Monday, February 9th 2015

Radeon R9 380X Based on "Grenada," a Refined "Hawaii"

AMD's upcoming Radeon R9 380X and R9 380 graphics cards, with which it wants to immediately address the GTX 980 and GTX 970, will be based on a "new" silicon codenamed "Grenada." Built on the 28 nm silicon fab process, Grenada will be a refined variant of "Hawaii," much in the same way as "Curacao" was of "Pitcairn," in the previous generation.

The Grenada silicon will have the same specs as Hawaii - 2,816 GCN stream processors, 176 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 512-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 4 GB memory. Refinements in the silicon over Hawaii could allow AMD to increase clock speeds, to outperform the GTX 980 and GTX 970. We don't expect the chip to be any more energy efficient at its final clocks, than Hawaii. AMD's design focus appears to be performance. AMD could save itself the embarrassment of a loud reference design cooler, by throwing the chip up for quiet custom-design cooling solutions from AIB (add-in board) partners from day-one.
In other news, the "Tonga" silicon, which made its debut with the performance-segment Radeon R9 285, could form the foundation of Radeon R9 370 series, consisting of the R9 370X, and the R9 370. Tonga physically features 2,048 stream processors based on the more advanced GCN 1.3 architecture, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Both the R9 370 and R9 370X could feature 3 GB of standard memory amount.

The only truly new silicon with the R9 300 series, is "Fiji." This chip will be designed to drive AMD's high-end single- and dual-GPU graphics cards, and will be built to compete with the GM200 silicon from NVIDIA, and the GeForce GTX TITAN-X it will debut with. This chip features 4,096 stream processors based on the GCN 1.3 architecture - double that of "Tonga," 256 TMUs, 128 ROPs, and a 1024-bit wide HBM memory interface, offering 640 GB/s of memory bandwidth. 4 GB could be the standard memory amount. The three cards AMD will carve out of this silicon, are the R9 390, the R9 390X, and the R9 390X2.
Source: 3DCenter.org
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156 Comments on Radeon R9 380X Based on "Grenada," a Refined "Hawaii"

#1
THE_EGG
640GB/s?!?!!!!!?! wowsers. Looking forward to see how they go about pricing these.
Posted on Reply
#2
RichF
28nm?

"The only truly new silicon with the R9 300 series, is 'Fiji.'"

Ok.. Nevermind. At least there will be something that's actually new.

"4 GB could be the standard memory amount."

Awful. 6 GB should be the standard for high-end cards going forward.
Posted on Reply
#3
TheGuruStud
THE_EGG640GB/s?!?!!!!!?! wowsers. Looking forward to see how they go about pricing these.
550 for the 390x, I'm sure, unless it is really fast. Nvidia should cut prices immediately and force AMD come off 600.
Posted on Reply
#4
Sony Xperia S
THE_EGG640GB/s?!?!!!!!?! wowsers. Looking forward to see how they go about pricing these.
TheGuruStud550 for the 390x, I'm sure
Sure, at least 500 euros. :( But it will be worth it... somewhat. :(

I wonder what the 16nm and 14nm GPUs will bring. ;)
Posted on Reply
#5
megamanxtreme
380 and 380X will be R9 290/290X?
Rebrand for the lose?
For my FX-6300 I wasn't looking for anything more than performance of GTX 970, but everything is a mixed bag.
Posted on Reply
#6
jateruy
Hell that die size...Seriously thou, when would AMD start to consider some efficiency improvement, guess we will have OOB LN2 GPU cooler when we reach R9 5 or 6?
Posted on Reply
#7
TheGuruStud
RichF28nm?

"The only truly new silicon with the R9 300 series, is 'Fiji.'"

Ok.. Nevermind. At least there will be something that's actually new.

"4 GB could be the standard memory amount."

