as GTX980 reference card
R9 390 = $549 15% faster than a GTX980 reference card (so 87-89% as fast as the Titan X for nearly half the price)
R9 390X = $699 as fast as the Titan X

Why do you always have to write a freaking article everytime you respond to someone? It makes atleast me less inclined to reply.

Who told you the Hawaii will continue to be priced at $249 in the 300 series?
Shouldnt AMD be rewarded by putting out more efficient GPUs like Nvidia do with their cards? They are not running a charity. AMD have a low price now on the cards probably because the cards is bleak in comparison to Maxwell. And to remove inventory of current TSMC 28nm cards. Efficiency is a big part of the reason GTX 980 is selling like it does.

A $2xx R9 370X with HBM and TDP of 140W will sell a heck more than a R9 290 at say 270W. Trust me, the price is very good for what you are getting

 

[xthetenth]

At TPU, reference 980 peaks at 184W and Gigabyte Windforce 980 at 204W. For those of us who buy mostly after-market cards, those reference TDP ratings are marketing BS. Also, as other posters mentioned, AMD often overstates their TDP but NV has a tendency to understate it. Until we can compare real world gaming power usage, it's hard to reach accurate conclusions here.

Maybe my joke that the definition of TDP for AMD was the low hanging fruit in addressing the TDP gap was something people were taking seriously.

 

[R0H1T]

A $2xx R9 370X with HBM and TDP of 140W will sell a heck more than a R9 290 at say 270W. Trust me, the price is very good for what you are getting

So is the 370x faster than the GTX 970, any way you can confirm/deny this rumor

 

[raghu78]

I wouldn't call that a rebrand. Hawaii reworked to have HBM and made on a different process isn't hawaii anymore at all.

That's why I said hawaii rebrand, I still find it the most likely scenario that the 380 is actually a proper hawaii rebrand. As in a new stepping at most. Could be something else too but given the current information if I had to put money on something I'd put it on a hawaii rebrand.

There is no role for Hawaii silicon in the R9 3xx stack. Hawaii just flat out sucks in perf/watt compared to GM204. These R9 3xx GPUs are going to be a huge step up in power efficiency and much of that is going to happen because of actual chip level changes, micro architectural improvements to perf/sp and perf/watt, HBM and a better process (GF 28SHP).

All the indications are AMD has a new GPU stack with more than 2 SKUs with HBM. My guess is R9 380, R9 380X, R9 390 and R9 390X sport HBM. Any more GPUs with HBM and I will be really surprised.

 

[Glo.]

If it is ~GTX780 and costs 259$ with 140W of TDP its a hell of a GPU.

Also, I checked how well performs GTX780 in comparison to R9 290. Its the same performance. At least in somewhere around FullHD, 1440p.

If so - I have no idea where would come all the performance of 2048 GCN core, apart from new process and HBM. But would it have such an impact, to increase performance by 25%? I don't think so.

Strictly, Cloudfire: is 370X bigger than 2048 GCN cores?

There is no role for Hawaii silicon in the R9 3xx stack. Hawaii just flat out sucks in perf/watt compared to GM204.

Maybe you haven't seen this, but Im pretty sure, you've read it on another forum Check out the quote.

If you have a Hawaii card, I urge you to crank power limits down in the overdrive tab of CCC and see what the resulting clockspeed is under full load. Even in a worst-case scenario, I'm seeing a typical clockspeed of 850MHz with the slider all the way to the left at -50%

That means that Hawaii (the two samples I personally own, at least) can run at 850+MHz on only 145W (half the 290W TDP). As mentioned, that's a worst-case scenario using a power-virus like Furmark. Under real gaming situations (I was messing around with Alien Isolation on 1440p ultra settings) the clocks averaged about 925MHz yet my PC was inaudible; Fans that normally hum along at 55% were barely spinning at 30% during my gameplay.

Its from here, however it turns out that post here disappeared:
http://techreport.com/news/27996/4gb-gtx-960s-trickle-into-retail-channels?post=893388#893388