AMD's Navi 31 Might Clock to 3 GHz, Partner Cards Will be Able to Overclock

[TheLostSwede]

Based on details from a PCWorld livestream following AMD's launch of the Radeon RX 7000-series, it was revealed that AMD has designed the Navi 31 GPU to be able to scale as high as 3 GHz. In other words, it appears that AMD has power limited its cards, at least for the SKUs that the company has announced so far. This could be for many reasons, but most likely to try to find a balance between power and performance. The details of the 3 GHz scaling did however not come from AMD directly, but rather from Jarred Walton over at Tom's Hardware. That said, the information was apparently shared with the media by AMD at the event.

In the livestream, it was also confirmed that partner cards will be able to overclock, so expect to see some factory overclocked cards, with higher power draw. This could be why, in part, that ASUS went with a much larger cooler on its TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900-series cards. As ASUS didn't reveal any clock speeds or TDPs of its two cards, we don't really know what to expect, but we'd be surprised if these cards weren't factory overclocked to some degree when they launch in December.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[john_]

I think it's easy to assume that, on the contrary to Nvidia, AMD is not trying to put it's AIB partners out of business. The reference cards are targeting efficiency, keep their clocks down, only come with two 8 pin connectors to limit overclockability. On the other hand, Nvidia's reference card design is trying to get the maximum from the GPU, leaving little room for meaningful improvements and performance gains for Nvidia's AIBs. And of course AMD's pricing leaves also a huge margin between 7900XTX price and 4090's price. AIBs have plenty of room to play ball with the XTX card before coming close to Nvidia's top models in pricing. Only with the XT they don't have much room, only $100 before reaching XTX price. Which means that maybe some 7900 XT AIB models could, using overclocking, reach 7900XTX performance, or AMD might done a price drop to that model sooner than we expect. We could probably see 7900XT dropping to $850 or even close to $800 when the RX 6950XT sells off.

 

[wolf]

Everyone seemed top be expecting clocks much higher, but I'm fairly satisfied by the focus on efficiency while retaining 350w max.

Remains to be seen whether they have much clock headroom left or not, I'll quietly hope for yes, but I tend to think they are still going to follow RDNA2 roughly, there's a few hundred mhz left, but nothing earth shattering. my 2c

 

[RedelZaVedno]

3Ghz? Now we're talking. It all comes down to how linearly efficiency scales. We might be looking at 4090 competitor IF 2.5Ghz frequency is not off efficiency curve already. If it is, you'll probably get maybe 10, 15% more performance at the price of 500W or more. Totally not worth it imho.

 

[Lucas_]

I love competition , cannot way to see Nvidia get an arrow in the knee just for thier overpricing and trying to close the market.

 

[Garrus]

3Ghz? Now we're talking. It all comes down to how linearly efficiency scales. We might be looking at 4090 competitor IF 2.5Ghz frequency is not off efficiency curve already. If it is, you'll probably get maybe 10, 15% more performance at the price of 500W or more. Totally not worth it imho.

performance doesn't matter, the psychology of FUN

I just want to see the 3Ghz in afterburner when I play, that's how I roll

 

[fancucker]

I love competition , cannot way to see Nvidia get an arrow in the knee just for thier overpricing and trying to close the market.

They're pioneers and leaders in temporal upscaling and ray tracing technologies, and it's safe to assume they have the rasterization crown. They deserve their market dominance. People cry for some miraculous AMD victory but 80 percent of sales across the performance segments will be Nvidia. People want a premium, reliable product and that's where team green delivers.

 

[KarymidoN]

The problem with those clocks is cooling and power draw, 400w on partner cards?

 

[phill]

I'll just write this - I'll wait for the reviews and leave it there

 

[WhoDecidedThat]

7900XTX is rated for 355 Watts @ Default Power Limit.
I am very curious to see it being compared against a 4090 @ 79% Power Limit (79% of 450 Watts = 355 Watts).
It should result in very similar power consumption and give a more complete picture on who has the better product (if one ignores cost/personal preference).

 

[the54thvoid]

They're pioneers and leaders in temporal upscaling and ray tracing technologies, and it's safe to assume they have the rasterization crown. They deserve their market dominance. People cry for some miraculous AMD victory but 80 percent of sales across the performance segments will be Nvidia. People want a premium, reliable product and that's where team green delivers.

I would disgaree with that. Premium implies the best but many people would prefer a reliable and effective product. The 4090 is the halo gfx card of either brand. It's priced accordingly. But a lot of people won't buy it, the majority won't buy it. The majority purchase from further down the table. This is where AMD makes sense.

