AMD Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" as Fast as GTX 980 Ti: Rumor

[btarunr]

At a presser in Taiwan for its Radeon Pro Duo launch, AMD talked extensively about its upcoming "Polaris" and "Vega" family of GPUs. The company appears to be betting heavily on two SKUs it plans to launch this June, Polaris 10 and Polaris 11. Polaris 10 is an internal designation to Radeon R9 490(X), based on the 14 nm "Ellesmere" silicon. It may be the biggest chip AMD builds on the "Polaris" architecture, but it won't exactly be a "big chip," in that it doesn't succeed "Fiji." That honor is reserved for "Vega," which debuts in early-2017.

The "Ellesmere" silicon is more of AMD's competitor to NVIDIA's GP104. It is rumored that the R9 490(X), based on this silicon, will offer consumers performance rivaling the GeForce GTX 980 Ti (ergo faster than the Radeon R9 Fury X), at a USD $300-ish price point. "Ellesmere" will be a lean-machine, physically featuring up to 2,560 4th generation GCN stream processors (2,304 enabled on Polaris 10), a possible 256-bit GDDR5X memory interface, and a deep sub-200W typical board power rating.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[FordGT90Concept]

AMD will be shooting themselves in the foot if they launch at $300. NVIDIA will be forced to drop their prices to compete. Good for consumers but AMD can't exactly afford that.

 

[ZoneDymo]

AMD will be shooting themselves in the foot if they launch at $300. NVIDIA will be forced to drop their prices to compete. Good for consumers but AMD can't exactly afford that.

ermm how so? ferrari vs volkswagen, volkswagen makes more money.
Sell more because the product is good and people can afford it.

Also not doing it because you are afraid the competition will do so as well becomes borderline price fixing.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Because they won't be able to sell Fury X nor Fury cards with the 490X at that price point. They should drop the Fury X/Fury in price placing 490X above their price until they clear Fury X/Fury inventory.

 

[cadaveca]

Because they won't be able to sell Fury X nor Fury cards with the 490X at that price point. They should drop the Fury X/Fury in price placing 490X above their price until they clear Fury X/Fury inventory.

Perhaps they don't actually hold any inventory, and their partners do? Which is tantamount as the same thing, but...


FuryX is all but sold out locally (Memory Express has 7 locations across Western Canada, 3 cards in stock from all; Fury and Nano, same story). Dunno about other retailers.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

At $300, it would compete with R9 390/X too. I could see having virtually no inventory of Fury/X but no inventory of 390/X? Seems doubtful. Supply vs demand also don't work when supply dries up. The only way the $300 launch price makes sense is if all of the following are true:
-Fury X inventory is almost gone
-Fury inventory is almost gone
-390X inventory is almost gone
-390 inventory is almost gone
-they're confident there is going to be a massive supply/surplus of 490/490X cards on launch day.

If that is the case, AMD is in an excellent position to make a lot of money at the $300 price point. It just seems so unlikely which is why I'm skeptical of the $300 price.

 

[Assimilator]

I should make some slides showing something that people desperately want to be true, then release them to websites that do no fact-checking.

 

[Xzibit]

Perhaps they don't actually hold any inventory, and their partners do? Which is tantamount as the same thing, but...

If the partners are holding stock there really is no obligation to lower price since those units have been sold and cleared from AMD stock. Partners would have to take the price drop hit.

They could also diverted Fiji towards Radeon Pro Duo for remaining sales. Targeting the Prosumer & VR market for the remaining stock on hand.

We also don't know where the performance really lies and how it will eventually compare to Nvidias offering in that segment.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

Ooooo, I might just snag a card from AMD this time around.

 

[john_]

That's not a rumor. That's someone's fantasy. Not happening. I am betting on Nano performance and price for the 490X.

 

[the54thvoid]

That's not a rumor. That's someone's fantasy. Not happening. I am betting on Nano performance and price for the 490X.

Given the leak suggests 'nearly' as fast and not 'as fast' (which is a big difference for arguing about) I'd agree with you. Nano or even Fury speed would be good and if it hits $300, well, seriously amazing deal right there. I find it very hard to believe though. AMD haven't released a top tier single card at a relatively low price point for a very long time. Their shareholders wouldn't be happy if they undersold themselves. When a stock listed company has a great product on it's hands (potentially top tier) you can't sell it cheap.

One thing I'm very keen on is seeing the architecture and whether or not it'll return some semblance of overclocking to us. Fiji was hampered with the HBM on die and probable heat related core overclocking spillover (or memory/core speed ratio sweet spots). Without HBM on die to worry about, there could be a lot of leg room in the new card. That would be nice because if Polaris can pull a Maxwell overclocking feat, it could definitely put it right up there.

Also... given how Async loving (and DX12 in general) GCN is and how we've seen in some cases a 390X outperform a Fiji core in DX12, this new card could be a DX12 gaming legend. Very keen to see it.

But, if it disappoints, I'll try to remain unsurprised.

 

[john_]

Who ever thought that $300 is a nice price for 490X, forgot one more thing. What price will AMD put on 490? 480X? 480? 470X? Are they going to be selling 470 for $100? And those are the starting prices. What about prices 6 months latter? 470 for $75? Not going to happen.

