Friday, September 12th 2014

AMD Readies Radeon R9 390X to Take on GeForce GTX 980

Sep 12th, 2014 07:07 Discuss (112 Comments)

It turns out that the big OEM design win liquid cooling solutions maker Asetek was bragging about, is the Radeon R9 390X, and the "undisclosed OEM" AMD. Pictures of a cooler shroud is doing rounds on Chinese tech forums, which reveals something that's similar in design to the Radeon R9 295X2, only designed for single-GPU. The shroud has its fan intake pushed to where it normally is for single-GPU cards; with cutouts for the PCIe power connectors, and a central one, through which liquid cooling tubes pass through.

One can also take a peek at the base-plate of the cooler, which will cool the VRM and memory under the fan's air-flow. The cooler design reveals that AMD wants its reference-design cards to sound quieter "at any cost," even if it means liquid cooling solutions that can be messy with multi-card CrossFire setups, and in systems that already use liquid-cooling for the CPU; and leave it to AIB partners to come up with air-cooled cards, with meatier heatsinks. Other specs of the R9 390X are unknown, as is launch date. It could be based on a member of the "Pirate Islands" family of GPUs, of which the new "Tonga" GPU driving the R9 285 is a part of. A possible codename of AMD's big chip from this family is "Fiji."

Source: VideoCardz

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112 Comments on AMD Readies Radeon R9 390X to Take on GeForce GTX 980

RCoon

Is this the unlocked cores that 8PACK accidentally blurted out on the OCUK forums? Something about the 290X chip not being fully unlocked.
I'd find it highly unlikely that adding a few extra cores to an existing archi would warrant a whole new series of card though. Merely speculation.

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator

RCoonIs this the unlocked cores that 8PACK accidentally blurted out on the OCUK forums? Something about the 290X chip not being fully unlocked.
I'd find it highly unlikely that adding a few extra cores to an existing archi would warrant a whole new series of card though. Merely speculation.

Nah, it's a new chip. Fiji.

3840 GCN1.2 "Pirate Islands" cores, 384-bit GDDR5, 48 ROP, 6 GB, Ijustmadethatup, and didI?.

RCoon

btarunrNah, it's a new chip. Fiji.

3840 GCN1.2 "Pirate Islands" cores, 384-bit GDDR5, 48 ROP, 6 GB, Ijustmadethatup, and didI?.

I'm not your internet troll errand boy anymore! I feel like AMD missed the boat and should have honored our memory and called it Zeus.

dj-electric

If Fiji won't be dramatically more efficient than Hawaii, it's gonna turn nasty.

Kaotik

Tonga is NOT Pirate Islands, it's Volcanic Islands.
Hawaii is NOT Volcanic Islands, it's Sea Islands.

Just check the AMD CodeXL if you don't want to take my word on it.

sgtheadhole

wccftech.com/amd-hawaii-gpu-die-shot-analyzed-fully-unlocked-chip-48-compute-units-3072-stream-processors/

Seems as though the 290X might have been disabled with some core parts...

RCoon

Dj-ElectriCIf Fiji won't be dramatically more effiecent than Hawaii, it's gonna turn nasty.

Same node size, it can't be that much more efficient. Only way to improve performance is to add more cores. More cores means more heat, more heat means stock cooler is an AIO!

HumanSmoke

RCoonIs this the unlocked cores that 8PACK accidentally blurted out on the OCUK forums? Something about the 290X chip not being fully unlocked.
I'd find it highly unlikely that adding a few extra cores to an existing archi would warrant a whole new series of card though. Merely speculation.

sgtheadholewccftech.com/amd-hawaii-gpu-die-shot-analyzed-fully-unlocked-chip-48-compute-units-3072-stream-processors/
Seems as though the 290X might have been disabled with some core parts...

Well, if it's a simple matter of binning some Hawaii GPUs why is production slated for the first half of 2015 ?

Press Release:
Thursday, August 14, 2014 — Asetek® today announced that it has secured a design win with an undisclosed OEM customer for a graphics liquid cooling product. The ambitious project is forecasted by the customer to result in 2 – 4 million dollars of revenue. Shipping is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2015. The design win continues Asetek’s success in the growing graphics liquid cooling market.

That's a freaking long time to get a fully enabled die out the door considering Hawaii has been selling for twelve months already.
If a single GPU card NEEDS watercooling to tame the furnace then the likely part IMO is the Bermuda/Fiji GPU. The time frame seems pretty much ballpark for AMD's big die answer to GM 200.

buildzoid

The cooler looks awesome. I wonder how many cores it will have because if the R9 285 is any indication a 3000+ stream processor core would pull 300+ W and while it would explain the use of a CLC but a 300+W card fighting Nvidia's ultra low power Maxwell stuff sounds like a terrible idea. I don't really care what power draw the card has as long as AMD and the AIBs find a way to cool it but for many people it could be a major problem. From the looks of the 980's leaked perfoemance AMD would only need 3,072 SPs @ 1Ghz to win but such a card doesn't make sense since it won't be much faster than the current stuff.

#10

RCoon

HumanSmokeWell, if it's a simple matter of binning some Hawaii GPUs why is production slated for the first half of 2015 ?

Hence why I said "merely speculation" and "highly unlikely"

#11

Sony Xperia S

KaotikTonga is NOT Pirate Islands, it's Volcanic Islands.
Hawaii is NOT Volcanic Islands, it's Sea Islands.

Just check the AMD CodeXL if you don't want to take my word on it.

AMD CodeXL may be fake, wrong or intentionally confusing.

Hawaii cannot be in Sea Islands, otherwise these guys from AMD need to go back to school to learn some basic geography!

ahah rofl

#12

TheDeeGee

Well that wouldn't be hard for AMD, since the 980 is only 2% faster than a 780 Ti.

