NVIDIA GeForce RTX Ampere Chips Feature Three Binning Tiers, Mostly Good Dies are Present

[AleksandarK]

Chip binning is a process of sorting out the manufactured silicon by quality. That means that each chip that comes from the silicon wafer is tested and sorted by different features. For example, a chip is tested for how much voltage it takes for operation, how cool it runs, and of course how it overclocks. By putting their chips through various testing, manufacturers often create binning tiers, where they can differentiate good and bad chips, so they know where to send, and if they should send the chips. The biggest and most complex approach for sending chips is for graphics cards. As there are different AIBs, manufacturers like NVIDIA and AMD need to send them chips of various qualities to incorporate in their products. It is a rather time-consuming and complex process to find out the bin type and the tier of chips, however today we are getting some information from Igor's Lab.

According to their sources, it is said that NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX Ampere lineup features three binning tiers. There is "Bin 0" which represents an okay chip that can perform as intended, "Bin 1" chips which are good processors, and "Bin 2" processors which represent the best quality chips with the highest performance characteristics. These "Bin 2" dies run cooler compared to the rest and achieve higher overclocking speed. In reality, the binning represents coordination between the chip designer (NVIDIA in this case) and the manufacturer (Samsung with its 8N 8 nm process). It is said that from the complete pilot run of Ampere chips, Samsung ends up with 30% of the "Bin 0" dies, 60% of "Bin 1" dies, and only 10% of "Bin 2" dies. The production period was quite short and these numbers are good for Samsung, as they probably didn't have much time to work on it, so we can expect these numbers to improve.


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[londiste]

This is very little useful information.
- Which die are we talking about?
- What exactly do tiers represent - is Tier 0 something like Turing's non-oc cores that run at or slightly above spec?
- There is no comparison with binning results of some other die or some other manufacturing process.

 

[lemkeant]

For those of us looking at these cards, this Samsung 8nm process is making me a bit nervous compared to TSMC 7nm...

 

[kayjay010101]

Hopefully these are differently named dies, like the "A" distinction that the 2000-series cards had for their better binned die.

 

[laszlo]

so 30% bin 0= FE
60% bin 1= AIB stock speeds+ min. OC
10% bin2 = high OC version

???

 

[EarthDog]

Water. It's still wet.

 

[Shatun_Bear]

Bin 0, the worst chips, will be the ones on store shelves.

Bin 2 chips, the best of the best, sent to reviewers.

 

[RH92]

so 30% bin 0= FE
60% bin 1= AIB stock speeds+ min. OC
10% bin2 = high OC version

???

FE bin 0 ? LMAO , NAH Nvidia always keeps the best bin for their FE cards so you can expect FE to be in the 10% bin 2 . As of bin 0 that's probably the cheap 3rd party models .

 

[mtcn77]

For those of us looking at these cards, this Samsung 8nm process is making me a bit nervous compared to TSMC 7nm...

Where could we have seen this? 3... 2... 1...

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

For those of us looking at these cards, this Samsung 8nm process is making me a bit nervous compared to TSMC 7nm...

We'll see, RDNA2 won't just be on 7nm, it will be on a more advanced 7nm node than, for example, Ryzen 3000/4000(mobile), and should clock even higher based on the leaks of early Zen3 engineering samples reaching 4.9ghz...meanimg 5.0Ghz is definitely a strong possibility. It'll be interesting to see how RDNA2 turns out with clocks, especially considering how high the PS5 allegedly clocks (2.23Ghz in an APU with power/heat restrictions).

 

[laszlo]

FE bin 0 ? LMAO , NAH Nvidia always keeps the best bin for their FE cards so you can expect FE to be in the 10% bin 2 . As of bin 0 that's probably the cheap 3rd party models .

how do you know? let's say i'm NV and my purpose is to make more&more money... FE i used bin 0 as is stock speed and perform as designed; bin 1 i can charge more ; bin 2 i can charge even more....and only for sent testing FE cards to reviewers i use bin 2..... who can know what i'm doing?

 

[Shatun_Bear]

We'll see, RDNA2 won't just be on 7nm, it will be on a more advanced 7nm node than, for example, Ryzen 3000/4000(mobile), and should clock even higher based on the leaks of early Zen3 engineering samples reaching 4.9ghz...meanimg 5.0Ghz is definitely a strong possibility. It'll be interesting to see how RDNA2 turns out with clocks, especially considering how high the PS5 allegedly clocks (2.23Ghz in an APU with power/heat restrictions).

I think for RDNA2 card with 40CUs and under, clockspeeds will reach around 2.3-2.4Ghz.

A 72/76/80CU chip prob tops out at around 2ghz with good binning.

 

[RH92]

how do you know?