One more thing. We have only seen AMD demoing it's new cards. The biggest joke around the web for GPUs is the question "Where is Pascal?". Still, Nvidia is believed to be the first coming out with cards? Why? Because AMD waits for Nvidia to decide the price points for the next generation of cards. With empty pockets and while preparing for AM4 and Zen introduction, you don't start a price war with a company that has it's pockets full, except if you are suicidal.

 

[Melvis]

Sweet so we will see it here in Australia for around $600-700? awesome...

 

[Frick]

That makes me excited about what cards in the $100 range can do.

 

[Nihilus]

Does this mean the Sony PS4k will be closer to that of a 980Ti? If so, awesome and it should handle 4k nicely.
Perhaps they improve the QUALITY of the shaders and not just the QUANTITY.

PC Master Race will argue in 3,2,1...

 

[sabre23]

I think 300$ price point for AMD polaris 10 is true because AMD has stated polaris 10 as mainstream card.
But i do not believe it will match GTX 980 Ti but more like 95% performance of GTX 980 or equal to R9 390.

 

[Vayra86]

Does this mean the Sony PS4k will be closer to that of a 980Ti? If so, awesome and it should handle 4k nicely.
Perhaps they improve the QUALITY of the shaders and not just the QUANTITY.

PC Master Race will argue in 3,2,1...

Does this have ANY relation to the topic at hand? Get out of here.

 

[Prima.Vera]

That's fantasy...

 

[Nihilus]

Does this have ANY relation to the topic at hand? Get out of here.

Nah, I'll stick around.
You see, the PS4k is supposed to use a chip as this as the Polaris 10. So, if you can follow the huge 1 degree of seperation, it does relate to the story.
The story is just a rumor btw, so that sort of opens up the topic anyhow.

 

[bug]

AMD will be shooting themselves in the foot if they launch at $300. NVIDIA will be forced to drop their prices to compete. Good for consumers but AMD can't exactly afford that.

It's basically about what margins they would have at $300.
Chips at 14/16nm will be much smaller, thus much cheaper than they are at 28nm. And it seems we won't get a big performance boost to go along, thus saving should go mostly into costs/price.

 

[Vayra86]

Nah, I'll stick around.
You see, the PS4k is supposed to use a chip as this as the Polaris 10. So, if you can follow the huge 1 degree of seperation, it does relate to the story.
The story is just a rumor btw, so that sort of opens up the topic anyhow.

So what? The PS4 will always use a custom design because of its odd GDDR5 setup. It is entirely unrelated because that chip will never appear as a discrete GPU. The consoles use APUs and there is only a very loose relation to the 'equivalent' discrete card positioned against it. Just like the 'old' PS4 was somewhere in between a 7850 and a 7870, but neither of both. The performance of Polaris 10 says exactly nothing about the performance of a PS4.5.

On top of that, you were baiting with the 'PC Master Race' comment, and I don't like that. Hence the advice to find another place still stands.

 

[Nihilus]

So what? The PS4 will always use a custom design because of its odd GDDR5 setup. It is entirely unrelated because that chip will never appear as a discrete GPU. The consoles use APUs and there is only a very loose relation to the 'equivalent' discrete card positioned against it. Just like the 'old' PS4 was somewhere in between a 7850 and a 7870, but neither of both. The performance of Polaris 10 says exactly nothing about the performance of a PS4.5.

The PS4 had a shader count around a "7860" and seems to perform about the same as well (1080p in most games.) The lesser XB1 is just above that of a 7770 and performs similiar as well (720p, 900p?, weak 1080p)

I was under the impression that the PS4k will use Polaris architecture, so a 2300 sp PS4k should be similiar to that of a 2300 sp Polaris.

As soon as consoles reach 4k, I am sure it will be "5k, 8k, or GTFO" from the PC master race

 

[Estaric]

The PS4 had a shader count around a "7860" and seems to perform about the same as well (1080p in most games.) The lesser XB1 is just above that of a 7770 and performs similiar as well (720p, 900p?, weak 1080p)

I was under the impression that the PS4k will use Polaris architecture, so a 2300 sp PS4k should be similiar to that of a 2300 sp Polaris.

As soon as consoles reach 4k, I am sure it will be "5k, 8k, or GTFO" from the PC master race

As he stated, and im sure alot of people would appreciate it if you didnt try baiting people into fighting against it. There in no way shape or form do i believe that a "PS4.5" could be anywhere near the level of a 980ti. I also dont believe Sony or AMD would be willing to put that level of graphics power in a console.

 

[Nihilus]

Alright, I only did it the second time becaus3 he got choked up on it the first time. I'll play nice. What does Sony have to lose from putting that much power in a console? They still have the PS4 for casual gamers. Since the same games can be scaled up or down, they would not be dividing the market that much. (unlike the GENESIS, 3DO, Sega CD days)

 

[Lionheart]

Alright, I only did it the second time becaus3 he got choked up on it the first time. I'll play nice. What does Sony have to lose from putting that much power in a console? They still have the PS4 for casual gamers. Since the same games can be scaled up or down, they would not be dividing the market that much. (unlike the GENESIS, 3DO, Sega CD days)

Lol your original comment was fine, ignore the softies.