Re: AMD Pirate Island I'm not sure if it's down to the fact that HBM runs hot, but more to do with the RAM now being on package, rather than on the PCB, meaning even though it has a lower power requirement than GDDR5, there is less surface area for a heat sink to cover so the cooling needs to be more potent as a result. To compound this, the extra watts saved from HBM will likely be used by the GPU in either higher clocks or a larger design. After all, once the memory bandwidth bottleneck is alleviated, the GPU should be able to scale in other areas with a resulting performance improvement that is much more linear than if still constrained by GDDR5. In the end 28nm will be the limiting factor, as well as the efficiency of what ever version GCN they go with, which I expect to still fall short of Maxwell.
Re: AMD Pirate Island Some leaked benchmarks put this above the 980ti.. Exciting times ahead, but the Titan X is the true leader of the pack. I am tempted to get one now!
Re: AMD Pirate Island Looks like AMD will make it's official R9 300 announcement on June 3rd. First sales date will still be the 18th for 380 and 385 and 24th for 390.
Re: AMD Pirate Island I was reading an investors report at work, and HBM is exorbitantly expensive at the moment. The memory modules themselves at cost are $100.00 atop the die. So we aren't going to see any 8GB models initially only 4GB modules. Though it has a throughput of 128GB/s this small amount of VRAM might not yield the 4K king they are expecting. The second thing is the cost is not going to be anywhere near as competitive as previous AMD cards. They are expecting a minimum sale price of 500USD+ Titan X still seems like the best option till next year & Pascal..
Re: AMD Pirate Island Faster RAM doesn't always translate to a faster card. You need a faster GPU to actually take advantage of it. Case in point: the R9 290X uses 512-bit GDDR5, while the GTX 980 uses 256-bit GDDR5. The GTX 980 is much faster due to a more modern GPU architecture. If this is just GCN with really fast memory, I'm not sure that it's going to be the Titan X killer people were expecting.
Re: AMD Pirate Island Benchmarks should be very interesting once we get the full lineup. Nobody knows for sure yet but but it seems likely there will be an 8Gb DDR5 version as well. If that's the case we should get a good comparison of 4GB HBM vs 8GB DDR5. Which will be faster and when? If the HBM isn't faster you'd have to wonder why they'ed release it next to the 8GB version. As far as how important memory is I guess it always depends on how it's used. One thing that has had me stumped is how two 980 in SLi do better at 4K than one 12GB Titan X. I mean the memory isn't combined so you have a 4GB system beating a 12GB system at 4K. What gives? The same goes for the 295x2. Less memory and better at 4K. On the less interesting side I think the 385X will very closely match the specs of this OCed Sapphire Vapor-x card (same gpu and memory clocks) which would make it AMDs first direct competitor to the 980. The 380X will fall around the 970 range. I predict Nvidia will annoy AMD by dropping the prices of those as soon as the 380 and 385X are announced.
Some of the latest rumors are suggesting that the 390X and 390 will actually be the 290X and 290 re-brands. I think that kind of makes sense. The two new Fiji cards still don't have names but some are predicting they will go retro with Rage and Fury editions. Supposedly the FIJI XT performance is similar with the Titan X despite only having 4GB of memory. Sadly the price is expected to be the same as well. Around $1000. I'm going to guess that the FIJI Pro is the reason the 980 Ti came out so I'd expect the same performance and price.
Seems obvious that those top-end cards aren't worth the price. The average frame rates really aren't that much better than cards that cost 1/3 as much.
I think the jump in price has a lot to do with the jump people are making to higher resolution monitors. The majority of gamer are probably playing at 1080p but when someone jumps to 4K they have to get a much faster card to to play games and the 970 and below wont cut it. AMD and Nvidia want you to pay for that 4K jump.
Here are some rumored/leaked numbers from Chiphell. Even if they are true we really don't know what any of these card are. 370X ? 380 4GB R9 $199 380X ? 390 8gb $299 390X 8GB $399 Fiji Pro 4GB HBM $599 Fiji XT 4GB HBM $749 Fiji XT / XTX 8gb HBM $849 Fiji vr HBM 2x8gb $1399-1499
So a card that only averages 17 FPS better at 1440p Ultra vs. a 970 is supposed to be significantly better for 4K? Hmmm….
It totally depends where those 17fps are. The difference between 20 and 30 fps is huge and noticeable. 30 is playable. 20 fps is not. In this case 10 fps can make all the difference and can justify a significantly higher price. A jump from say 60fps to 80fps would be pointless in my opinion but there are those who think they need a constant 120fps on their 1080p monitors.
Looks like Hybrids will be a big deal this year for both Nvidia and AMD. Here is the PowerColor Devil 13 390X.
Things are not looking good for the 300 series. So far it seems to consist of re-brands from top to bottom. Re-brands are normal even for Nvidia but to re brand every single card in a line up is just nuts.
Despite being a re-brand the 390X is actually surprising some people. With the better cooling that removes throttling and higher clock speed it's mostly keeping up with the 980 and for a slightly lower price. http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/msi_r9_390x_gaming_8g_review/23 http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/69646-amd-r9-390x-8gb-performance-review-18.html
Looks like those AMD internal benchmarks are BS.. They are knocking 300 points of FSE... CDR called it.