ATI cuts 6950 allocation

An Exception · 3 Dec 2010 at 23:04

IT LOOKS LIKE AMD is having difficulties with their ability to supply 6950s, they just cut AIB allocations. Luckily that is not the only news about the 6900 series today.

Short story, 6950 board allocations were cut and probably delayed a little bit from actual shipments. While it wasn't stated explicitly by our source, word on the street says it is due to a last minute BIOS tweak. This is not unusual for product introductions, and there are zero reports of any hardware problems on any Cayman based board.

The upside to all of this is that the allocation of 6970s just went up, a lot. Some were hinting that numbers are really close to that of the 6950 drop. If you know anything about semiconductor production, that should give you a bit of insight about yields and bin splits.S|A

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/12/03/ati-cuts-6950-allocation/?c=6362

wolvers · 4 Dec 2010 at 10:49

Erm, good yields I think that says?

psychas · 4 Dec 2010 at 11:01

weird probably because this i think its drunkenmaster post :

Well that suggests dropping to potentially rumoured 1536 shaders from 1920 shaders is to fill segments rather than required due to yields. That these cores can easily be put into 6970 boards or almost all of them, and its just a new bios needed for the 6950.

Why would you need a new bios, overly optimistic that they've decided(potentially based on 570gtx clock speeds which seemingly are a touch closer to the 580gtx than I and most expected 732Mhz iirc) to increase the shader count on 6950's up to 1664? a 2 cluster rather than 4 cluster drop.

Honestly the 6950 is actually shaping up to be a bit of a poor card, not terrible in any way but, the reason a 5850 was fantastic was it was underclocked by default vs a 5870, thats fine, whack the clock speeds up, it only had 10% shaders missing though, think most gens, way back when 16 pipelines on a top card, 12 on a middle. the 10% drop to the 5850 meant you were paying 50% more for, clock for clock, 10% more performance on the 5870.

Though that persuaded a LOT of people to go with 5850's over 5870's(and 470gtx's over 480gtx's). a £250ish price for a 6950 with a 20% drop over the top part isn't nearly as competitive, but will probably gain more sales at a higher profit for AMD. The 6950 though really does need 1664 shaders to be a "killer" card as the 5850 was.

I can't really think of any other bios related problems that wouldn't cause hardware problems of one kind or another

so that leaves us that only 6970 will be out on 13th?

555BUK · 4 Dec 2010 at 11:05

Have ATI been taken over by NVidia? Are the tables turning again?

psychas · 4 Dec 2010 at 11:09

555BUK said:
Have ATI been taken over by NVidia? Are the tables turning again?

i doubt amd/ati just want to be on top this time, so they keep tuning enabling maybe more shaders the last minute. as quoted above

555BUK · 4 Dec 2010 at 11:18

Seems ATI underestimated the revised Fermi. I am sure they can ramp clocks and shader count up to match/exceed GTX570 and possibly 580, but how much headroom will be left for those who overclock? NVidia AIB's will obviously counter with overclocked Fermi's and we know they can easily hit >850MHz.

ATI's trump card will be performance per watt and hopefully value for money.

easyrider · 4 Dec 2010 at 11:23

Its not all about the shaders!

jorzeh · 4 Dec 2010 at 11:39

easyrider said:
Its not all about the shaders!

Yes it's about Cuda Cores!!!

Personally i don't care i ordered a 580 now to play my warcraft on

seems to like nvidia drivers better :rolleyes:

Maybe i can pick up a 6970 for my work machine :cool:

need to use my credit card right lol :confused:

Rimsy · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:03

555BUK said:
ATI's trump card will be performance per watt

and what a trump that would be....

Skyrocket · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:14

AMD have lost a lot of customers recently it seems.
I guess thats what happens when you miss Christmas sales.........

Rimsy · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:17

Skyrocket said:
AMD have lost a lot of customers recently it seems.
I guess thats what happens when you miss Christmas sales.........

swings and roundabouts. we should just be grateful they remain competitive with each other.

MichaelM · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:25

Skyrocket said:
AMD have lost a lot of customers recently it seems.
I guess thats what happens when you miss Christmas sales.........

Any idea on how many 580's where sold? They either sold very fast or production numbers where low.

Maybe thats why AMD went with a 68** name so people who where buying for christmas presents where drawn to the name and price numbers of their product more and they would not lose out on that many sales.

Skyrocket · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:28

Rimsy said:
swings and roundabouts. we should just be grateful they remain competitive with each other.

yes swings and roundabouts.
But AMD having established a good solid lead with 5870 have dropped the ball and are now neck and neck with nvidia.
It has taken AMD 1 year and 4 months to come up with a 5870 replacement.

THAT is POOR>.

Jokester · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:30

That is, historically, pretty much normal.

Skyrocket · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:31

Jokester said:
That is, historically, pretty much normal.

Its normal IF your moving to a new die process. NOT if your staying on the same manufacturing 40 nm process. :eek:

Jokester · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:41

Skyrocket said:
Its normal IF your moving to a new die process. NOT if your staying on the same manufacturing 40 nm process.

They're only staying on 40nm because 32nm got canned.

TheRealDeal · 4 Dec 2010 at 13:03

Skyrocket said:
Its normal IF your moving to a new die process. NOT if your staying on the same manufacturing 40 nm process.

Actually imo its more normal that amd are late because plans had to be changed because they planned for 32nm not another gpu on 40nm. When plans are changed you need to draw up another plan which takes time. You have to remember this is not a refresh like gtx580 its a new architecture on 40nm which was not really in the original plan.

Skyrocket · 4 Dec 2010 at 13:12

TheRealDeal said:
Actually imo its more normal that amd are late because plans had to be changed because they planned for 32nm not another gpu on 40nm. When plans are changed you need to draw up another plan which takes time. You have to remember this is not a refresh like gtx580 its a new architecture on 40nm which was not really in the original plan.

The 32nm route was shut ages ago and AMD knew this. So this is not an excuse.
What really happened is that AMD were running two destinct processes in 68## and 69##.
They were essentially designing two different cards to cater for specific price points.
Intelligent and profit efficient.
But in doing so they have neglected the 69## (enthusiast market) which has slipped further and further.
It seems that their priority was the 68## and not the 69## which makes sense from financial point of view.

Jokester · 4 Dec 2010 at 13:52

Do you actually know how long it takes to design a GPU? They don't knock these up in a couple of months. You're talking about the best part of 3 years or even more, the decision by TMSC to bin 32nm came late in the design cycle, so if anything AMD have done a great job to get where they are. Nvidia were unlucky with Fermi as they were right at the end of the design cycle when the decision was made.

TheRealDeal · 4 Dec 2010 at 14:08

Jokester said:
Do you actually know how long it takes to design a GPU? They don't knock these up in a couple of months. You're talking about the best part of 3 years or even more, the decision by TMSC to bin 32nm came late in the design cycle, so if anything AMD have done a great job to get where they are. Nvidia were unlucky with Fermi as they were right at the end of the design cycle when the decision was made.

+1 exactly what i was gonna post next but my hangover is to bad lol.