Awful. 6 GB should be the standard for high-end cards going forward.
1st gen stacked ram is only 4GB.
Posted on Reply
#8
Sony Xperia S
jateruySeriously thou, when would AMD start to consider some efficiency improvement, guess we will have OOB LN2 GPU cooler when we reach R9 5 or 6?
Ahaha :D :D :D Very funny................... :laugh:
Posted on Reply
#9
xfia
4gb seems pretty good to me for the most part for high res and eyefinity gaming.. having more vram can certainly help but how much and what is the premium. check out what even the gimped 3.5gb 970 does www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sapphire-vapor-x-r9-290x-8gb,3977.html

yeah it would have been nice to see a 20nm chip. probably could have lowered the power draw anyway but maybe hbm is more efficient and will help out. have not seen anything about the efficiency... really just that its up to 9x faster than ddr5 and should be kick ass for high res and eyefinity.

edit-I have expressed how high clocks may not be the most reliable but if they can make refinements and deliver reliable products then I'm all in for the race to the first 2000mhz gaming gpu :clap:
Posted on Reply
#10
Rahmat Sofyan
Ah yesss... when some rumours hit TPU.com newsroom, I believe these would came true soon..
Posted on Reply
#11
Assimilator
640GB/sec, why? Unless AMD is planning to address the "4K problem" by swapping out textures all the time, I don't see any benefit to this, and lots of drawbacks (price being one of them). Considering nVIDIA's GPUs have always been able to match AMD's for performance, while using much narrower bus widths (Hawaii: 512bit, Maxwell: 256bit), I'm not seeing any good reason, unless of course AMD's architecture is far more bandwidth-dependant than nVIDIA's.
Posted on Reply
#12
xfia
what do you mean by 4k problem?
nvidia uses compression techniques to have a narrow bus.
Posted on Reply
#13
HumanSmoke
The really odd thing about this lineup, is what AMD expects to field in the discrete mobile arena. Presently, the top part is Pitcairn based (M290X) in its third generation of cards. The M295X's (Tonga) heat production in the iMac probably preclude its use in laptops, and Hawaii is clearly unsuitable.
Assimilator640GB/sec, why?
That's where HBM starts. Better too have too much bandwidth than too little.
AssimilatorI don't see any benefit to this, and lots of drawbacks (price being one of them).
Hey, someone has to lead the charge. Just imagine the marketing mileage from 640GB/sec. It's like those nutty theoretical fillrates pumped up to eleven!
AssimilatorConsidering nVIDIA's GPUs have always been able to match AMD's for performance, while using much narrower bus widths (Hawaii: 512bit, Maxwell: 256bit), I'm not seeing any good reason, unless of course AMD's architecture is far more bandwidth-dependant than nVIDIA's.
Fiji will do double duty as a compute chip, where on-card bandwidth will play a much greater role in GPGPU. FWIW, even Nvidia are unlikely to go below 384-bit for their compute chip. The one thing that will hold Fiji back is the 4GB as a FirePro (not the bandwidth). AMD already has the W9100 with 16GB of onboard GDDR5 for a reason.
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#14
xfia
yeah they have said nothing about the high end mobile market but carrizo should hit home to be put into reasonably priced laptops for a lot of people.
Posted on Reply
#15
HumanSmoke
xfiayeah they have said nothing about the high end mobile market but carrizo should hit home to be put into reasonably priced laptops for a lot of people.
APUs on their own means a basic feature set for the most part because AMD are fighting a losing battle against Intel, OEMs, and public perception. While Intel owns the "Top of the Mind" awareness in the market segment, AMD offerings aren't going to be as well specced, which then impacts the performance of the parts available. Just as the halo desktop parts help sell the cheaper models, so does the mobile desktop replacement/gaming/workstation offerings.
Posted on Reply
#16
Breit
Assimilator640GB/sec, why? Unless AMD is planning to address the "4K problem" by swapping out textures all the time, I don't see any benefit to this, and lots of drawbacks (price being one of them). Considering nVIDIA's GPUs have always been able to match AMD's for performance, while using much narrower bus widths (Hawaii: 512bit, Maxwell: 256bit), I'm not seeing any good reason, unless of course AMD's architecture is far more bandwidth-dependant than nVIDIA's.
Enough bandwidth to the VRAM should help in scaling performance better to higher resolutions and AMD did always scale better with higher resolution. Question is if the 4GB VRAM will hold them back. I would've liked to see 8GB standard at least on the Fiji part.
Posted on Reply
#17
john_
The most interesting part of the rumors is about Trinidad(if it is not a Pitcrain rebrand and I think it will not) and it is not in the above article. Trinidad is supposed to be used in 360 and 360X, be more advanced than Tonga like Fiji(no Fiji is supposed to be more advanced than Tonga, not just doubled Tonga) and we could probably see it even next month, sooner than all the others.
But, anyway, rumors...

