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AMD Polaris architecture – GCN 4.0

Polaris 10 demoed at AMD Capsaicin Event

Well, I've just finished watching the AMD Capsaicin livestream and there was a little demo of Polaris 10. All they said about it was that it was running 1440p on DX12 and maintaining 60fps. So as soon as the livestream ended I googled the DX12 1440p maxed Hitman benchmarks for current GPUs. A small disclaimer: it seems that the new Hitman game performs better on AMD cards, so keep this in mind.

Fury just about manages 60fps on DX12. Fury X got mid 60s on both DX11 and DX12. These are the computerbase.de benchmarks. Here on the forums in the Hitman benchmarks thread, a forumgoer posting images of another set of benchmarks from gameGPU. Here, the game didn't run as well as it did for the Germans. Again, the Fury and Fury X came out on top , but the Fury X only managed an average of 51 and minimum of 41.

At the demo they mentioned solid 60 on Polaris 10. As if to say, it can do a bit better, but we're playing it safe. In this regard, with comparisons to current AMD cards, the Polaris 10 is around Fury X level of performance. And that's not even the final product, just a demo. That is if the Polaris 10 is compared with the computerbase.de benchmarks. The gameGPU benchmarks seem to suggest that Polaris 10 is a beast that absolutely wreck FuryX, if Polaris 10 doesn't drop below 60 like they seem to have suggested. I think that's a little too good to be true. I'd bet that Polaris 10 is more closer to Fury X in terms of performance.

Considering that... what is Polaris 11 going to be like? It's going to beat Fury X for sure if it's more powerful than Polaris 10. But by how much is the question. And more importantly... at what price point.

In tonight's show, AMD's Raja Koduri mentioned Moore's Law with respect to price-to-performance. He didn't say anything concrete or give any details, but he did say that current GPUs are falling behind. I.e. we should be getting a lot better price to performance, the current price/costs are inefficient. Considering that Raja said it's not good we've fallen so far from the curve, it's almost like he's suggesting that we really need to improve on price to performance, especially at the top end.

With that said, I feel like AMD definitely will push the current boundaries of price to performance. I.e. Polaris won't be priced like the 300 series was and just slot in around existing cards. It'll be priced better. Honestly, that's the least we should expect from a dies shrink and a new generation of cards. But it's gotten me excited. Even just a small improvement of 50% at the top end... we could get 1.5x Fury X performance for 1x Fury X price.

I feel like I've even confused myself now. Here's my speculation and feel free to disagree or ignore, I personally think random guessing is nonsense but in this case the hype has me excited:

Polaris 10 will be the 390-390X equivalent card. Which would mean at least FuryX level of performance at the 390-390X price point. Considering performance per watt, I'd bet it would use no more than 150W on load.

Polaris 11 will be the flagship card (at least for a while). I bet it will be priced at around Fury X price. However, I'm not confident at guessing the performance. All I can say is that it'll perform better than the Fury X. Can't guess wattage either cos I've got no idea which existing card to compare it to.

So enjoy the hype and speculation, we've finally got some solid news to banter about.

P.S. I liked the way AMD did their presentation. It felt very relaxed and friendly. They were making jokes and having chicken wings on stage, and booze too off-stage. I wish I was at that event :s
 
So if Nvidia release an HBM2 GPU this summer... that kind of leaves AMD high and dry no? Nvidia will have the premium tech available a year earlier!! Or are we to infer from this that Nvidia will release Pascal with HBM1 also?? :confused:
 
Legend said:
So if Nvidia release an HBM2 GPU this summer... that kind of leaves AMD high and dry no? Nvidia will have the premium tech available a year earlier!! Or are we to infer from this that Nvidia will release Pascal with HBM1 also?? :confused:
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Neither.
NV will release mid range cards with GDDR as well, and both of them will bring the big chips GP100 and Vega? later with HBM2.
 
bru said:
More info on the Sulon.



http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/03/amd-powered-sulon-q-is-like-wearing-a-vr-capable-windows-pc-on-your-head/

It is actually sounding quite good. Lets just hope they don't decide to charge the earth for it.
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Content us going to be a major challenge. On the one hand you've got premium content being developed for Rift/Vive that needs 970/290 level GPU as a minimum. On the other you've got mobile type content for caedboard/gearVR... sales numbers on the sulon are going to be so low I really can't see anyone developing content specifically optimised for it
 
mahius said:
Snip
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Except It is being widely reported that Polaris 10 is the bigger card. :(
(This also fits in with what we saw earlier with a polaris card using far less power than a 950.)

Yes it is great tech but if Vega comes a good while after I am starting to possibly regret not getting a 980ti or something a few months back... :(

*Must focus my mind on glorious efficiency gains*
 
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tavtavtav said:
Except It is being widely reported that Polaris 10 is the bigger card. :(
(This also fits in with what we saw earlier with a polaris card using far less power than a 950.)

