I play on MAX, I play on AMD

[Zodiark1593]

But that would all be ... logical. Too logical for NVidia, they have to figure out a clever way to screw over their customers first.

No hardware HEVC on most older Maxwell parts.

 

[cbn]

Latest report (from Phoronix) on AMD vs. Nvidia Graphic performance in SteamOS:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=steamos-22-gpus&num=1

In a nutshell, AMD is not doing good.....but I am hoping this changes in the future (see below).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9726/...d-rseries-apus-for-embedded-with-ddr4-support

AMD is moving its entire graphics driver stack to open source, removing the disconnect with some closed source drivers. Elements of the stack are under different open source licenses, but it allows customers to develop and distribute a custom driver kernel specific to their needs.

 

[cbn]

Regarding the discussion earlier in this thread about entry level Nvidia dGPUs:

According to this rumor there will be a Nvidia GT 930 (based on GM108) coming Q1 2016:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2458367

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gt-930-launch-q1-2016-maxwell-kepler-fermi/

....but so far the info is that it will have DDR3. No mention of GDDR5 yet.

 

[DrMrLordX]

That probably merits its own thread, in the video card forums. Nice necro otherwise!

 

[Magic Carpet]

"I play on MAX, I play on AMD"

You wish

 

[cytg111]

Regarding the discussion earlier in this thread about entry level Nvidia dGPUs:

According to this rumor there will be a Nvidia GT 930 (based on GM108) coming Q1 2016:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2458367

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gt-930-launch-q1-2016-maxwell-kepler-fermi/

....but so far the info is that it will have DDR3. No mention of GDDR5 yet.

A gt930 for a cheap driver of a 4K'er ..

 

[cbn]

A gt930 for a cheap driver of a 4K'er ..

If GM108 comes with GDDR5, I figure it will be 75% of a GTX 750. (re: 384 Maxwell v1 cores is 75% of 512 Maxwell v1 cores)

That is not bad either! (although looking at that chart in the link, I do wonder when that will happen)

P.S. Regarding the display output......GT930 as GM108 will work at 4K (60Hz) with display port. But these will not have HDMI 2.0.

 

[skipsneeky2]

It's a decent marketing move on AMD's part. Game's like LoL, Dota2, and CS:GO have huge player bases. Why not let the public know that you can play games like that "just fine" with an AMD APU like the 7870k? It's not like they need a GTX 980Ti or anything.

I nearly went with a APU for a secondary rig that will mostly play WOT and CSGO.Had a bit more of a budget in the end and went with a G1820+$60 GT 740 1gb GDDR5 over a $85 A8-7600.

Apu would have been pretty alright,its a excellent idea from AMD i will say that much.Games like BF4 have a fraction of the player base of CSGO and your wanting at least a 750/core i3 or FX4100 if you don't want to be stuck at 768p on all medium with a respectable frame rate.

 

[cbn]

The "super apu" is basically the zen apu and some people here argued that it would be ~ 300W full-on CPU + discrete card together.

I've been wondering if they could even get that Server APU tamed down to the level of a laptop (a higher TDP one, of course).

However, I don't how much of functional units need to be disabled:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37924655&postcount=167

For option #1, I wonder if it is possible to make a laptop chip out the Sever APU?

Maybe AMD could take the 8 best cores out of 16 (possibly disabling SMT in some cases). So 8C/8T (or 8C/16T) vs. Skylake/Kaby Lake 4C/8T?

Then have different level of cTDPs?

Certainly with 8GB or 16GB of HBM (replacing system RAM) and the large iGPU (vs. having dGPU) it would be compact. (Though the cooler will likely add a lot of bulk back)

Now I realize that idea sounds far fetched (to put things mildly), but Intel is able to get Skylake 4C/8T down to 25W with good clocks. So 45W to 65W seems reasonable enough for a 16C die with 8 cherry picked cores.

 

[TheELF]

"I play on MAX, I play on AMD"

You wish

"I play on MAX(antidepressants),(because) I play on AMD"

 

[monstercameron]

"I play on MAX(antidepressants),(because) I play on AMD"

Why?

 

[SPBHM]

If GM108 comes with GDDR5, I figure it will be 75% of a GTX 750. (re: 384 Maxwell v1 cores is 75% of 512 Maxwell v1 cores)

That is not bad either! (although looking at that chart in the link, I do wonder when that will happen)

P.S. Regarding the display output......GT930 as GM108 will work at 4K (60Hz) with display port. But these will not have HDMI 2.0.

a new GM108 card is very uninteresting, that's like a cutdown GM107, something which is almost 2 years old, I think it lacks HEVC, VP9, HDMI 2.0

the only GPU that seems to support all this stuff is the 1 year old GM206? that's sad,

 

[cbn]

a new GM108 card is very uninteresting, that's like a cutdown GM107, something which is almost 2 years old, I think it lacks HEVC, VP9, HDMI 2.0

the only GPU that seems to support all this stuff is the 1 year old GM206? that's sad,

According to this, a person would need either GP107 or GP108 in order to get the advanced features in a small desktop GPU:

P.S. My prediction is GP 107 will be 55 to 65 watts TDP and GP108 will be up to 40 watts TDP. (Reason is that x07 cards (eg, GK107, GM107) have traditionally held that TDP range while x08 cards (so far GK208) have held the lower TDP value. With that mentioned, I do wonder when GP108 will come to desktop?

 

[cbn]

The "super apu" is basically the zen apu and some people here argued that it would be ~ 300W full-on CPU + discrete card together.

I've been wondering if they could even get that Server APU tamed down to the level of a laptop (a higher TDP one, of course).

However, I don't how much of functional units need to be disabled:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37924655&postcount=167



Now I realize that idea sounds far fetched (to put things mildly), but Intel is able to get Skylake 4C/8T down to 25W with good clocks. So 45W to 65W seems reasonable enough for a 16C die with 8 cherry picked cores.

Maybe even at a higher TDP than what I mentioned in post above? (Perhaps at 100W+)

Example: Looking at this teardown of the 2014 Razor Blade (14" laptop with 37W Haswell quad core and ~100W GTX 870M) I am quite amazed at the massive amount of area dedicated to the CPU (die on the right) and its system ram (16 packages outlined in red, below it), GPU (die to the left) and its GDDR5 VRAM (packages outlined in red around it):

Replacing all that with a single server APU die (perhaps with eight cherry picked cores out sixteen available) and four stack of HBM2 on interposer would save a lot of area and allow much bigger fans to be used (helping the laptop's problem of running hot and loud as mentioned in this PC mag review). I am also thinking having the CPU and GPU as one die would tremendously help the heatsink/heatpipe design.

With that mentioned, I have no idea if this is really possible or not. It just seems like the type of scenario where the space savings could make a big improvement in what we normally see for this category.

P.S. There is a new Razor Blade laptop (2015) out that trades the ~100W 870M for a 81W 970M, and switches the 37W Haswell quad core for a 47W Haswell quad core. According to this PC Mag review the noise is quieter, but still quite noticeable. I would have used the 2015 model for discussion, but I didn't have teardown pics. With that mentioned, the cooling layout looks identical going by an image found on the Razor blade website page (see the one entitled "Touch point thermal engineering")