Thursday, July 2nd 2015
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AMD Revises Pump-block Design for Radeon R9 Fury X
AMD seems to have reacted swiftly to feedback from reviewers and owners of initial batches if its Radeon R9 Fury X, over a noisy pump-block; and revised its design. The revised pump-block lacks the "high pitched whine" that users were reporting, according to owners. At this point there are no solid visual cues on how to identify a card with the new block, however a user with the revised card (or at least one that lacks the whine), pointed out a 2-color chrome Cooler Master (OEM) badge on the pump-block, compared to the multi-color sticker on pump-blocks from the initial batches. You can open up the front-plate covering the card without breaking any warranties.
Source:
AnandTech Forums
87 Comments on AMD Revises Pump-block Design for Radeon R9 Fury X
After watching the video posted by someone above, I took that the AMD engineers were bound by rules of the nature of HBM ,and its positioning on the interposer, which binds they're hands as far as making a bigger/beefier chip to "blow away" Nvidia's higher end Ti's, etc... meaning they are stuck since there is only SO much room...
My question/point, is this. Being that the HBM MUST be on an Interposer, Could it be an option for the engineers to come out with a "Dual Chip" Card, e.g (7990) (6990), etc.., but instead of it being 2 Graphic processors, it could be One Large "Kill 'Em All" GPU, and then the other Chips Interposer dedicated SOLEY to the housing of HBM?
Or, another way as One Large GPU Only chip, then a Smaller GPU with say 8Gb's of HMB?
I understand that there are inherent limitation's when Xfiring on one PCB(or Two), ESPECIALLY (I would imagine) with such a High bandwidth Dram, but I cant help but wonder if that would be a Viable direction to explore...
www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_fury_x_review,5.html
A separate HBM area would require PCB traces that would add latency? I think the interposer is required and the only current issue is that it's manufactured on a far larger process than the chip it's linked to.
The fix was meant to appear in retail (as reviewers were told by AMD). I'm sure those review sites with retail versions could easily remove the cover to see what version they have.
AMD will have some whiny versions in the channel but I imagine they'll sort it out.
I pointed it out the day reviews flooded the internet, the ROP count does not make any sense for a card with ~4000 SPs. It has a similar "bottlenecking" issue that the 7970/280x has.
The point of HBM was to put memory closer to the compute cores because it results in lower latency and (relatively) easier implementation of wider data buses. Moving HBM to a different IC goes against the reasoning for making HBM in the first place IMHO and that is to get memory closer to compute cores and to take up less space. Adding dedicated ICs doesn't accomplish either of those goals.
I'm just pointing out from a consumer perspective the card can still be made competitive. Speaking as a sad owner of said card, I'll admit that card was about as bad as they came...
Ill also have you know that 3 of my previous cards were Nvidia.
Apart from that, that post of his was not just borderline trolling fanboyism, it also made no sense in making a point.
For example, calling Fury weak and the 980Ti much stronger, apart from that being just wrong, how is being much stronger then weak anything special, that would barely make it "good".
I bought a 980 Ti this week. Everyone knows I hate Nvidia. FURY X Fing SUCKS!
If they can get their shit together, then I will GLADLY buy their new card on launch day and disown the GTX.
Lets not forget that the 3xxx wasn't any better just being a refresh of an already horrid chip. 4xxx was when they came back in force.
As for Fury I am very anxiously awaiting Sapphires take on Fury(non X) That is the card I am more interested in.
/sarcasm
FuryX is considered for 4K and at that it matches the 980Ti reference vs. ref. (sure there's OC 980Ti's) They are as close/identical as possible, while being totally different as two companies should be. It's good for us that AMD isn't trying to clone the competition it nice to have some choice... And given all things it's more than a valiant effort. AMD has delivered a competitive card, and while both have pluses and minuses why does AMD have to tender a lower price and succumb to less profit? As the mantra back when some set an inordinate price said... "they're not charity".
Sure there was misstep's by executives who don't know about "loose-lips....". Though AMD negated the whole OC'n issuein like a day or two, but no one seem to have heard about that part. Pumps whine… like is that any different than coil whine? Some surmise they could/should've thrown more ROP/SP’s at it, though have no idea whether technical challenges or developments had a basis on such considerations, if you do you might send in a resume’ for such a job.
Was it the “win” the forums and rumor mill was "drumming up" months ahead, No though hardly ever is. Were there executives prior to launch that aren’t using/given properly vetted talking points... :shadedshu: Honestly executive and engineers should never speak on behave of the company unless truly tasked to do so… STFU. AMD need credible young spokesperson(s)... I envision a team of say 3; fun/hip gamer (speaker), easy talking while strong (technical), and a “Luther” (aka anger translator) that hangs back adds fun, debunks sh#t, though keeps it real. That would be the all-encompassing AMD PR front, the media face that provides both social campaigns and announcements. Either being tapped collectively in media/stage events, although more often individuals working a “measured cadence” for releasing information.
AND Lastly… just dump Richard Huddy he’s just not cutting it!
That never happened before did it??? Oh, wait, Devil's Canyon...
(Was I the only one screaming at all the pre-release presentations that they should just solder the damn chip to the IHS or just drop the IHS all together on unlocked chips...)
Why freesync isn't a free standard, its proprietary software AMD wrote up that uses the adaptive sync standard. Its far from perfect which AMD left on the monitor makers to fix themselves were as nvidia with g-sync did all the leg work to make it right since the start with no ghosting and list of panels that THEY tested to work well doing VRR.
Best way monitor makers found to fix ghosting well least minimize it, is to lock VRR down. you buy a 144hz panel but enable free sync you are limited to 90hz. Really? Kinda makes that bad buy to not use what you pay for.
(cue all the flame posts now) Intel was up front about it being a refresh. AMD said problem was fixed in retail cards but looks like some retail cards have the issue. Look at 390/x cards, AMD has said they are not re-brands even though there is enough proof that they are are. AMD isn't doing them selves many favors by lieing to everyone and when cault they keep quiet like a 3 year old. If AMD wants to get on more stable financial ground, can't keep saying something when doing another.
Reasons they gave 390/x isn't re-brand is, they increased memory, they increased memory clock speed, and they rewrote the power management microcode. So they claim its not a re-brand even though its the same chip......