Sunday, January 10th 2016
AMD "Polaris" Based Prototypes Sniffed Out at Logistics
Four prototype graphics cards based on GPUs that implement AMD's next-generation Graphics CoreNext architecture, codenamed "Polaris," were sniffed out, as they were making their way through air-cargo. At least two prototypes marked "C981" and "C980" made their way from Hong Kong, to Hyderabad, India, between late-December 2015 and early-January. It's speculated that the two could be SKUs based on the same chip.
Source:
iLeakStuff at OCN Forums
10 Comments on AMD "Polaris" Based Prototypes Sniffed Out at Logistics
Well, that sounds pretty much completely expected for a not-really-but-probably-more-or-less Fiji shrink. It's interesting their relative values are also pretty much proportional to the MSRP of Fury and Fury X ($550/$650).
Hey look, now Palmer can advertise VR as a $1000 upgrade for most people. :)
Cool to see that a chip that large is getting back to AMD already...granted I can't imagine an 8-core zen is THAT much smaller (and one can assume that's going through a year-long validation etc process). I also didn't realize whatever they've been demoing seems to have been first (granted, probably a VERY early sample) sent back in August...didn't know it was that early. I'm sure it's been re-spun at least once since then and whatever they are demoing is actually production silicon where that may not have even been close, but still.
While I understand the ~ps4/950 and 4k30/high-quality vr (et al other resolutions/frame rates for that level of performance) markets are probably the most important, it's still odd not to see a successor to Tonga, given other than HEVC it seemed the most straight forward chip to shrink (given it actually doubled the setup engines etc, unlike Fiji). I guess one possible explanation for that is perhaps they are waiting to equip it with some fashion of 256gbps HBM/HBM2 and perhaps better yields for better sustained higher clockspeeds on a slightly bigger chip (something like 1920sp/1200mhz give or take a CU and less than 100mhz?). That, or maybe they're all going to Nintendo (Just kidding...but one can hope!).
I suppose these are the two chips they were talking about then...very curious if/when we see 2x the bottom-end (or 1/2 the top-end) and 8x the low-end (2x the higher-end)....because it certainly *seems* possible based on what they've been showing. I guess convential wisdom would be 1 year if performance levels double (or cost decreases 1/2) every two years...which would imply a Fury X-like price a year after the ~Fiji-level $400 card.
As always, thanks for the tip TPU!
Nvidia's GP 104 has also seemingly been been sighted in transit( GP 100 was sighted back in September).
But even then I fear it is not enough to gain some market share because aof those damn nV Fans that always habe to buy nVidia, even if there are better alternatives...
Sad thing is that even if AMD is better than nVidia, they don't make much profit of it due to that...
Was that way with the HD5800 series as well as with the 7900 series...
And the people don't seem to learn that the AMD cards last way longer...
Take a look at where the GK104 cards are standing now...
They are on par with the Radeon HD7800 series cards, the 7900 series cards perform much better...
This was always the case and is due to nVidias 'driver voodoo'...
But when a card goes EOL, they don't care shit...
See Witcher 3 on GTX780 and Titan cards...