[FUDZILLA] AMD's initial 28nm lineup (SI) will be a die-shrink only

[OCGuy]

He is really putting himself out there with this one. Hopefully his source is good or there will be some major egg on his face. If true, this is not good news. Looks like H2 2012 for a true new architechture.



"The new graphics architecture from AMD will only come in 2012, when the 28nm process gets more mature, and most likely this will happen only in second half of the year. Whether you like it or not, you will have to start getting excited about integrated graphics as from this point there will be more and more graphics on CPUs."


http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/item/22373-amds-28nm-graphics-is-only-a-die-shrink

 

[RussianSensation]

HD69xx series is already a major redesign of the VLIW-5 Cypress architecture. Therefore, I doubt AMD was going to release a new architecture in 2011 anyway. All they need to do is add more shaders on 28nm process similar to X800XT --> X1800XT or HD3870 --> HD4870 to have a major performance increase. If they are not able to do so, there is always Kepler (unless that too gets delayed into H2 2012). Then again, outside of BF3 rumoured to be released around November 2, 2011, I can't think of any major games in 2011 that will push current cards to their limits (maybe Dirt 3?).

Shockingly enough, if both Kepler and AMD delay their major single-GPU products into 2012, we would have barely moved 35-40% in performance from HD5870, which launched in September of 2009. I highly doubt this though. Once 28nm is ready to go, we will see new GPUs launch.

 

[Lonyo]

Well since NI is supposed to be what SI was, just on 40nm since 28nm wasn't there there's no surprise really.
NI is the new architecture (presumably it won't be "NI" it will be the VLIW4 chips, at least for half the architecture, with maybe some VLIW5 at the low end).

 

[RussianSensation]

Nordic Hardware's article says something different:
http://www.nordichardware.com/news/...-offer-preview-of-radeon-hd-7000-in-june.html

AMD is said to have come a long way with its next generation graphics card architecture and according to the latest rumors it all comes down to when TSMC and its 28nm technology is ready. AMD has informed us that in the middle of June it will do a preview of coming GPUs, which will most likely become Radeon HD 7000.

 

[OCGuy]

Nordic Hardware's article says something different:
http://www.nordichardware.com/news/...-offer-preview-of-radeon-hd-7000-in-june.html

AMD is said to have come a long way with its next generation graphics card architecture and according to the latest rumors it all comes down to when TSMC and its 28nm technology is ready. AMD has informed us that in the middle of June it will do a preview of coming GPUs, which will most likely become Radeon HD 7000.

That doesn't really refute what Fudo is saying though. I guess it gets into semantics when we start discussing what a "new architecture" consists of.

 

[OCGuy]

Well since NI is supposed to be what SI was, just on 40nm since 28nm wasn't there there's no surprise really.
NI is the new architecture (presumably it won't be "NI" it will be the VLIW4 chips, at least for half the architecture, with maybe some VLIW5 at the low end).

The narrative was that 6XXX was just a midway stop-gap measure because of TSMC's well-known node-failure. I never heard anything about it being the new architecture, just on a larger process.

 

[Arkadrel]

*IF* I remember correctly....

AMD said that with the 68xx-69xx series, they took HALF of what SI or NI? was supposed to be, and mixed that with the 5xxx series stuff. So they ended up with something that would work on 40nm.


6xxx series was not supposed to look like it does right now.... so I really doubt, that they wont change a thing with the 7xxx cards. Maybe the Lowend cards, will be like todays 6xxx cards, but the higher versions will be a new thing... It would be very odd if AMD didnt change things.

 

[Idontcare]

Makes sense, Tick-Tock for GPU.

Now what I wonder is if the Tock (second round of 28nm chips) for AMD might actually come from GloFo and not TSMC...

 

[RussianSensation]

That doesn't really refute what Fudo is saying though. I guess it gets into semantics when we start discussing what a "new architecture" consists of.

