Technical Director for Frostbite at DICE Reveals AMD "Fiji" Graphics Card

[btarunr]

Johan Andersson, technical director for the Frostbite game engine at DICE, developers of games such as Battlefield, tweeted the first clear picture of AMD's next flagship graphics card, and it looks a lot [better] than this mockup render. We'd be tempted to call it the Radeon R9 390X, but older reports suggest that AMD could give it a fancy name, just as NVIDIA named its top-dog "Titan." That's not all, Andersson commented that "this new island is one seriously impressive and sweet GPU," referring to the card's GPU codename of "Fiji." AMD is expected to launch this card in the third week of June. Either to preempt that, or out of spook (with an effort to siphon off high-end GPU sales), NVIDIA is preparing the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, which will launch in the first week.



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[uuuaaaaaa]

I think that it is time to replace my 6970's

 

[Ferrum Master]

I need that... how much longer??

 

[GhostRyder]

Wow that is a good looking card, I mean seriously a good looking card. I actually like the design they are going with especially with the shine on the metal. Now the question is will it perform as well as it looks?

 

[btarunr]

I need that... how much longer??

About 1 month from now. Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.

 

[RCoon]

About 1 month from now. Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.

Hmm, paper launch for the 390X, hard launch for the 980ti. That means the 980ti will have a whole month and a half to pull market adoption from those who are impatient. For the rest, sit back and wait for the numbers to drop.

 

[btarunr]

Paper launch is at E3 (basically a Rafiki with Simba moment). Hard launch is a week later.

 

[RCoon]

Paper launch is at E3 (basically a Rafiki with Simba moment). Hard launch is a week later.

So 980ti has a month to convince people to buy without knowing factual performance figures of 390X. Makes sense.

People are aware 390X will only have 4GB HBM though, whereas 980ti is going to have 6GB of GDDR5. Bandwidth not considered, people may buy depending on quantity.

EDIT: Save for the 390X with 8GB GDDR5 non-HBM memory of course. Forgot about that one.

 

[btarunr]

So 980ti has a month to convince people to buy without knowing factual performance figures of 390X. Makes sense.

Yeah, that about sums it up. Or NVIDIA thinks 980 Ti is enough, and wants to see it in review graphs of Fiji-XT.

 

[the54thvoid]

May we have a quiet moment in advance for the vile scorn that will be poured on any initial 980ti adopter from seething red masses. Although to be fair, Buying any top tier card right now is a very misguided thing to do.
I actually hope nobody buys the 980ti because Nvidia are out to fleece people with this card before a proverbial wolf comes for the sheep.

But then again, if the sheep turn round and eat the red wolf, it's gonna get ugly.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

Their cards are always so tempting to buy, but, then I remember just how bad their driver support is, then I lose all and any temptation to do so.

 

[fullinfusion]

I CAN'T WAIT!!! I'll take two please

 

[SonicZap]

Didn't Johan Andersson release a similar "leak" of the R9 290X as well? I hope he's right, would be nice to see AMD having the top GPU again. Good efficiency and a good price-to-performance ratio would be even better, but I somehow doubt we're going to see both of those, especially if they're going to give a "Titan-like" special name for the Fiji XT card. But maybe the high price makes their GPU division profitable again... assuming Fiji is good enough.

 

[btarunr]

Didn't Johan Andersson release a similar "leak" of the R9 290X as well?

He did, and it ended up beating everything NVIDIA had on launch day.

 

[AsRock]

Their cards are always so tempting to buy, but, then I remember just how bad their driver support is, then I lose all and any temptation to do so.

Yeah as nVidia drivers are so perfect, and that's from a AMD user who has not had a single issue for years.

And the the crap about MS tested AMD driver well ever thought that AMD just putting tons of time in to Win 10 as that's were most people be going to once MS release W10 for free for the 1st year.

They might need to put in some time for CF but other from that their time spent in getting win 10 drivers right is more important and who can blame them.

 

[SonicZap]

He did, and it ended up beating everything NVIDIA had on launch day.

The card itself was amazing, but the stock cooler gave it a horrible reputation early on, because of which many people still think that the card (including non-ref versions) is simply bad. It's sad how AMD managed to shoot themselves in the foot with such a mistake. I hope that they learned their lesson.

And yeah, I can remember only 2 Radeon driver issues in the past 7 years. And both times they were fixed in the next beta drivers, one caused BSODs in Firefox when viewing flash videos and another broke GPU aspect ratio scaling. The drivers aren't perfect, but in my experience they're not even nearly bad enough to deserve all the FUD. (Maybe if you run Crossfire, I don't have experience with it.)

 

[Casecutter]

Here's the thing... If Nvidia has the 980Ti ready, they've had to be sitting boxed to have the ability to release to reviewers and into the channel in two weeks. That means they already picked their clocks. So either Nvidia knew where Fiji would be, or more just gave it the highest clocks they could before the power efficiency went wacky. While figure they're reference construction that have never left Nvidia control, they just add stickers/box for an AIB's order volume and then deliver into the channel direct. The bulk AIB customs hitting the market figure like first week of July.

Hopefully people will see AMD again for being innovators and working their roadmap no matter the constraints. Nvidia has held back waiting to employ what they have for this ambush, which makes it appear a little desperate.

 

[ironwolf]

Someone hand me some anti-upgrade-itch cream! I was just about ready to jump into a 290X or GTX 970 but with all the goodness coming around the corner I will just wait. But ugh it's tough, hence the request for anti-upgrade-itch cream.

 

[Ferrum Master]

About 1 month from now. Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.

AMD is doing so bad financial wise I will support them this time... I already decided.

On nvidia I got two Tegra based phones... enough support from me for while.

anti-upgrade-itch cream.

Throw your wallet towards your wife... she will be pleased... lol

 

[Batou1986]

>believing anything from a dice employee's mouth
>2012 +3
At least the card looks nice

 

[btarunr]

>believing anything from a dice employee's mouth
>2012 +3
At least the card looks nice

>Posts like it's 4chan
>Techpowerup

At least the argument is valid.

 

[Casecutter]

She'll be named the "Black Pearl"

 

[btarunr]

That means they already picked their clocks.

Same clocks as Titan-X (reportedly). With these specs, there's no doubt that 980 Ti will be slower than Titan-X. Maybe (and this is just my magic ass talking) NVIDIA is preparing to seal a $650-ish price point where Fiji-XT just single-digit-percent slower than Titan-X. *OR* Fiji-XT is faster than Titan-X, NVIDIA knows this, wants to vacuum money from people with $650-ish to spare, before Fiji-XT hits the shelves. If 980 Ti was faster than Fiji-XT, they'd launch it closer to Fiji-XT (like GTX 275 before HD 4890).

 

[RejZoR]

Just give us the damn cards already for fucks sake AMD. Decided not to get GTX 970, hoping we'll get R9-300 series in March-ish and it's end of May now and still nothing...

 

[horik]

Same for me, was about to buy a GTX970 but will wait a bit more to see what AMD has to offer, and when.