AMD Radeon 300 series speculation: 395X2 "Bermuda", 390X "Fiji" and 380X "Grenada" | VideoCardz.com
Posted on Reply
#18
xfia
HumanSmokeAPUs on their own means a basic feature set for the most part because AMD are fighting a losing battle against Intel, OEMs, and public perception. While Intel owns the "Top of the Mind" awareness in the market segment, AMD offerings aren't going to be as well specced, which then impacts the performance of the parts available. Just as the halo desktop parts help sell the cheaper models, so does the mobile desktop replacement/gaming/workstation offerings.
where is those AMD stickers on the consoles
Posted on Reply
#19
Sony Xperia S
Assimilator640GB/sec, why?
Because you will need it when playing at ultra high resolutions and levels of detail.
AMD's solutions have always shown better behaviour with resolution scaling, i.e losing less performance than nvidia's....
AssimilatorConsidering nVIDIA's GPUs have always been able to match AMD's for performance, while using much narrower bus widths (Hawaii: 512bit, Maxwell: 256bit)
Historically, truth is actually the other way round. AMD offered narrow busses with state-of-the-art memory. Like being first with GDDR4, GDDR5, and now HBM.

Hawaii hit the upper performance limit of GDDR5 and that's why it needed a 512-bit MI.
Posted on Reply
#20
crishan
Just a FYI: The owner of 3Dcenter gets heavily criticised for this news posting on their own forums.

With this news, he is mainly regurgitating stuff from the worst sites out there,
WhatTheFCK-Tech and VideocardsIMakeStuffUp.

Please don't take this "news" to mean anything.
Posted on Reply
#21
the54thvoid
Super Intoxicated Moderator
xfiawhere is those AMD stickers on the consoles
I would think Sony and Microsoft said a pleasant, "bugger off" to any 3rd party branding on their consoles. It actually backs up what HumanSmoke said. Think about it this way - you think Apple want a Samsung sticker on their phones with chips produced by Samsung? Big business is very much dog eat dog as long as dog gets paid.
Posted on Reply
#22
xfia
yeah very true and if every company had a right to sticker space that had something in a product a lot of stuff would look like it should be on a race track.
Posted on Reply
#23
Ferrum Master
Grenada should have memory compresion just as Tonga has, GCN upgrade.

I am really curious about FirePro, just as Boney said, what they will actually do when they need more vram.

We totally lack information really.
Posted on Reply
#24
RejZoR
640GB/s is just raw bandwidth without framebuffer compression. Meaning effective bandwidth will be wastly higher.

And R9-390X will exist after all. Though it kinda sucks that they rebrand last gen high end into current gen mid end. While it is the most economic solution, it's bad for customers. Unless if they plan to price them really well. In that case even rebranded R9-290X might be interesting. Especially if they'll be fully DX12 compatible (they should be afaik).
Posted on Reply
#25
Breit
RejZoRAnd R9-390X will exist after all. Though it kinda sucks that they rebrand last gen high end into current gen mid end.
It is common practice, NVIDIA does this as well... :)
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