AMD working on Malta dual-chip card

Final8y · 22 Feb 2013 at 05:37

1GHz+ version of HD 7990
It looks like AMD is not done with HD 7000 series Radeons and it will introduce a few new products this year.

We have heard from multiple sources now that AMD is working on a card codenamed Malta. The Malta is a dual-chip card and we are not sure if it is based on Tahiti like HD 7990 cards. The Malta card should have a clock well over 1GHz and should become the fastest offering from AMD. It should also be available to more than a few partners.

This card should come in the next few months but some of our sources do indicate that the card will launch soon. AMD probably wants to see the real world performance of Nvidia’s Geforce Titan and then follow up with its new card.

These GPUs will likely beat the 1050MHz that Asus delivers with its dual-chip water cooled ASUS ARES2-6GD5, 2x Radeon HD 7970 card, but we still don’t know whether it will outpace NV’s Titan.

The launch of the card is expected in the first half of 2013, but we don’t have a better date than that. AMD is adjusting a lot of its launch schedules. We have learned that AMD’s decision to push back the HD 8000 series launch is tactical and not technical in nature. We will try to learn more about it this week.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/30539-amd-working-on-malta-dual-chip-card

Deceptor · 22 Feb 2013 at 05:54

The plot thickens, here's hoping it'll perform well and have a price to match that.

Kaapstad · 22 Feb 2013 at 06:35

I hope AMD pull it off - I think they can come up with a quality dual GPU card.

The Asus ARES II is a monstrosity with its cooling solution

I back AMD to do much better.

humbug · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:14

The saga continues, performance is not an impossible amount to pull back from Titan in the single GPU solution, if they can bring a dual GPU solution whose individual GPU's claw back some of that performance it could get very interesting indeed.

Routing for healthy competition.

VIPER258 · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:18

Sounds promising. Here's hoping it has better price performace than titan.

dave_beast · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:19

silk300 said:
Sounds promising. Here's hoping it has better price performace than titan.

It won't be hard to beat the most ridicilously priced single gpu card of all time ever

Suarez7 · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:36

Would be interested if it was single GPU. It's not exactly going to be hard to beat Titan using a dual chip...

Frenzy · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:40

It's already won in both price and performance vs the titan, it's whether you want to go dual gpu or not which will be the decider.

Suarez7 · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:43

Frenzy said:
It's already won in both price and performance vs the titan, it's whether you want to go dual gpu or not which will be the decider.

Well I could already get a 690 or 7990 to do that. This will have to be priced below those two unless it performs considerably better.

pgi947 · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:48

I'd guess £650-700, hopefully dual slot and doesn't sound like the 6990.

Kaapstad · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:49

ACEOWNER said:
Well I could already get a 690 or 7990 to do that. This will have to be priced below those two unless it performs considerably better.

I think AMD could come up with something special, they could go the whole hog and produce a version complete with waterblocks and binned GPUs. Price wise they could still undercut the Titan.

Armageus · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:52

Arguably at this point some of the earlier stories and interviews possibly make sense
e.g.

Anandtech said:
AMD has been very careful with their words here, but the gist of matters is that the 7900 series will remain the mainstay of AMD’s enthusiast product line until the end of 2013.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6751/amd-reiterates-2013-gpu-plans-sea-islands-beyond

They said that 7900 series would be the mainstay of the product for the rest of the year, they didn't say there wouldn't be any additional models to the 7900 series though.

Given that 7970 is now a 13 month old product, and presumably would have been in production for a bit longer than that - maybe yield has improved so much that they can could cherry pick a 1.2Ghz core part for a single gpu product 7980 maybe?, and 1.1Ghz parts for a non-limited edition 7990?

Anyone have any meaningful benchmarks of a [email protected] or thereabouts - would be interesting to see how close to a stock titan it would get.

EDIT: Have just looked for some benchmarks and between 1.2Ghz and 1.3Ghz gets between 10-15% over a stock Ghz Edition (Titan being on average ~20-25% faster than Ghz). If the new 13.3 drivers (or whatever they end up being called) have the promised performance boosts, then such a card could sneak ahead of the Titan.... but lots of IFs.

Suarez7 · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:52

I hope it is competitive as I would definitely consider it. I don't think they'd go to the bother of launching a competitor unless they knew it could perform.

Locky · 22 Feb 2013 at 11:09

My price prediction is £599inc

spoffle · 22 Feb 2013 at 11:10

Even if it didn't beat out the titan, it will still be very close and realistically not far enough behind that the titan would offer more playable frames, especially given the price gulf.

pgi947 · 22 Feb 2013 at 11:34

Seemingly my old 7970 lightning that would bench 1340mhz scores higher then a stock titan in 3dmark11, so around 1250mhz may just about match it at stock, it's once clocks are applied to titan the difference shows.

But then again if they get fantastic yields to give 1.2+ at stock then it may even push 1450mhz+ and things would get interesting.

Speculation though, it's a wonderful thing

humbug · 22 Feb 2013 at 11:44

Armageus said:
Arguably at this point some of the earlier stories and interviews possibly make sense
e.g.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6751/amd-reiterates-2013-gpu-plans-sea-islands-beyond

They said that 7900 series would be the mainstay of the product for the rest of the year, they didn't say there wouldn't be any additional models to the 7900 series though.

Given that 7970 is now a 13 month old product, and presumably would have been in production for a bit longer than that - maybe yield has improved so much that they can could cherry pick a 1.2Ghz core part for a single gpu product 7980 maybe?, and 1.1Ghz parts for a non-limited edition 7990?

Anyone have any meaningful benchmarks of a [email protected] or thereabouts - would be interesting to see how close to a stock titan it would get.

EDIT: Have just looked for some benchmarks and between 1.2Ghz and 1.3Ghz gets between 10-15% over a stock Ghz Edition (Titan being on average ~20-25% faster than Ghz). If the new 13.3 drivers (or whatever they end up being called) have the promised performance boosts, then such a card could sneak ahead of the Titan.... but lots of IFs.

I have never seen AMD make any suggestion, let alone promises that 13.3 will boost performance, unless i miss that? in which case please post a link

Martini1991 · 22 Feb 2013 at 11:46

Isn't it dumfoundingly obvious it'll out perform Titan :|.

Suarez7 · 22 Feb 2013 at 11:48

humbug said:
I have never seen AMD make any suggestion, let alone promises that 13.3 will boost performance, unless i miss that? in which case please post a link

I think LtMatt has a part to play in this lol. He's mentioned a few times he thinks 13.3 will introduce another performance increase.

Martini1991 said:
Isn't it dumfoundingly obvious it'll out perform Titan :|.

That's what I thought, being dual GPU it will definitely out perform TITAN. If they can do this at around the £600 mark though, they will steal the top end market imo.

humbug · 22 Feb 2013 at 11:51

Martini1991 said:
Isn't it dumfoundingly obvious it'll out perform Titan :|.

I think we are looking more for a situation where whatever GPU's they glue onto the PCB just one of them can get closer to Titan for when CF doesn't work or has 0 scaling.

Which is not all that uncommon.

I wonder, and am just speculating here, if we may get a sneak peak at the HD 8###, since they already exist, they might just use a pair.