Monday, May 4th 2015
AMD Radeon R9 380 Launched by PC OEM
Earlier this day, HP announced its newest line of desktop PCs, one of which comes with a curious-sounding Radeon R9 380 graphics card. HP's product pages for its new desktops aren't active, yet, leaving us to only speculate on what the R9 380 could be. One theory making rounds says that the R9 380 could either be a re-branded R9 285, or be based on its "Tonga" silicon, which physically features 2,048 stream processors based on Graphics CoreNext (GCN) 1.2 architecture, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Another theory states that the R9 380 could be an OEM-only re-brand of the R9 280 or R9 280X, based on the 3+ year old "Tahiti" silicon.
The former theory sounds more plausible, because re-branding a "Tahiti" based product would be suicidal for AMD. Although based on GCN, "Tahiti" lacks a lot of architecture features introduced with "Hawaii" and "Tonga." AMD practically stopped optimizing games for "Tahiti," and some of its new features, such as FreeSync and XDMA CrossFire, can't be implemented on it. "Tonga," on the other hand, supports both these features, and one can create an SKU with all its 2,048 stream processors, and its full 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface unlocked. If the R9 380 is indeed an OEM-only product, then it's likely that the company's retail-channel products could be branded in the succeeding R9 400 series. GPU makers tend to re-brand and bump their SKUs by a series for OEMs to peddle in their "new" products at short notice.
Our most recent understanding of AMD's next-gen lineup sees re-branding across the lineup, with just one genuinely new silicon. "Tonga" could drive the pair of SKUs that directly succeed the R9 270 and R9 270X; "Grenada," which is a refined version of "Hawaii," will drive the SKUs that succeed the R9 280 and R9 280X; while the new "Fiji" silicon, with its 4,096 stream processors and a fancy 640 GB/s HBM memory interface, could drive the SKUs that succeed R9 290 and R9 290X. An extraordinary rumor doing rounds is that one "Fiji" SKU could get a fancy model name à la NVIDIA Titan.
The former theory sounds more plausible, because re-branding a "Tahiti" based product would be suicidal for AMD. Although based on GCN, "Tahiti" lacks a lot of architecture features introduced with "Hawaii" and "Tonga." AMD practically stopped optimizing games for "Tahiti," and some of its new features, such as FreeSync and XDMA CrossFire, can't be implemented on it. "Tonga," on the other hand, supports both these features, and one can create an SKU with all its 2,048 stream processors, and its full 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface unlocked. If the R9 380 is indeed an OEM-only product, then it's likely that the company's retail-channel products could be branded in the succeeding R9 400 series. GPU makers tend to re-brand and bump their SKUs by a series for OEMs to peddle in their "new" products at short notice.
32 Comments on AMD Radeon R9 380 Launched by PC OEM
Probably the price of the 380 should be a little more than a 280x if it is a rebadged 280x. For anyone that can wait a little while for a new card there will probably be some good sales on old stock when the 380/380x drops.
370: Sub-150w tonga (960)
370x: Full Tonga (960ti)
380: 290 redux or low-clocked full Hawaii (970)
380x: Higher-clocked 290x...something like 1100/5500 (980)
390: Probably 3584sp, but something that is going to *guaranteed* stock and overclocked apples-to-apples be faster than 980. (980ti)
390x: Titan-like.
Anything else just doesn't make any sense imho.
Now if this said the PSU was XXX Watts we could theorize something, but this is just saying a name "R9 380" which is not any revelation. How is that furthering any smart conversations? Stupid stuff like this over the next month will start taking "a life of its own", creating a bunch of heightened suspense... from zilch!
This might be tell-tale if a true OEM part number that AMD has enacted something like a R9 385 for retail part?
Intel CPU's are garbage when running DX12. Everyone buying a Radeon dGPU and NOT using an AMD CPU to drive it will be wasting their money.
www.guru3d.com/news-story/radeon-r9-380-surfaces-in-hp-press-release.html
Short and sweet with no overt sensationalizing.
The comments on Guru suggesting the 380 is to go up against the 980 though are misguided. The 380 will be a rebrand, made so that HP aren't releasing a new PC with a last gen (290x) graphics option. Maybe in that scenarios, the OEM 380 is in fact a 290?
Honestly, AMD would have to find some "real secret sauce" (improvement) from a re-spun Hawaii Pro part to be positioned akin to the 980.
I've caught that too before. Just dunno. Have to see when they finally ship I guess.
And.. LOL at Intel CPU's being trash in DX12...
The constructor could use an official chip or a rebranding, because nVidia considers that performance are identical.
If that so, we can expect a very good R9 390X :) (a real one :p )