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AMD Locks Down HBM Frequency on Fiji Cards

Silent_Scone

Silent_Scone

Silent_Scone

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Source: http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-fiji-arrives-radeon-r9-fury-x-details_166515#OpQZsfoAmLt9ajjt.99

One interesting thing that we just learned this week is that AMD will not allow you to overclock the memory when the first Fiji cards are released. AMD feels that the memory technology is too new and there is more than enough bandwidth, so they are locking down the ability to overclock the memory in AMD Overdrive. This might change down the road, but for the time being only the core clock can be overclocked by end users.
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How do people feel about this? What what reason do we think there is for it?

Yes, I think this does deserve it's own thread. NVIDIA have been criticised in recent years for their Greenlight program. If you're unfamiliar with this, it is essentially a restriction both present in the driver and potentially card (which has still yet to be identified) that stops the card from exceeding a certain voltage. Although this is in most part due to the VREGs used which aren't normally as robust as AMD counterparts on reference models.

Sensible discussion please with overclocking at the forefront. Do we think this will just be an Overdrive limitation which is easily overwritten? Or do we think this is a BIOS restriction that may also be overwritten. Or finally not at all.

Personally, I can't see why - given AMD's open arms approach to both board partners and consumers in the past with regards to voiding warranty. Of course all boards have an amperage limit, some higher than others - but to lock the frequency down potentially means there isn't a great deal of leg room on gen 1.0?

Personally my feeling on it as a general consumer and overclocking aside, not too bothered. I run most of my cards at stock frequency for gaming, and the bandwidth is there already. Others may not be so understanding if this is a physical restraint that cannot be overcome.
 
Seems fine to me, I don't see any point in trying to overclock some HBM.. to an even higher HB :p

New tech is fragile, the last thing they want is people breaking cards.
 
I thought that review had overclocked their sample by 100Mhz on the core and 500Mhz on the memory?

Seems odd to then sell cards which are then bios locked or driver locked?

If driver locked, they cant be with the 15.15 shipped drivers that reviewers have so it must be bios locked if AMD what end users not to do this.

But since ocuk already have their cards, how likely is it they flashed a new different bios on them before they shipped?

Or is it going to be a case early cards can overclock their memory and later cards won't?
 
It doesn't worry me at all, if I can clock the core i'm happy. I guess memory tweaking will come later down the line, when deemed 'safer' as overclocking is never 100% safe.
 
GPU overclocking enthusiasts have been shafted for years now. No or limited overvoltage control etc.

I can understand why GPU enthusiasts should be annoyed at this decision.
 
VincentHanna said:
You can't really think of it in the same was as GDDR5 though.

It's a new technology and if overclocking it brings no benefit at all, then why not lock it off.
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Hi,

This is entirely subjective though. AMD's own tests show a huge gap between NVIDIA parts in reputably memory intensive game benchmarks.

The bandwidth on Fiji relatively is less than 5% higher than Hawaii at 56.8MBs vs 59.5MBs per GFlop/s.
 
VincentHanna said:
You can't really think of it in the same was as GDDR5 though.

It's a new technology and if overclocking it brings no benefit at all, then why not lock it off.
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Its hard to know if overclocking gives a benefit if users cant do it and try .
I can see more and more stuff being locked down however
 
We also don't know how quickly HBM degrades with frequency and voltage. Given the density, it's not a stretch to imagine quite quickly.

As things progress you might find that vendors are more liberal with it. In fact that's probably the most likely reason come to think of it.

AMD will probably speak out about it eventually.
 
of the things that AMD messed up with the Fury, this isn't one of them

HBM already gives massive increase in bandwidth, I can't see that overclocking it would actually give any benefit

now HDMI 1.4 and AIO only version on the other hand...
 
Greebo said:
I thought that review had overclocked their sample by 100Mhz on the core and 500Mhz on the memory?

Seems odd to then sell cards which are then bios locked or driver locked?

If driver locked, they cant be with the 15.15 shipped drivers that reviewers have so it must be bios locked if AMD what end users not to do this.

But since ocuk already have their cards, how likely is it they flashed a new different bios on them before they shipped?

Or is it going to be a case early cards can overclock their memory and later cards won't?
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Pretty sure 500mhz was the Fury memory clock as standard.
 
Maybe AMD are concerned at the amount of heat generated even though the card is watercooled. There may be hot spots around the memory chips that will could cause problems with reliability if overclocked.

The last thing AMD want is a load of black screen stories like they got with some of the 290 series cards.
 
Kaapstad said:
Maybe AMD are concerned at the amount of heat generated even though the card is watercooled. There may be hot spots around the memory chips that will could cause problems with reliability if overclocked.

The last thing AMD want is a load of black screen stories like they got with some of the 290 series cards.
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True. They certainly won't want negative press due to instability caused by unstable memory clock (like how Asus pretty much factory overclock the memory by 100MHz on the 290/290x and chuck them right out of their factory without QC for stability, and lots of users of their factory overclocked cards getting black screen issue).

I think the chances are the HBM are plenty much fast enough on stock clock anyway...the only question is can AMD's new GPU keep up? :p
 
Silent_Scone said:
How do people feel about this?
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I'm fine with it.


Silent_Scone said:
What what reason do we think there is for it?
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Probably because overclocking the VRAM would give next to zero improvement and cause instability.

VRAM tweaking is such a minor performance thing it's basically not worth the agro there days hence why third party cards usually have stock VRAM or a slight boost
 
Makes sense to me for first-gen cards, last thing they want is a large spate of returns making it look bad.

Sure we'll get it sooner or later anyway.
 
People are thinking of HBM as masses of bandwidth, but it's not all that massive really.

290x @5GT/s = 320GB/s
390x @6GT/s = 384GB/s
Fury @1GT/s = 512GB/s

980ti @ 7GT/s = 336GB/s
980ti(oc) @ 8GT/s = 384GB/s

So, 390x is 20% more bandwidth than 290x, although 290x should be able to oc to 390x levels anyway.

980ti overclocks to 8GT/s easily, making it the same bandwidth as 390x.

HBM gives Fury a 33% boost in bandwidth. That's a nice chunk, but it's not the massive massive boost it's been made out to be. It's of similar scale to 290x->390x.
 
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