AMD has already given its new VLIW4 architecture a spin with the Cayman GPU. 28nm Cayman will have more SIMDs for more performance, and likely PCIe 3.0 functionality. Cayman’s shader block is already 10% more efficient per mm2 than Cypress’, on average. AMD will likely continue to improve its tessellation performance.

Also, Cayman has new ROPs compared to Cypress. "The 32 ROPs (the same as Cypress) have been tweaked to speed up processing of certain types of values. In the case of both signed and unsigned normalized INT16s, these operations are now 2x faster. Meanwhile FP32 operations are now 2x to 4x faster depending on the scenario."

In its current 40nm form this new architecture is not much faster than HD5870 though.

 

[OCGuy]

Makes sense, Tick-Tock for GPU.

Now what I wonder is if the Tock (second round of 28nm chips) for AMD might actually come from GloFo and not TSMC...

Yes it generally does make sense to not put a new architecture on a new process initially, but I guess I am so bored of what has been on the market for the last 12+ months, I am looking for "tocks" rather than "ticks." :X

 

[Spjut]

What about pulling a HD4770 on us again? Didn't the process with the HD4770 40nm show them what needed corrections with the HD5000 series?

 

[Tempered81]

I'm hoping 28nm is good. 3870-4870 wasnt an arch change, neither was 4870-5870 but they represented a 95 and 70% boost in performance respectively. It was just adding shaders. 5870-6970 is an arch change, and overall reduction in shaders, but only 20% boost in performance. I'm hoping 28nm shrink will allow 100-125% higher shader count (like 320>800 in 3870>4870) and a 90 to 100% boost in overall performance.

No architecture to be excited about (since Cayman's Vliw4 is here already) but bring on the performance that will be plenty awesome.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

What about pulling a HD4770 on us again? Didn't the process with the HD4770 40nm show them what needed corrections with the HD5000 series?

- Almost certainly what will happen. We will get a shrunk down 6900 series core to get the bugs hammered out so when the time comes. 6 months later we'll get the real thing and it will be sweet. Worked too well with the 4770 for them not to try it again.

 

[Rezist]

Yeah but were a long ways off 28nm right now anyways, I really don't expect to see any 28nm in 2011.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The current cards from both nv and AMD are already good even at 40nm except for their power draw at the high end, so a die shrink that cuts power draw significantly would be good enough for new buyers: A 590-equivalent that doesn't explode, and a 6990-refresh that isn't fx5800 leaf-blower loud.

 

[Acanthus]

28nm should be a 100%+ performance increase with no architectural changes.

 

[Idontcare]

Yeah but were a long ways off 28nm right now anyways, I really don't expect to see any 28nm in 2011.

It's sad too, the HD4770 "40nm pipecleaner" debuted 2yrs ago. (it was May 2009, wasn't it?)

If 28nm were sticking to a 2yr node-cadence then we should have seen a 28nm pipecleaner product from AMD this spring.

The more 28nm becomes a 3yr node-cadence from 40nm the less impressed I am going to be with the whole "be teh excited cuz its HKMG y'all" process tech angle.

 

[Mopetar]

Yeah but were a long ways off 28nm right now anyways, I really don't expect to see any 28nm in 2011.

Why do you say that? According to Semiaccurate, Southern Islands has taped out. The article was posted in late March. Based on historical reports from the same site, the 6000 series taped out in late April of last year. The first 6000 series parts shipped in October with other parts releasing in December 2010.

Assuming that the timeframe between when the chips tape out and are released remains roughly same, we should expect to see the first 7000 series parts released somewhere between the end of August and the end of November. It's entirely possible that the first parts to be released will be low-end or mid-range, but I'd expect to see some 7000 series parts before the end of the year.

It's reasonable to assume that we won't see replacements for the 6900 series until the process becomes more mature. AMD may also attempt to schedule the release to coincide with the release of the next version of Windows, which is rumored to be in late 2011 or early 2012, as there was an Anandtech article that pointed out that ATI/AMD attempted to do this when possible because they could get an extra sales bump from it.