Yes it is great tech but if Vega comes a good while after I am starting to possibly regret not getting a 980ti or something a few months back... :(

*Must focus my mind on glorious efficiency gains*
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You can still get a Polaris 10 at summer, with presumably better power consumption, performance and price than a 980Ti.
 
Mtom said:
You can still get a Polaris 10 at summer, with presumably better power consumption, performance and price than a 980Ti.
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If I owned a 980ti I wouldnt buy Polaris for that reason.
I buy Polaris if it runs better for VR and it will with low latency that 980ti cant do.

GDc conference should not been streamed.
I watched it and was thinking, bored.
BORED AMDMatt I was friggin bored.

worst PR in history and its AMD engineers behind it.
send then to make the gpu and then hire people who can actually make it interesting to own the Polaris.

I can only do so much for AMD here :D
 
Polaris 10 pricing will be interesting if it beats FuryX/980ti. Will the FuryX become the mid range or will they release Polaris as the mid range card in the £200-£300 segement? They could have 2 variants of Polaris like a Polaris XT and Pro but then where does that leave the Fury cards?
 
flopper said:
If I owned a 980ti I wouldnt buy Polaris for that reason.
I buy Polaris if it runs better for VR and it will with low latency that 980ti cant do.

GDc conference should not been streamed.
I watched it and was thinking, bored.
BORED AMDMatt I was friggin bored.

worst PR in history and its AMD engineers behind it.
send then to make the gpu and then hire people who can actually make it interesting to own the Polaris.

I can only do so much for AMD here :D
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Well it is called Game Developers Conference...so its hardly a surprise they mostly talked about games, and VR.
 
fs123 said:
Polaris 10 pricing will be interesting if it beats FuryX/980ti. Will the FuryX become the mid range or will they release Polaris as the mid range card in the £200-£300 segement? They could have 2 variants of Polaris like a Polaris XT and Pro but then where does that leave the Fury cards?
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Nowhere, old lineup ends-new lineup comes. I think the only 28nm card will be the dual card after Polaris release.
 
Looking at the chart I posted and the demo they made lets assume Polaris 10 has roughly R9 390X level performance but is a 150w TDP card instead of a 275w TDP one. The AMD slide indicates Vega has higher performance per watt than Polaris.

So,taking that into account Polaris 10 is 232mm2, the largest Vega GPU is probably 50% to 60% bigger if AMD keep the GPU to between 350mm2 and 400mm2 and considering the HBM memory controller is smaller, I suspect at least 50% to 70% higher performance overall?
It might be more towards the higher end due to less TDP limitations over the current cards.
So around 30% to 40% faster than a Fury X but with better DX11 performance and maybe better performance at lower resolutions?

Seems about the same jump as the HD7970 and R9 290x from the previous generations at launch.
 
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flopper said:
If I owned a 980ti I wouldnt buy Polaris for that reason.
I buy Polaris if it runs better for VR and it will with low latency that 980ti cant do.

GDc conference should not been streamed.
I watched it and was thinking, bored.
BORED AMDMatt I was friggin bored.

worst PR in history and its AMD engineers behind it.
send then to make the gpu and then hire people who can actually make it interesting to own the Polaris.

I can only do so much for AMD here :D
Click to expand...

And that's from the biggest AMD fanboy on the forum!!! :eek::eek::eek:

Must have been baaaaaaaaaaaad :D
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Looking at the chart I posted and the demo they made lets assume Polaris 10 has roughly R9 390X level performance but is a 150w TDP card instead of a 275w TDP one. The AMD slide indicates Vega has higher performance per watt than Polaris.

So,taking that into account Polaris 10 is 232mm2, the largest Vega GPU is probably 50% to 60% bigger if AMD keep the GPU to between 350mm2 and 400mm2 and considering the HBM memory controller is smaller, I suspect at least 50% to 70% higher performance overall?
It might be more towards the higher end due to less TDP limitations over the current cards.
So around 30% to 40% faster than a Fury X but with better DX11 performance and maybe better performance at lower resolutions?

Seems about the same jump as the HD7970 and R9 290x from the previous generations at launch.
Click to expand...


You would think Polaris 10 at that size would be at least Fury X performance, 232mm at 14nm is at least equivalent to 500mm at 28nm.

The one in the demo was Polaris 10 and able to match Fury-X easily.
 
While hardware wise the event wasnt that exciting, the tech shown was.
AMD is pushing opengpu, many other techs around it, that will optimise pc games to the optimisation levels of the consoles.
And why is that important? See the spec of the ps4 and what it can do.
Take exactly same spec pc and you will see that cannot match the ps4 at same performance and settings.
 
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