Wednesday, August 13th 2014
AMD "Tonga" Silicon Features 2048 Stream Processors
According to a block diagram of AMD's new 28 nm "Tonga" silicon, it features the same amount of shading power as "Tahiti," if not more. The chip features a total of 2,048 Graphics CoreNext 1.1 stream processors, spread across 32 compute units (CUs). The chip also features 128 TMUs. The block diagram was part of press-material AMD distributed with its recently launched FirePro W7100 professional graphics card, which is based on "Tonga."
The W7100 uses just 28 of the 32 CUs, and hence features 1,792 stream processors. Other features of "Tonga," according to the block diagram, include a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, 32 ROPs, TrueAudio DSP, and a modern XDMA CrossFire interface. The first consumer graphics card based on this chip is the Radeon R9 285. It is expected to feature 1,792 stream processors, and offer performance rivaling the Radeon HD 7950 Boost at lower power draw, and priced to compete with the GeForce GTX 760. That could leave the possibility of a future "R9 285X" with the chip's full complement of stream processors.
Sources:
Hardware.fr, VideoCardz
The W7100 uses just 28 of the 32 CUs, and hence features 1,792 stream processors. Other features of "Tonga," according to the block diagram, include a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, 32 ROPs, TrueAudio DSP, and a modern XDMA CrossFire interface. The first consumer graphics card based on this chip is the Radeon R9 285. It is expected to feature 1,792 stream processors, and offer performance rivaling the Radeon HD 7950 Boost at lower power draw, and priced to compete with the GeForce GTX 760. That could leave the possibility of a future "R9 285X" with the chip's full complement of stream processors.
8 Comments on AMD "Tonga" Silicon Features 2048 Stream Processors
This would be the same, except not with their top tier product. This looks like a full Tonga would threaten 290(x) sales so they need to castrate it.
Is this their answer to Maxwell? Will be interesting to see performance.
If this is the answer to Maxwell, I'm interested more in power consumption than performance...
880 would appear (from reasonable deduction) to be close to 290 in compute, 290x in gaming performance.
870 looks to bee a step down. Closer to something like this if ~1111/7000 (or conceivably whatever 285x is stock...say 975/7000...granted amd may clock it higher as most compute won't always be used, say to 1050/7000 ) in compute, 290 in gaming performance.
Who knows where M'04 will fit in workstation, too many unknowns for clockspeed/tdp comparatively to Tonga/Hawaii, but I'll bet it competes with, but relatively/comparably negatively with Tonga. A full '04 may compete with this part just to save face.
In essence, AMD's best hope is to do with workstation what nvidia is doing with K/M '04 in gaming, given all their units can be used for compute (unlike nvidia whom devote some to special fuction), and hence are more of them per similar design. It's essentially role reversal up and down a peg. This may not beat K5200, but come close while not using a gigantic chip (GK110 vs TongaPro is humorous)...k4200/5000 shouldn't even be close (gk104). Otoh, this chip on desktop is going have a really tough time vs even gk104 without a high-enough tdp and memory bandwidth...Maxwell 04 will probably destroy it.
It looks more and more like 285/285x will shoot for very low clockspeeds to stay one notch under nvidia in tdp, as they can't really compete against 770 unless there is something we don't know (or they use 8ghz ram and >225w tdp for 285x).
It's interesting. Sure, things conceivably look bad for amd on desktop (for chip size/performance), but you have to ask yourself the question nvidia did back when they had almost all workstation marketshare; where is all the money at...$500-600 (or this case 200-300) consumer cards or $5000-6000 workstation cards?
I would think AMD would want these to bump right up against the reference 280X, and let the 3Gb 384-bit in AIB's OC customs pricing more often under $300 to move those out before the 285X. Are you saying that as in bandwidth? As a 280X and 770 are fairly well matched trading back forth depending on the titles. You don't believe AMD having the similar ability to get close to 220 Gb/s using 7000Mhz effective, while doing it with a lower TDP than a 770?