Tuesday, June 9th 2015
AMD Radeon Graphics Roadmap for 2015 Leaked
It looks like AMD's desktop discrete GPU lineup for 2015 will see a mix of rebrands, re-codename, and one big new chip, all making up the new Radeon R7 300 and R9 300 series. Cards based in this lineup should begin rolling out this month. Leaks from OEMs such as this one, suggest that the first of these should begin rolling out as early as June 16.
The spread is pretty cut and dry. "Hawaii," the chip driving the R9 290 series, will not only get a new codename as "Grenada," but also a seamless rebrand to the R9 390 series, with Grenada Pro making up the R9 390, and Grenada XT making up the R9 390X. One possibility could be AMD taking advantage of low 4 Gbit GDDR5 chip prices to cram 8 GB of standard memory amount, across Grenada's 512-bit wide memory interface. The R9 390X will compete with the GeForce GTX 970, while the R9 390 will offer an option in the vast price and performance gorge between the GTX 960 and GTX 970.
The R9 280 series, has been a messy affair, with two chips, "Tahiti" (re-branded from the HD 7900 series, which dates back to 2012); and the newer "Tonga" silicon, which has similar specs to Tahiti, but a more modern Graphics CoreNext 1.2 stream processor implementation, which offers bare-metal support for Direct3D feature-level 12_0. This chip will get a fresh codename as "Antigua," and will drive a single SKU, the R9 380. The R9 380 could feature 4 GB of standard memory amount (either 4 GB using eight chips is cheaper than 3 GB using twelve chips, or 3 GB is a hard-sell). The R9 380 will compete with the GTX 960.
The "x70" moniker will get demoted from the Radeon R9 series, down to Radeon R7. There will be just one SKU, the Radeon R7 270, and it will be driven by the "Trinidad" silicon, which is a new code-name for "Curacao" (in turn "Pitcairn.") Again, one can expect similar specs to the older generation, but with standard memory amount doubled, to 4 GB. The "Tobago" silicon is a new code-name for "Bonaire," and will drive the R7 360. The "Oland" driven R7 250 will carry on unchanged.
"Fiji" is the only new chip here, and it's apparent that there will be not one, but two SKUs with a fancy SKU name. "Radeon Fury" is doing the rounds. The top-end part will ship with an AIO liquid cooling solution, while the second-best one could be air-cooled. We predict that Fiji XT could [attempt to] compete with NVIDIA's GM200-based SKUs, namely the GTX 980 Ti and the GTX TITAN X; while the Fiji Pro could give the GTX 980 a run for its money.
Source:
VideoCardz
The spread is pretty cut and dry. "Hawaii," the chip driving the R9 290 series, will not only get a new codename as "Grenada," but also a seamless rebrand to the R9 390 series, with Grenada Pro making up the R9 390, and Grenada XT making up the R9 390X. One possibility could be AMD taking advantage of low 4 Gbit GDDR5 chip prices to cram 8 GB of standard memory amount, across Grenada's 512-bit wide memory interface. The R9 390X will compete with the GeForce GTX 970, while the R9 390 will offer an option in the vast price and performance gorge between the GTX 960 and GTX 970.
The "x70" moniker will get demoted from the Radeon R9 series, down to Radeon R7. There will be just one SKU, the Radeon R7 270, and it will be driven by the "Trinidad" silicon, which is a new code-name for "Curacao" (in turn "Pitcairn.") Again, one can expect similar specs to the older generation, but with standard memory amount doubled, to 4 GB. The "Tobago" silicon is a new code-name for "Bonaire," and will drive the R7 360. The "Oland" driven R7 250 will carry on unchanged.
"Fiji" is the only new chip here, and it's apparent that there will be not one, but two SKUs with a fancy SKU name. "Radeon Fury" is doing the rounds. The top-end part will ship with an AIO liquid cooling solution, while the second-best one could be air-cooled. We predict that Fiji XT could [attempt to] compete with NVIDIA's GM200-based SKUs, namely the GTX 980 Ti and the GTX TITAN X; while the Fiji Pro could give the GTX 980 a run for its money.
66 Comments on AMD Radeon Graphics Roadmap for 2015 Leaked
EDIT: I am assuming they have tweaked the things.
Both companies are waiting to serious, forge-based process advancement and large improvement which the new 14-16 FinFET (or whatever will come out of either - things are not much clearer now than last year, or year before) will bring. This lasts much longer than anyone anticipated...
Current process is mature enough, or too mature perhaps, and there is just few things to do with 28 process. Meanwhile, we'll have rebranding, price-juggling and suchforth. Oh, almost forgot, NVIDIA has 10 chips of Pascal made - just the same as they were waving around with finished Maxwel more than a year than it actually came out.
I don't blame any of them, companies without foundries have to wait for a new process. Adjusting whole GPU line (for either of them) to yet-another-28-based-iteration would be just counterproductive...
and I myself own a Strix GTX960.. why? I wanted a silent and decent card.. why not the Strix R9 285 then? this one was cheaper.. it´s that simple, why you need to fanboy about irrelevant stuff is just.. beyond me
I wouldn't call that an improvement.
I can't see myself buying a 4 GiB card and I think a lot of people that would otherwise consider Fury won't for the same reason. I can't see Fury being a market success because it's a cripple out of the starting gate. AMD really screwed up there.
As for the rest, I think the days of brand new silicon are gone because DirectX has unified the hardware. GCN is not unlike x86--we're still using x86 derived processors decades after its inception. So long as there was a die shrink and some fine tuning, I think this is the new normal.
Isn't the R9 285 a new chip (Tonga) released in 2014?
tpucdn.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_960_OC/images/perfrel_1920.gif
Quite a bit higher according to this chart on 1080p and 1440p...Most other reviews I have seen paint a similar picture...Bear in mind that pricing is not revealed yet, the leaks put the 390X around $400 so its likely the Fiji Pro could be $650 ish range.
I still say save the reservations until we get some actual performance numbers.
First off the naming scheme: during the HD 3000-4000 days the x8xx was the top tier. Then during the
HD 6000-7000 days the called the x9xx top tier and x8xx 2nd level. NOW, it looks like the x9x will be 2nd tier.
What will the top tier even be called?? 395/395x?? and what of the dual card? 399??
Then there is the re-branding. Right now I own a Richland APU 6400k so I can have a dGPU for BOINC. A CPU released in 2013. When I upgrade the chip, I see no reason to get the FM2+ motherboard since the A10-7850k is no improvement to the 6800k. In fact the A10-6800k O/Cs much better and the can be found for cheap because people want to upgrade to the "better" chip. Even the shiny new "Godvari" can't match the 6800k's potential. A chip release a full 2 years later.
I hope the enjoyed their 2 year vacation.
No matter what is gonna happen I am glad I held onto my money and didn't buy 970 like another member here was nagging me to do so. :D