Radeon R9 390X early next year, 20nm

[Attic]

The new Radeon R9 390X is based on AMD's Bermuda GPU core, which should kick some serious ass, bringing a slew of new things to AMD's silicon. First off, we should see the R9 390X being the first GPU to be built on TSMC's new 20nm manufacturing process, but the card is rumored to arrive with High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM. HBM is 3D stacked memory technology that will offer an incredible amount of bandwidth on the already-fast GDDR5 tech that is used, with around 100% more bandwidth, all while using less power.

Reading between the lines a bit I wonder how soon this will come.

Based on AMD's lack of dropping prices on 290 and 290x, I get the impression they are confident in what they have in store for gamers on a fairly quick timeline from here.

Granted, the lack of price drops may be because the 970's are sold out, so why bid against empty stock,... but personally I doubt folks are going to pay UP for 290/290x just because 970 are sold out, those folks will simply wait if AMD doesn't drop prices. Perhaps the new 14.9 driver plays in a bit and AMD will lobby for reviews here with non reference cards and non reference clocks and mGPU match ups. Even here without needless sandbagging the 970 competition with reference cards and clocks vs 970 OC, AMD still needs to cut pricing. There has to be a reason they are not doing so, even if the reason is as shiesty as typical PR flub from both companies.

390x or whatever they call it, i'd expect 6-8gb VRAM, much faster than GTX 980 and $599 price for end of this year. But who cares. What will AMD deliver at 300-400?

What does AMD have to do to the 290x to beat the 980? The answer is not much IMO. A 20% boost to performance with over 1 year time frame? The 290x came out in October of 2013. Beating a $330 970 seems more important.


So I wonder significance of AMD's complete disregard for the uppercut nVidia landed with the GTX 970 pricing. Which is interesting, because that's the card and price that AMD didn't react to at all, was the 970 that much of a stunning blow? or is AMD just dodging and weaving for an oppurtune time to strike back?

But with the 970, the main question for gamers is,.... why wait?

 

[AtenRa]

AMD, Intel, NVIDIA always sold premium products at higher prices. Nothing new here, 20nm may be costly now but products will carry higher price, much like HD7970 was in January 2012.
The problem is not 20nm cost, the problem is if the process is suitable for high performance GPU products and if so, yields and production volume availability comes in consideration as well.

 

[Despoiler]

Actually, why would't AMD use low voltage process to manufacture GPUs when perf/w is the most important metric since maxwell?

Fabs typically have a process for low voltage chips and one for high voltage at a given node. Cell phone SoCs typically are an order of magnitude lower voltage than a GPU. mV vs V.

I would argue that perf/w is meaningless for gamers. As long as the GPU you buy doesn't require you to buy a bigger PSU, no one actually cares.

 

[Abwx]

Fabs typically have a process for low voltage chips and one for high voltage at a given node. Cell phone SoCs typically are an order of magnitude lower voltage than a GPU. mV vs V.

I would argue that perf/w is meaningless for gamers. As long as the GPU you buy doesn't require you to buy a bigger PSU, no one actually cares.

An order of magnitude is 10x, half an order of magnitude is 3.16x.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile...s_Technology_for_High_End_Mobile_Devices.html

 

[Despoiler]

An order of magnitude is 10x, half an order of magnitude is 3.16x.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile...s_Technology_for_High_End_Mobile_Devices.html

I was referring to average voltage range not the difference between 1mV and 1V. Correct me if I am wrong, but I'm looking at the voltage tables for Snapdragon 805/801/800/600 and 2.5ghz is just over 1000mV. All of the rest of the frequency levels are sub 1000mv. Maxwell is 1.25V.

 

[Abwx]

I was referring to average voltage range not the difference between 1mV and 1V. Correct me if I am wrong, but I'm looking at the voltage tables for Snapdragon 805/801/800/600 and 2.5ghz is just over 1000mV. All of the rest of the frequency levels are sub 1000mv. Maxwell is 1.25V.

Ok , i didnt catch your meaning, 970/980 lower voltages seems to be about 0.85V, only at high frequency you ll see 1.25V, either it is HP or HPM, both should work within this range.

GTX 980 Idle Voltage 0.856v
GTX 980 Base Voltage 1.075v
GTX 980 Boost Voltage 1.225v

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8526/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-review/21

Snapdragon can work at higher frequencies since it has not as big transistor counts.