Polaris 10 vs R9 390/390X @ GFXBench

Page 5 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Bacon1

Diamond Member
Feb 14, 2016
3,430
1,018
91
Fury was already a huge disappointment. Even hawaii was to a slightly lesser extent. Either AMD is fatally incompetent, or they make the huge leap that the previous products should have been. Polaris 10 should beat a stock 980ti. The question is, will it beat 1070? Because that is going to be the competition. And the 1070 will very likely beat them to market and sell 3x as many cards even if the 1070 isnt faster. I estimate that polaris 10 will have to be as much as 20% faster at the same power and price just to match the sales of the 1070.

Whatttt????

Hawaii was a disappointment??? How so?

It creamed the $600 780 when it came out @ $300, and it is still the best bang/buck out there.

290 has been the best card available for a long time, you just don't want the stock cooler.
 

SimianR

Senior member
Mar 10, 2011
609
16
81
Whatttt????

Hawaii was a disappointment??? How so?

It creamed the $600 780 when it came out @ $300, and it is still the best bang/buck out there.

290 has been the best card available for a long time, you just don't want the stock cooler.

The R9 290 reference GPU launched at $400 and it did edge out the 780 (at stock). I don't think hawaii was a disappointment, but the reference cooler really made it look a lot worse than it was.
 

Mercennarius

Senior member
Oct 28, 2015
466
84
91
Yup...reference Hawaii cooler held the GPU back for sure. Non Reference design Hawaii cards have honestly surpassed most peoples expectations of what the GPU would be doing nearly 2.5 years after release.
 

SimianR

Senior member
Mar 10, 2011
609
16
81
Yep, it's pretty crazy how well hawaii based cards are doing in 2016. I'm using an R9 290 reference card, I've swapped the cooler on it for an open air cooler that I bought on ebay (off an MSI R9 290 gaming card). To me it's nuts that a card that I paid $400 for in late 2013 is outperforming the original Titan, the 780, in some cases the 780 Ti and is neck and neck with the 970. Definitely worth every penny. It sounds like Polaris 10 will be very efficient, run cool and quiet, but I'm skeptical that it will be bringing any huge performance gains for hawaii GPU owners. I think that will be VEGA later this year or early 2017. I'm worried that with AMD chasing the lower-mid range market that they will neglect the the premium offerings where there is still a decent chunk of money to be made.
 
Last edited:

maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
5,150
5,532
136
Yep, it's pretty crazy how well hawaii based cards are doing in 2016. I'm using an R9 290 reference card, I've swapped the cooler on it for an open air cooler that I bought on ebay (off an MSI R9 290 gaming card). To me it's nuts that a card that I paid $400 for in late 2013 is outperforming the original Titan, the 780, in some cases the 780 Ti and is neck and neck with the 970. Definitely worth every penny. It sounds like Polaris 10 will be very efficient, run cool and quiet, but I'm skeptical that it will be bringing any huge performance gains for hawaii GPU owners. I think that will be VEGA later this year or early 2017. I'm worried that with AMD chasing the lower-mid range market that they will neglect the the premium offerings where there is still a decent chunk of money to be made.
Well it appears that the notebook market and low to mainstream discrete sectors are much more valuable.

I would also imagine it being easier to get notebook contracts than winning back mass market consumer mindshare in the short term. Assuming you have a competitive design of course.

Nvidia having the initial performance crown with GP104 will not affect notebook manufacturers, unlike the average consumer. Business to business sales are very different to retail sales.
 

SimianR

Senior member
Mar 10, 2011
609
16
81
Well it appears that the notebook market and low to mainstream discrete sectors are much more valuable.

I would also imagine it being easier to get notebook contracts than winning back mass market consumer mindshare in the short term. Assuming you have a competitive design of course.

Nvidia having the initial performance crown with GP104 will not affect notebook manufacturers, unlike the average consumer. Business to business sales are very different to retail sales.

This is very true. Perhaps AMD scoring some notebook contracts combined with their console & apple contracts will be a much more reliable + predictable source of revenue vs the fickle DGPU consumer market.
 

Sweepr

Diamond Member
May 12, 2006
5,148
1,143
136
Polaris developer diary ② - May 4, 2016:

- Ellesmere XT still belongs to A0 chip testing phase

- we expect the third week of may to provide A1 official version of the chip for testing

- RTG has now issued a PCB design reference suggests, the various AIB has entered card pre-production stage, relatively speaking, Baffin PCB's proposal is very short and simple, 4-layer PCB + single fan on can, but also shorter than the Nano

- Ellesmere of PCB recommendations are slightly longer than the Nano, but as long as the 6-layer PCB + single fan

http://tieba.baidu.com/p/4523923961?qq-pf-to=pcqq.group

Explains why the two leaks (SiSoftware and GFXBench) probably belong to a cut down part (2304 SPs - Ellesmere Pro?).