Monday, January 4th 2016
AMD Demonstrates Revolutionary 14 nm FinFET Polaris GPU Architecture
AMD provided customers with a glimpse of its upcoming 2016 Polaris GPU architecture, highlighting a wide range of significant architectural improvements including HDR monitor support, and industry-leading performance-per-watt. AMD expects shipments of Polaris architecture-based GPUs to begin in mid-2016.
AMD's Polaris architecture-based 14nm FinFET GPUs deliver a remarkable generational jump in power efficiency. Polaris-based GPUs are designed for fluid frame rates in graphics, gaming, VR and multimedia applications running on compelling small form-factor thin and light computer designs.
"Our new Polaris architecture showcases significant advances in performance, power efficiency and features," said Lisa Su, president and CEO, AMD. "2016 will be a very exciting year for Radeon fans driven by our Polaris architecture, Radeon Software Crimson Edition and a host of other innovations in the pipeline from our Radeon Technologies Group."
The Polaris architecture features AMD's 4th generation Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, a next-generation display engine with support for HDMI 2.0a and DisplayPort 1.3, and next-generation multimedia features including 4K h.265 encoding and decoding.
AMD has an established track record for dramatically increasing the energy efficiency of its mobile processors, targeting a 25x improvement by the year 2020.
AMD's Polaris architecture-based 14nm FinFET GPUs deliver a remarkable generational jump in power efficiency. Polaris-based GPUs are designed for fluid frame rates in graphics, gaming, VR and multimedia applications running on compelling small form-factor thin and light computer designs.
"Our new Polaris architecture showcases significant advances in performance, power efficiency and features," said Lisa Su, president and CEO, AMD. "2016 will be a very exciting year for Radeon fans driven by our Polaris architecture, Radeon Software Crimson Edition and a host of other innovations in the pipeline from our Radeon Technologies Group."
The Polaris architecture features AMD's 4th generation Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, a next-generation display engine with support for HDMI 2.0a and DisplayPort 1.3, and next-generation multimedia features including 4K h.265 encoding and decoding.
AMD has an established track record for dramatically increasing the energy efficiency of its mobile processors, targeting a 25x improvement by the year 2020.
88 Comments on AMD Demonstrates Revolutionary 14 nm FinFET Polaris GPU Architecture
I personally rather use FXAA or MLAA and lose tiny bit of sharpness and have edges smoothed than having 100% sharp textures and jaggy edges. Games use heavy post processing anyway so even without FXAA, textures will feel blurry. And FXAA/MLAA in most cases filter edges like a 24x FSAA mode. Not in all conditions but most of the time and that's great. Especially since they barely affect framerate.
Before we go on, I've got to qualify. Every single color of light is a combination of the wavelengths we perceive. Our three types of color detecting cells respond over a relatively narrow range of energies. As such, the difference between any two colors can be represented roughly as deltaE = sqrt((g2-g1)+(a2-a1)+(b2-b1)) where the delta has to be 2.3 or greater for a human being to notice any difference in coloration. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_difference
The longer explanation, with a bit of background and why the measurement is still subjective, can be found here: zschuessler.github.io/DeltaE/learn/
Short answer though, is that at some point adding more colors does not produce appreciable differences. A few year back a professional troll decided to make the point that makeup was crap by asking a simple question, was there a difference between Revlon's "Red Reinvented" and "Cherry Desirable?" The short answer is that I couldn't tell, and without the color values I wouldn't have thought them any different. www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=fashion
With respect to monitors, does 10 bit to 12 bit produce an appreciable difference? I can't honestly say that I know, but my experience points me to the conclusion that more monitor generally trumps more accurate colors. Heck, I don't know of the last time where the difference between a slightly less blue purple would have been as much of a deal breaker as not having access to a relatively cheap 1920x1080 monitor. Personally, pixel count>refresh rate (assuming 30 Hz minimum)>color fidelity. Maybe I'm backwards, but I'd prefer Polaris to push 4K before AMD stated focusing on color depth.
The reason more color 10-bit/12-bit is being talked about is because its already part of 4k standards.
Broadcast TV
4k Blu-Ray
TV Manufactures / slowest to adopt
They all have their groups that have established the base of what is to be. The last thing that all 3 haven't adopted as a standard but will likely be included in the future is the luminance data.
When you have 4k standards images and shrink them to 1440p or 1080p it will look a lot better then a 1080p standards image or movie. Provided your system is capable of course. I think both AMD VSR and Nvidia DSR have proven that for gamers.
Few years back I couldn't play dirt 3 without anti-aliasing, because in the menu there were some floating boxes which had jaggies on all sides and were really annoying, but the exception doesn't make it a rule. I honestly don't feel the benefit of AA while gaming. And I feel that with AA enabled there is very slight input lag even if fps is pretty much the same and in general very high.
CES 2016: AMD FreeSync working over HDMI
CES 2016: AMD Talks Polaris GPU and HDR Monitors (HDR support coming to 300 series)
CES 2016: AMD Talks Bringing HDMI Support to FreeSync (HDMI FreeSync monitor availability starting Q1 2016)
I still don't get the point of FreeSync on HDMI. If you want to use FreeSync you should be buying a DisplayPort monitor. No tech in the HDMI ecosystem (except Radeon cards) will support FreeSync over HDMI. HDMI, the standard, doesn't officially support adaptive sync where DisplayPort does. I doubt the HDMI standard will ever add adaptive sync because, excepting consoles, none of the home theater equipment should fall below prescribed framerate.
I want HDR now!
Radeon Technologies Group Real-Time High Dynamic Range Demo
Yeah, HDR looks like what screens should look like. Like right now, looking at my task bar, it should be pitch black but it isn't because my monitor is incapable of doing the white of the open browser at the same time of black of the task bar.
Instead of comparing to nvidia's last gen cards, use your own and show how much you have improved since your last gen. Won't look good if come april, pascal cards drop on the market and they end up roasting this. Just my opinion on the matter.
Is AMD suppose to hold off until Nvidia showcases their 16nm part and then do a comparison. Is AMD suppose to ask Nvidia to lend them a card that they haven't announced to please their fans in such comparisons ?
Nvidia compares there current gen to two prior, they don't compare there cards to a gen revision. I wonder if you offer the same level of criticism towards them.
I think AMD selected GTX 950 to demonstrate Polaris can be more power efficient than Maxwell under the same workload. The comparison to Maxwell makes sense if AMD gets Polaris to market before Pascal is available (seems likely seeing how AMD is already demonstrating chips). Maxwell loses the power efficiency argument when compared to Polaris (well, duh).
AMD likely obtained this Polaris chip a long time ago from Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy S6 had a 14nm chip and that was announced back in March. AMD announced Polaris about the first of the year and were demonstrating it a few days later.
Samsung's 14nm process is mature where TSMC's 16nm process is not.
All I see is your usual AMD thread trolling (Not just in this forum).
Put your browser to fullscreen (F11) scroll a bit downward so your entire display is covered with the "lagom" text on grey background.
I see a huge color distortion on my TN panel even when viewing "dead on anyway" so much that on top of the screen the red text is actually already cyan. Whereas on my IPS and MVA panel I do not see this color distortion on his picture.