As much as i like NVIDIA, they failed big time with the 800 Series.

#13

HumanSmoke

Sony Xperia SHawaii cannot be in Sea Islands, otherwise these guys from AMD need to go back to school to learn some basic geography!
ahah rofl

Wouldn't be the first time. Cape Verde is a "Southern Islands" GPU yet Cape Verde is in the Northern hemisphere.

buildzoidThe cooler looks awesome. I wonder how many cores it will have because if the R9 285 is any indication a 3000+ stream processor core would pull 300+ W and while it would explain the use of a CLC but a 300+W card fighting Nvidia's ultra low power Maxwell stuff sounds like a terrible idea.

Regardless of the article title, I would think a 390X would go up against the big Maxwell GM 200 not the GK 104 replacement GTX 980. If AMD need watercooling and 300+W to stay competitive with a sub-200W GTX 980 they may as well go back to school since the disparity would be much worse than the GTX 480 vs HD 5870 was five years ago - somebody's heading in the wrong direction.

#14

Sony Xperia S

SvarogWell that wouldn't be hard for AMD, since the 980 is only 2% faster than a 780 Ti.

As much as i like NVIDIA, they failed big time with the 800 Series.

Man, these 2% is in the area of probability for statistical error. This is not a serious difference at all.

btarunrNah, it's a new chip. Fiji.

3840 GCN1.2 "Pirate Islands" cores, 384-bit GDDR5, 48 ROP, 6 GB, Ijustmadethatup, and didI?.

Jump from 2816 to 3840 SPs will make a noticeable performance improvement, given that those shaders are also further optimised.

#15

RCoon

Sony Xperia SJump from 2816 to 3840 SPs will make a noticeable performance improvement,

He's joking. If you don't get it, google AMD R10 Zeus, and cry for my naiivity.

SvarogWell that wouldn't be hard for AMD, since the 980 is only 2% faster than a 780 Ti.

These made up statistics don't help anyone.

#16

FrustratedGarrett

buildzoidThe cooler looks awesome. I wonder how many cores it will have because if the R9 285 is any indication a 3000+ stream processor core would pull 300+ W and while it would explain the use of a CLC but a 300+W card fighting Nvidia's ultra low power Maxwell stuff sounds like a terrible idea. I don't really care what power draw the card has as long as AMD and the AIBs find a way to cool it but for many people it could be a major problem. From the looks of the 980's leaked perfoemance AMD would only need 3,072 SPs @ 1Ghz to win but such a card doesn't make sense since it won't be much faster than the current stuff.

Nvidia's Ultra Low power? The Maxwell chip is a heavily cut down chip with no 64 bit support and a 128 bit memory interface, it performs well at 1080P for the same reason the new R9 285 performs well at 2k.
Last I checked, the R9 285 consumes around as much power as the GTX760 while being 20%-40% faster depending on the game:

#17

HumanSmoke

FrustratedGarrettNvidia's Ultra Low power? The Maxwell chip is a heavily cut down chip with no 64 bit support

LOL.
And just for the record, the GTX 750 Ti uses a fully enabled GM 107.

FrustratedGarrettLast I checked, the R9 285 consumes around as much power as the GTX760 while being...whatever...

Last I checked, the GTX 760 was a 2.5 year old GK 104 Kepler, not Maxwell.

#18

Sony Xperia S

RCoonHe's joking.

I wouldn't be surprised at all given what they just typed "...Other specs of the R9 390X are unknown, as is launch date. It could be...".

It may be that well-calculated misleading marketing move from AMD to try to spoil nvidia's fun... :rolleyes:

#19

buildzoid

FrustratedGarrettNvidia's Ultra Low power? The Maxwell chip is a heavily cut down chip with no 64 bit support and a 128 bit memory interface, it performs well at 1080P for the same reason the new R9 285 performs well at 2k.
Last I checked, the R9 285 consumes around as much power as the GTX760 while being 20%-40% faster depending on the game:

The 760 isn't maxwell that's a cut down GK104

#20

FrustratedGarrett

buildzoidThe 760 isn't maxwell that's a cut down GK104

I know, That chart compares GCN 1.2 to Kepler and it shows that better performing GCN card actually consumes slightly less power than Kepler.

#21

vega22

Sony Xperia SI wouldn't be surprised at all given what they just typed "...Other specs of the R9 390X are unknown, as is launch date. It could be...".

It may be that well-calculated misleading marketing move from AMD to try to spoil nvidia's fun... :rolleyes:

if they wanted to do that they could just sell the full fat hawaii core , i am sure it could beat the 780ti by 2% too :lol:

#22

FrustratedGarrett

HumanSmokeLOL.
And just for the record, the GTX 750 Ti uses a fully enabled GM 107.

Last I checked, the GTX 760 was a 2.5 year old GK 104 Kepler, not Maxwell.

By cut down I meant a highly truncated design. The Maxwell chip has a 128 bit memory interface and no 64 bit floating point or integer operations support.

#23

Sony Xperia S

marsey99if they wanted to do that they could just sell the full fat hawaii core , i am sure it could beat the 780ti by 2% too :lol:

The fully fat Hawaii core is already being sold as 290X, there is nothing additional which they can do over it even if the chip itself has other parts disabled in it.

#24

vega22

Sony Xperia SThe fully fat Hawaii core is already being sold as 290X, there is nothing additional which they can do over it even if the chip itself has other parts disabled in it.

sorry i must be really dense, so please bare with me a moment.

how exactly can it be the full fat core if it has things removed?

how can anything with only a portion of itself active be classed as the full fat version?

side note, im guessing you missed the joke too....

#25

Mathragh

Lol well atleast this is a very good article by modern popular journalism standards!

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AMD Readies Radeon R9 390X to Take on GeForce GTX 980

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