Friday, July 29th 2016
AMD Polaris 11 "Baffin" ASIC Pictured Up Close
AMD's upcoming 14 nm Polaris 11 "Baffin" ASIC, which powers the Radeon RX 460, was pictured up close, and it's tiny! Pictured as part of a Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Dual-X disassembly by PCOnline.com.cn, the Polaris 11 chip features a tiny package substrate owing to its low pin-count, wiring out a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface; a PCI-Express 3.0 x8 host interface (it fits into x16 slots but has wiring for just x8); and electrical pins to cope with its <75W TDP requirements. The card relies on the PCI-Express slot for all its power draw. Sapphire's Dual-X cooling solution looks beefy from the outside owing to its cooler shroud and pair of fans, but underneath is a fairly simple monoblock aluminium heatsink.
Sources:
PCOnline.com.cn, VideoCardz
46 Comments on AMD Polaris 11 "Baffin" ASIC Pictured Up Close
www.extremetech.com/computing/232493-amd-has-built-hardware-at-samsung-could-tap-foundry-for-future-products And while it's not a great position… IT is great for us! As we now have a another foundry, and AMD will have way more access to scheduling and juggling what they receive than they ever obtained from a crowed TSMC, and it’s only getting more crowed over there. While given the AMD wafer agreement they can now satisfy that without penalty, while I’m sure AMD's see a advantageous wafer cost. Probably seeing a better wafer cost than was at TSMC, and no longer agonizing about how they can push enough production into GloFo to not be penalized. If/when that relationship can really start cranking out in a concerted effort that's when the graphic industry will really see a divergence from the kind of "me to" production chip design and fulfillment we’ve been stuck in with TSMC for like over a decade.
Could AMD/RTG see better parts from GloFo like they saw with Kaveri, and couldn’t they just release them as a 485 part with increase in clock, hold on the TDP, while unearth more headroom? What if at the end of October AMD has a RX 485 8Gb for $10 MSRP increase, while lower both the existing 480 4/8Gb price slightly to move them out, then back fill in January with a RX 485 4Gb. Figure end of September the GTX 1060 has totally filled-in the channel, and there's no changing course. AMD's AIB partners just use their existing designs and print new boxes… Yes a rebrand, but it is easy for AMD to manage and done on the fly, because working with GloFo provides easy rearranging of production like they never had at TSMC. Even better Nvidia won’t have near the reconnaissance they had when AMD was at TSMC.
Even my absolutely microscopic Mini-ITX case has 2 slots. Half length mini cards are just a more efficient use of space since they allow for standard thickness coolers.
Alternatively you could invest in the monstrously expensive dual-ASIC GPUs straight from the get-go.
BTW does anyone have photo of 480's chip?
www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/4.html
Or you can mod your own hardware and allow yourself the flexibility that no brand will provide.
P.S. There ARE still single slot card solutions for many cards, and in fact I can guarantee that there will be one for the 460 (And maybe for the 470). But this is a very niche market now, and therefore the support is practically for OEM's only.
Good talk. :)
I suppose this might be what I understand for components and goods entering the USA, what might be pictured of a product(s) destined for other markets might not need to be subject to the same country of origin labeling requirements. Honestly it all very convoluted, the bottom line; countries fight hard to hold on to their ability to say it was made here, especially when it comes to high tech and/or durable goods. I know this all seems a little anal, but it's the hours of BS from our Corporate Trade Compliance training person is always trying to have us understand, you should come it's really fun...NOT!