Friday, May 13th 2016
More Polaris10 and Polaris11 Specifications Revealed
Industry sources revealed to TechPowerUp some pretty interesting specifications of AMD's two upcoming GPUs based on the 4th generation Graphics CoreNext "Polaris" architecture. The company is preparing a performance-segment GPU and a mainstream one. It turns out, that the performance-segment chip, which the press has been referring to as "Ellesmere," could feature 32 compute units (CUs), and not the previously thought 40.
Assuming that each CU continues to consist of 64 stream processors (SP), you're looking at an SP count of 2,048. What's more, this chip is said to offer a single-precision floating point performance of 5.5 TFLOP/s, as claimed by AMD. To put this into perspective, the company had claimed 5.2 TFLOP/s for the "Hawaii"/"Grenada" based FirePro W9100, which launched earlier this February, and that SKU featured all 2,816 SP present on the chip. So this chip is definitely faster than most "Hawaii" based SKUs.
While "Hawaii" based SKUs feature TDP of no less than 250W, the new chip has a TDP rated no higher than 150W. AMD could pull off a "single 8-pin power connector" feat like NVIDIA, with quite some headroom to spare. The chip features a 256-bit wide GDDR5/GDDR5X memory interface, and 8 GB could be its standard memory amount. The first SKUs based on this chip could feature 7 Gbps GDDR5 memory.
AMD will upgrade the feature-set to include HVEC/H.265 hardware encode/decode acceleration, DisplayPort 1.3, and HDMI 2.0a outputs.
The smaller "Polaris" chip scheduled for 2016, which the press has been referring to as "Baffin," could feature 14 compute units, working out to a stream processor count of 896. It will be a mainstream chip, succeeding the "Tobago" silicon, which drives the current R7 360 series SKUs, although it wouldn't surprise us if it outperformed bigger chips, such as the "Trinidad" based R7 370 series. This chip has its peak single-precision floating-point performance rated at 2.5 TFLOP/s. Its TDP is rated at just 50W, and it is expected to feature a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 4 GB of memory.
Assuming that each CU continues to consist of 64 stream processors (SP), you're looking at an SP count of 2,048. What's more, this chip is said to offer a single-precision floating point performance of 5.5 TFLOP/s, as claimed by AMD. To put this into perspective, the company had claimed 5.2 TFLOP/s for the "Hawaii"/"Grenada" based FirePro W9100, which launched earlier this February, and that SKU featured all 2,816 SP present on the chip. So this chip is definitely faster than most "Hawaii" based SKUs.
AMD will upgrade the feature-set to include HVEC/H.265 hardware encode/decode acceleration, DisplayPort 1.3, and HDMI 2.0a outputs.
The smaller "Polaris" chip scheduled for 2016, which the press has been referring to as "Baffin," could feature 14 compute units, working out to a stream processor count of 896. It will be a mainstream chip, succeeding the "Tobago" silicon, which drives the current R7 360 series SKUs, although it wouldn't surprise us if it outperformed bigger chips, such as the "Trinidad" based R7 370 series. This chip has its peak single-precision floating-point performance rated at 2.5 TFLOP/s. Its TDP is rated at just 50W, and it is expected to feature a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 4 GB of memory.
133 Comments on More Polaris10 and Polaris11 Specifications Revealed
Let's see how it goes.
I'm definitely not interested in 449$+ 1070 and 699$+ 1080.
@btarunr were you told different GPU codenames as well? ;)
256 bit GDRR5x on the Polaris 10 will be much slower than the 512 bit GDRR5 of the Hawaii.
As of now, the 256 bit GDDR5x of the 1080 is slower than that of the 384 bit 980ti.
Of course, if AMD puts higher prices, things would NOT be as rosy as I describe them.
It shows two six pin power connections.
So. Yeah, boring, but sweet price.
Industry sources revealed to TechPowerUp some pretty interesting specifications of AMD's two upcoming GPUs based on the 4th generation Graphics CoreNext "Polaris" architecture. The company is preparing a performance-segment GPU and a mainstream one. It turns out, that the performance-segment chip, which the press has been referring to as "Ellesmere," could feature 32 compute units (CUs), and not the previously thought 40.
Assuming that each CU continues to consist of 64 stream processors (SP), you're looking at an SP count of 2,048. What's more, this chip is said to offer a single-precision floating point performance of 5.5 TFLOP/s, as claimed by AMD. To put this into perspective, the company had claimed 5.2 TFLOP/s for the "Hawaii"/"Grenada" based FirePro W9100, which launched earlier this February, and that SKU featured all 2,816 SP present on the chip. So this chip is definitely faster than most "Hawaii" based SKUs.
We are here:
370 - 950 (? does it even exist?)
380 - 960
390(x) - 970/980
Fury Nano - 980
Fury X - 980Ti/TX
We are moving here:
470 - ?
480 (5.5Tf) - ?
? - 1070 (6.5Tf) <= 449$, no thanks
? - 1080 (9.5Tf)
? - ?
1080 is in "too expensive" area, expensive, and doesn't offer too much an upgrade for existing 980Ti users (comparable price) with good overclocks.
So those guys are better off waiting
The only "mass market" chip that threatens AMD is 1070. But at 449$, uh, oh, who would buy that?
It is just about PR, in practice, we will likely get cards targeted at compeltely different parts of the market.
The problem is the pricing. If it is true that 10 will cost $350, then i can just get a 390x or smth... this needs to be $300 max. And with GDDR5X. If not it will fail.
The more concerning part is the 2nd part of your post, memory bandwidth. Let's hope AMD create a more efficient compression engine for Polaris.
Lets just hope they overclock well, and AMD gets out Vega in October.