Easy .... FE have been among the best OC cards when put under water ( to remove the air cooling limitation ) and it's public knowledge by now that Nvidia keeps the best bins for themselves and some exclusive very high end third party cards aka Galax HOF , EVGA Kingpin etc

 

[kayjay010101]

how do you know? let's say i'm NV and my purpose is to make more&more money... FE i used bin 0 as is stock speed and perform as designed; bin 1 i can charge more ; bin 2 i can charge even more....and only for sent testing FE cards to reviewers i use bin 2..... who can know what i'm doing?

As @RH92 says, it's common knowledge that FE cards have very good binning. It was the case with the 1000 series, and it was even moreso the case with the 2000 series. If you bought 2000-series cards from Nvidia, it was extremely likely you got the A chip, the better binned one.

 

[Vayra86]

FE bin 0 ? LMAO , NAH Nvidia always keeps the best bin for their FE cards so you can expect FE to be in the 10% bin 2 . As of bin 0 that's probably the cheap 3rd party models .

Unsubstantiated BS. Source??

As @RH92 says, it's common knowledge that FE cards have very good binning. It was the case with the 1000 series, and it was even moreso the case with the 2000 series. If you bought 2000-series cards from Nvidia, it was extremely likely you got the A chip, the better binned one.

But non FEs also performed stellar, and any chip that didnt was marked with special letters of some sort.

Numbers or all this talk is just emotion likely because the FE is considered special for unknown reasons.

If Turings FE was a great bin, explain to me why they needed a 10W higher TDP budget?!

 

[Sykobee]

So with GA102 3090, we could have?

Bin 0 - $1500 'cheap' OEM
Bin 1 - FE and up to $1700 AIB
Bin 2 - >$1700 AIB

 

[RH92]

Unsubstantiated BS. Source??

Go educate yourself , read some reviews check some facts them come to talk me later about BS !

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

Nice extra way to justify marking models up.

 

[kayjay010101]

But non FEs also performed stellar, and any chip that didnt was marked with special letters of some sort.
Numbers or all this talk is just emotion likely because the FE is considered special for unknown reasons.

Non FEs also performed stellar? Yes, on air, and if they were the A chip, they were good on water too. I've never stated otherwise. Although the FE cards had a higher change of getting the A chip, especially considering that they cost as much as the cheapest AIB cards that were virtually guaranteed to be the non-a chips.
The non-a had a 280W power limit even with BIOS modding, while the A chips could go upto 380W with BIOS modding. That's another 100W of headroom for overclocking, which was huge for watercooling. If we're talking air, it's not relevant as you'll face thermal restraints way before power, but for those of us who put them under water the A chips were definitely worth the premium, and thus the FE cards were a good bet as they were cheap and virtually guaranteed to be the A chip.

If Turings FE was a great bin, explain to me why they needed a 10W higher TDP budget?!

Because they performed better out of the box as they had the superior A chip?

 

[Dammeron]

Unsubstantiated BS. Source??

"Nvidia cherry-picks the most robust GPU samples for its Founders Edition cards, which gives them a performance advantage over the basic reference configuration. " - from Tom's Hardware.

And it's been like that since FE was established. Usually FE cards are the ones that eat less power with the same settings. Occasionally some AIBs offer better effieciency, cause manufacturers also try to bin what they get and sometimes they also strike a jackpot, but usually FE cards get the best chips.

 

[Chomiq]

Bin 0, the worst chips, will be the ones on store shelves.

Bin 2 chips, the best of the best, sent to reviewers.

Of course, they keep the best bins for reviewers:

 

[Animalpak]

And of course they are selling them with the same price, regardless of this "bin" thing ...

This procedure is well known, always has been like this.

 

[Assimilator]

Oh my god, who cares?

If NVIDIA wants to put better-binned chips on their FE cards to justify the price premium, it's their prerogative. If other graphics card manufacturers are willing to pay more to get access to better bins and put a price premium on cards with those chips, again, their prerogative.

Nobody is forcing you to buy the better-binned cards, and you aren't getting ripped off by buying a baseline-binned card, because everyone else is getting that same baseline. And of course the baseline will improve as the chip yields improve, so newer cards should clock better than older ones - are people going to start complaining about this too?

As for reviewers, do you really think that NVIDIA or AMD is going to be stupid enough to send binned silicon in this day and age of easily-manufactured reddit outrage?

God damn it people, use your brains.

Bin 0, the worst chips, will be the ones on store shelves.

Bin 2 chips, the best of the best, sent to reviewers.

Instead of posting unsubstantiated nonsense, why not try not posting at all? To save us from having to read it?

For those of us looking at these cards, this Samsung 8nm process is making me a bit nervous compared to TSMC 7nm...

Because you're more qualified at choosing a foundry than NVIDIA, who has been doing this for decades?

 

[EarthDog]

Oh my god, who cares?

We desperately need a roll eyes emoji in the list here. lolol

Hater gonna hate man... HGH. Studies show. lololol

 

[Night]

Which translates to.. Founders Edition will have the best quality chips, else goes to AIBs