Monday, September 23rd 2013
Radeon R7 260X Pictured, Too
In addition to the Radeon R9 290X pictured earlier today, AMD will also be unveiling the Radeon R7 260X upper mid-range graphics card. Pictures of the card were leaked to the web. At the moment, we have no clue as to what chip the card is based on, but we're hearing two codenames, "Curacao" and "Bonaire XTX." "Curacao," in our best guess, is a variant of "Pitcairn." "Bonaire XTX" could be a higher-performing variant of the "Bonaire" silicon AMD launched the Radeon HD 7790 with. Given the way components are arranged behind the GPU, we're inclined to believe the card pictured below is based on "Curacao." Gotta give AMD marks for trying out something different with the cooler shroud design.
Source:
DG's Nerdy Story
35 Comments on Radeon R7 260X Pictured, Too
www.zalman.com/global/product/Product_Read.php?Idx=482
Well I don't know how much they could tweak/optimize Pitcairn to get it much better, it didn't do bad for its size and power. Thought the idea that they fuse 2x Bonaire's would yield 40% more in SP's give a 256-Bit bus, could be very interesting.
But what is a Bonaire XTX... Could we suppose AMD might have been binning something from Bonaire production that was higher spec and sitting on them? They always seemed to “allude” that Bonaire was as good as the 7850. I’ve never came across a true block diagram for Bonaire, could AMD have a 16 compute unit (1024Sp) part, then go with a little more memory at 6400MHz instead of 6000Mhz. Or, even 7Ghz effective could be possible if they could see a price drop on say some nicer Samsung chips, instead of just the Hynix that have been norm and spec’d to run at 1500 MHz (6000 MHz GDDR5 effective).
So if Samsung and Elpida are supply constrained, and Hynix's production has taken a sizeable hit, it's likely plausible that contract fulfilment is not going to be on time in the short term- so a lot would depend on PC Partners on-hand stock - at least for the high-end IC's, and how much (and of what type) GDDR5 PC Partner received to get the initial tranche of AMD reference cards produced (FWIW most large board partners seem to rely on JIT management, keeping inventory relatively low). I couldn't see relatively expensive 7Gbps GDDR5 being utilized on what appears to be a midrange card, when there are obviously some better deserving (and higher profile/margin) candidates around.
While at first it was reported the fire at Hynix Wuxi plant was mostly contained to they said, "the packaging area where they integrate chip to the DDR3 stick for mainly desktop parts and spared the Fabs". Although the latest word is the fire was with Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) machinery that was being installed and the smoke and soot did look to compromise at least one Clean room that could be bad.
www.itworld.com/hardware/374064/hynix-fire-and-memory-prices-what-you-need-know
But the problem is the speculators are hoping to drive price up on everything memory related, even if it’s not effected or part of the demand. I see Bloomberg and DRAMeXchange looking at it as reporting turmoil in what should be a commodity. Heck even that kitguru artical you liked is spouting BS when they said "High performance GDDR5 from these FABs is crucial to the production of nVidia’s fastest GeForce GTX cards, so if you were thinking about buying one – then NOW might be the right time." Now, I've yet to find a Titan or GTX780 that uses anything but Samsung parts?
I didn't hear that the Hynix's Wuxi plant even made such higher end GDDR chips?
The sky is falling…
Neliz's post.
The whole EVGA range
You can probably fill in the blanks.
www.gpureview.com/
While in W1zzards' the GTX780 Lighting he said "overclocked quite poorly because of the Elpida memory" Neliz's post is like saying they "bait and switch".
I provided examples.
I gave you some indication why these other modules were being used.
End.Of.
I didn't ask for some convoluted diatribe on overclocking and your interpretation of MSI's business practice, nor is it apropos to the prior discussion. If you have an issue with the MSI Lightning we have a thread for that