 

[Bomby569]

The details of the 3 GHz scaling did however not come from AMD directly, but rather from Jarred Walton over at Tom's Hardware. That said, the information was apparently shared with the media by AMD at the event.

this quote is really confusing.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

this quote is really confusing.

simple, AMD shared the info with the Tom's representative at the event, he shared with Jarred W, so he could out it for the rest of us.

 

[TheLostSwede]

this quote is really confusing.

Watch the video. Nothing confusing about it, he shared something he wasn't supposed to say, yet.

 

[Bomby569]

Watch the video. Nothing confusing about it, he shared something he wasn't supposed to say, yet.

oh ok

 

[ZoneDymo]

Everyone seemed top be expecting clocks much higher, but I'm fairly satisfied by the focus on efficiency while retaining 350w max.

Remains to be seen whether they have much clock headroom left or not, I'll quietly hope for yes, but I tend to think they are still going to follow RDNA2 roughly, there's a few hundred mhz left, but nothing earth shattering. my 2c

I would love it if AMD would just commit to set power requirements per sku, and just innovate elsewhere instead of moving the power consumption goalpost YET again.
Imagine if it was jsut set value, top end 350 watts, next one down 300 watt, 250, 200, etc just for every generation in the future.

With one unlocked crazy halo product for overclock records but that one would be very limited supply.

 

[MrDweezil]

They've been publicly committing to the 50% performance per watt improvement for a while now, so even though the hardware might have the clock headroom, maybe that's as far as they can push the reference design without missing that mark. Their partners made no such claims though.

 

[rv8000]

“This might be why ASUS decided to use a larger cooler”, don’t make me laugh.

Haven’t they jank rigged coolers like their DUCII series’s of coolers for AMD cards before?

 

[Fouquin]

I would love it if AMD would just commit to set power requirements per sku, and just innovate elsewhere instead of moving the power consumption goalpost YET again.

NVIDIA are the ones who moved the goalpost up to 450W. AMD didn't move up in power from 6900 XT to 7900 XT, and only moved up by 20W on 6950 XT to 7950 XTX. If you're pissed about your 20W take it up with NVIDIA.

Haven’t they jank rigged coolers like their DUCII series’s of coolers for AMD cards before?

Yes, and that was nearly 10 years ago (R9 290X).

 

[bonehead123]

but that one would be very limited supply.

Nah, I've already got 63.27 of those top end 7900 XTX cards installed at work and running at 3.77 Gghz & sucking up 548.16 watts on LN2, with anutha 112.48 arriving next week, hahahaha And while my NDA won't allow me to say how much I paid for them, suffice it to say that it was nowhere near launch price/MSRP.....
/s

 

[Chaitanya]

NVIDIA are the ones who moved the goalpost up to 450W. AMD didn't move up in power from 6900 XT to 7900 XT, and only moved up by 20W on 6950 XT to 7950 XTX. If you're pissed about your 20W take it up with NVIDIA.

nVidia didnt have to move goalpost and could have left headroom for AIB to create OC models but they just cant control themselves.

 

[medi01]

3Ghz? Now we're talking.

I doubt the official "boosts to 2.5Ghz" figure.

Whatever have been presented is amazing as is at "stock".
522mm2 of mixed N5/N6 node, with biggest chiplet being 300mm2.

Killed one similarly priced product (4080 12GB).
Is poised to wipe the floor with other (4080 16GB).
Threatens product way above its weight category (600mm2 power hungry 4090 that costs twice as much and no, I'm not buying $1600 announced price, it costs 2300+ Euro here, good 400 more than it should after counting in 19% VAT)

 

[ModEl4]

7900XTX in order to hit 61TF it needs at least 2482MHz boost clock (2.3GHz=game clock)
So let's say 2.5GHz boost shader clock for reference and if frontend retains the 200MHz advantage then around 2.7GHz boost clock for the frontend which is just -10% from the 3GHz OC claim. (Think 6900XT ASROCK Formula OC level)

 

[RedBear]

I think it's easy to assume that, on the contrary to Nvidia, AMD is not trying to put it's AIB partners out of business.

Now, now, Nvidia is even apparently allowing them to sell dual slot blower RTX 4090s. That's very generous from Jensen if they won't disappear in a few weeks.

 

[AnotherReader]

Everyone seemed top be expecting clocks much higher, but I'm fairly satisfied by the focus on efficiency while retaining 350w max.

Remains to be seen whether they have much clock headroom left or not, I'll quietly hope for yes, but I tend to think they are still going to follow RDNA2 roughly, there's a few hundred mhz left, but nothing earth shattering. my 2c

Didn't RDNA2 have better clock headroom than Ampere?