 

[SickBeast]

I notice a stark relationship between the global economic crisis and a lack of new high-end GPUs. The market has become inundated with midrange parts that perform within 20% of a GTX 460.

I would be very surprised if this rumour is true, though. I've read that AMD initially wanted to release a "full" Cayman GPU on a smaller process but they ran into manufacturing problems. Really that's just marketing spin for "we didn't time it right".

What we ended up with was a castrated Cayman. Now why would AMD scrap all that hard work and give us another "been there, done that" midrange GPU?

 

[Mopetar]

The more 28nm becomes a 3yr node-cadence from 40nm the less impressed I am going to be with the whole "be teh excited cuz its HKMG y'all" process tech angle.

From a certain point of view, we've already found ourselves in a place where it's not possible to decimate the current high end cards on most resolutions so we've started gaming at 2560x1600 or using three 1080p monitors for some games, a segment reserved for people who have a decent amount of money to spend on PC gaming. The vast majority of people are running 1080p or less and there aren't any games that don't run well at those resolutions.

The graphical quality at the best settings is already really good and diminishing returns are kicking in more and more now. It's still going to get better, but it's not going to be the kind of jumps we've seen in the past. If anything, graphics will be more focused on the small details that remove the uncanny-valley effect from games. Improved algorithms and software will also yield further improvements irrespective of process improvements.

The move to 28nm isn't going to advance the state of the art at the high end much further, but it's going to make that part of the spectrum much more affordable. 28nm enables packing the current generation of high end cards in half the die area, decreasing both the power consumption and cost. It doesn't work out to half in either case, but it brings costs down, especially in the long run.

The next generation of game consoles will probably use GPUs based on 28nm processes, if they being to arrive in 2012 or 2013. 1080p isn't going to be a problem for these consoles and until we see 4K televisions, there won't be much reason to bump up the performance for the vast majority of consumers. We'll always continue to expand what's possible, but we've reached a points where for most people it's better if we trade raw power for better efficiency.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I notice a stark relationship between the global economic crisis and a lack of new high-end GPUs. The market has become inundated with midrange parts that perform within 20% of a GTX 460.

Actually that is being optimistic.

The market is inundated with midrange cards that perform around GTX280-GTX285 performance with DX11 support.

 

[SickBeast]

Perhaps the consoles are to blame as well.

 

[Mopetar]

Perhaps the consoles are to blame as well.

I think they're only to blame as far as games like Crysis 2 go. There's nothing wrong with letting the console versions of the game run at 720p, but not taking advantage of the latest DirectX/OpenGL features is a bit of a shame.

The next generation of consoles should be at least DX11, so that will help things out. They won't have the beefiest graphics cards, but considering something like a 5770 can do decent 1080p for many PC games, do they really need much more?

That might be another good reason for AMD/NVidia to iron out their mid-level cards early. Those architectures are probably the most likely candidates for the next generation of consoles.

 

[Silverforce11]

Consoles are due for a refresh in 2012 right?

Looks like 28nm GPUs for PC and consoles would fit right in that timeframe.

 

[RussianSensation]

Consoles are due for a refresh in 2012 right?

Looks like 28nm GPUs for PC and consoles would fit right in that timeframe.

I thought next generation of consoles won't arrive until 2014-2015+. It seems Microsoft and Sony want to stretch this generation as far as they can.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/04/playstation-4-not-prepped-for-launch-anytime-soon/

"Speaking to an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, Sony reiterated that it was not preparing a plan to release a PlayStation 4 in the near future. In regards to building the video game console to succeed the PS3, Sony remained firm on their position: the PS3 is here for the long haul – 10 years." - April 4, 2011

PS3 was first made available in 2006. This means the Sony console is only half-way through its life. Even today, its graphics are already inferior to the PC. :thumbsdown: