Tuesday, December 4th 2012
Probable Radeon HD 8000 Series GPU Specifications Surface
AMD's Radeon HD 8000 "Sea Islands" family of GPUs may arrive some time in Q2-2013, but they won't arrive without a specifications overhaul. While NVIDIA is counting on performance enhancements to come out of higher clock speeds on existing silicon, while maintaining current (or lower) power-draw, with its "Enhanced Kepler" family of GPUs that will include the "GK110" juggernaut, AMD is counting on physically bigger chips with more components. AMD could step up transistor counts of its chips by as much as 20 percent, on existing 28 nm process.
According to a report, the biggest chip from AMD's fold could pack 5.1 billion transistors, amounting to 2560 stream processors, and an updated raster processing engine, with 48 ROPs ("Tahiti" has 32). While the Radeon HD 8970 maxes out the chip's capabilities, the HD 8950 could feature 256 fewer stream processors, at 2304. It could also go light on the clock speeds. AMD's performance-segment chip, codenamed "Sun" could see a similar stream processor increase to 1792, with the Radeon HD 8870 maxing it out, and HD 8850 featuring 1536. It maintains the memory bus width and raster engine layout of its predecessor.
AMD's mainstream chip, codenamed "Oland," which succeeds "Cape Verde," could address the problem of memory bandwidth, which is giving competing NVIDIA GPUs an upper hand in its segment. It could feature 896 stream processors, and a wider 192-bit GDDR5 memory interface. The Radeon HD 8770 maxes its specifications out, while the Radeon HD 8750 features a slimmer 128-bit memory interface, and 768 stream processors. The authenticity of this information can't be vouched for, but presents the only way in which AMD can end up with a competitive GPU lineup against NVIDIA, over 2013.
Source:
Hardware.info
According to a report, the biggest chip from AMD's fold could pack 5.1 billion transistors, amounting to 2560 stream processors, and an updated raster processing engine, with 48 ROPs ("Tahiti" has 32). While the Radeon HD 8970 maxes out the chip's capabilities, the HD 8950 could feature 256 fewer stream processors, at 2304. It could also go light on the clock speeds. AMD's performance-segment chip, codenamed "Sun" could see a similar stream processor increase to 1792, with the Radeon HD 8870 maxing it out, and HD 8850 featuring 1536. It maintains the memory bus width and raster engine layout of its predecessor.
AMD's mainstream chip, codenamed "Oland," which succeeds "Cape Verde," could address the problem of memory bandwidth, which is giving competing NVIDIA GPUs an upper hand in its segment. It could feature 896 stream processors, and a wider 192-bit GDDR5 memory interface. The Radeon HD 8770 maxes its specifications out, while the Radeon HD 8750 features a slimmer 128-bit memory interface, and 768 stream processors. The authenticity of this information can't be vouched for, but presents the only way in which AMD can end up with a competitive GPU lineup against NVIDIA, over 2013.
28 Comments on Probable Radeon HD 8000 Series GPU Specifications Surface
www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/1932/AMD_Radeon_HD_8970_(PCIe_3.0_x16).html
theoretical stats for the hd 8970 with same exact clocks as 7970 non ghz edition, compare the stats, make your own conclusions
Who are these jokers? :nutkick:
and 16 rops with 192 bits for 8770 doesn't make much sense to me not with those low gpu clocks.
Bandwidth calculation for 8900 series its also way off.
:D
Since the main use for these cards is gaming.
Factor-in inflation the price actually is not as ridiculous as people makes them to be.
Gaming is not the only market of these flagship GPUs. Computing also brings in significant revenue. Looking at these specs , I don't think 8970 can beat GK110 in computing.
While the GTX680 is the GK104, going by nVidia's naming convention if GK110 is the original GTX680 it should be named GK100.
There is no evident of the GK100 ever existing, not even an engineering sample is shown.
If I were to upgrade right now using that same $249 I spent before, I would only be upgrading to a 7850/7870. I think I'll wait until there is a sizeable jump in performance from my 5850. I will definitely need a card that will be able to handle Metro: Last Light when it comes out :D
Looking at the hardware at release the HD79XX series cards had alot more performance potential then the GK104 cards that NVIDIA released. Looking at the hardware the HD79XX cards are superior to GTX 6XX cards. I believe the only reason NVIDIA chose to increase the price of their inferior cards is for profit.
Right now AMD HD79XX cards are better than ever with mature drivers. Good drivers with superior hardware is why AMD HD79XX cards are better than NVIDIA GTX6XX cards.
No matter how good NVIDIA drivers get their hardware will alway cap ultimate performance while AMD has overhead to grow because of superior hardware.
In fact i believe the GK104 came after the 79x0 because they had to implement the Turbo Boost, clock for clock they couldn't compete with the 79x0 then and they can't compete now.