There Is No Sea Islands

Final8y · 16 Feb 2013 at 08:13

Recent AMD hire Roy Taylor, Vice President of Global Channel Sales, has asked AMD to break the yearly update cadence they began with Evergreen, under the Sea Islands series of products. His reasoning? AMD has the best graphics products but people don't think so.
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AMD Radeon Graphics 2013

In a recent AMD Press Briefing, AMD gathered their team to address the recent controversy stirred by their own information release - that the AMD Radeon series will by 'stable throughout 2013'. What they meant by that was actually 'a top to bottom stack of new products in Q4'. Nice to have some clarity. So, is this Sea Islands? Nope, Sea Island is the codename for the codenames that make up the products of 2013. Yeah. AMD know we love codenames, so ...

Mobility

As previously reported, the new AMD Radeon HD 8000M series is codenamed Solar System. Thus far, the Mars GPU has launched - back in November 2012, in fact - and availability is ramping. This GPU doesn't feature a new architecture; AMD is sticking with GCN for the foreseeable future. Given how long VLIW5 lasted after being introduced in 2006's R600, that's historically consistent and we expect that previously seen tweaks and improvements will be reflected in future cards. Mars is a new configuration of GCN cores and design and more new 8000M series products will be released this year, with new configurations of GCN. HSA feature upgrades will be driven in the APU products.

Desktop

At CES, AMD announced the AMD Radeon HD 8000 OEM series, which are exactly the same as the current desktop HD 7000 series. This was done to placate the OEM customers who love new numbers every year, and they get a new card the retail channel didn't, based on the Oland GPU. The desktop side didn't get this treatment; in fact AMD will be launching multiple new Radeon 7000 series cards before the end of 1H13. This is not limited to Oland, as one of AMD's repeated points was that they will sustain the price/performance leadership they currently own now, throughout 2013. This kinda hints at an official AMD product in the retail channel using the New Zealand design, although AMD claim Powercolor's Devil 13 and ASUS ARES II as their own, as AMD countered discussion of NVIDIA's upcoming titanic single GPU card.

Sea Islands

Sea Islands is now the codename for the graphics updates happening in 2013, so this encompasses Solar System mobility GPUs and the OEM rebranding of the desktop 7000 series to being 8000 series. It also includes new HD 7000 desktop GPUs, some of which may be new chips - but not new architecture - and others that are the result of binning, power management (i.e. turbo) and clock speed increases. Charlie Demerjian at SemiAcurrate published details back in January of the AMD Radeon HD 8950, details of which he reiterated in the call; it's a clock speed bump with better thermals but still a Tahiti Pro and the card is production ready, has been for a while. So why isn't it launching in March of this year like we originally heard rumored? This goes back to Roy Taylor's comment; he asked them not to do so until AMD's cards are recognized as the best in the business. The timing here doesn't really line up - it looks more like Project WIN forced a re-examination of priorities and an adjustment to what codenames mean, and what products are branded. With NVIDIA's 7-series GeForce cards likely following the pattern set with Fermi, the GK114 GTX 780 expected to launch in March, the performance delta that AMD has to overcome is around 30% above the 680. Is that something a 15% faster Tahiti XT 2 can beat?

ATI vs NVIDIA

A big statement in the briefing was that AMD wants to bring back the rivalry, the 'we're better than you' fight that will have comment moderators everywhere groaning. AMD believes they have the best line up of GPUs, and that should be evident everywhere to everyone. When asked to clarify what best means, I was referred to AMD's many wins for Gaming Evolved, where titles and drivers are optimized for triple-A titles before launch. Offered the opportunity to comment on smoothness instead of raw performance being the metric people are using to gauge the 'win', AMD reiterated their commitment to drivers as a key part of their ongoing initiative for their products, and specifically looking to smoothness concerns.

New Cards

AMD will finish out 2013 with a new top to bottom line of cards, replacing the HD 7000 series. It's not clear at this time if these will be branded the AMD Radeon HD 8000 series of it they will be something else for 2014, back aligned with the OEM series. Codenames like Volcanic Islands and Pirate Islands went undisclosed, but 2014 is the target for HSA integrated GPUs. 2014 is also the target for GlobalFoundries 20nm process and is expected to be the cutover from TSMC to GloFo, as AMD keeps it 'in the family (of investors)'.

Clarity

The call left many of the participants expressing confusion or bemusement, but did in fact go a long way to define what AMD is doing right now, and set a marker for when new cards will be available. In the sense that we don't have details on new architectures, products, speeds it was a disappointment but that's hardly surprising - AMD claims the HD 7000 sales are still rising, with no peak yet in sight thanks in part to AMD's Never Settle and Never Settle Reloaded campaigns, although we're mindful that they didn't disclose the markets in which sales are ramping. For gaming enthusiasts, AMD is keeping quiet on what's coming but that there is more to come from the HD 7000 series; AMD is not done yet and ended the call with a strong statement - 'We believe we will maintain leadership.'

http://www.rage3d.com/articles/amd_there_is_no_sea_islands/

humbug · 16 Feb 2013 at 08:58

Eh.... what is going on? yes...no...yes...no... which is it?

in fact AMD will be launching multiple new Radeon 7000 series cards before the end of 1H13.

What is that? a new improved 7000 Series refresh? better performance / power efficiency? Originally the 8000 series intended refresh, but without the name because they they have something new.... Details Details Details....

ATI vs NVIDIA

A big statement in the briefing was that AMD wants to bring back the rivalry, the 'we're better than you' fight that will have comment moderators everywhere groaning. AMD believes they have the best line up of GPUs, and that should be evident everywhere to everyone. When asked to clarify what best means, I was referred to AMD's many wins for Gaming Evolved, where titles and drivers are optimized for triple-A titles before launch. Offered the opportunity to comment on smoothness instead of raw performance being the metric people are using to gauge the 'win', AMD reiterated their commitment to drivers as a key part of their ongoing initiative for their products, and specifically looking to smoothness concerns.

Wrong, this has to do with past Skyrim Latency issues on the 7950, which has now been fixed.

Just because one reviewer picked up on Skyrim is not to say any other reviewer will ignore raw performance and concentrate instead on Latency.
Or that anyone looking to buy a GPU will ignore FPS figures.

Quite the opposite, the vast majority of reviewers will review based on FPS, some may pick up on Latency issues if they exist.
Anyone looking at reviews will look at whats there, 98 times out of 100 they will be looking at FPS and buy the card that offers the most FPS for their budget.
If AMD don't offer more FPS than the competition they will not sell any GPU's, its as simple as that.

If this is what AMD are to believe they would making a fatal mistake, i hope they are not that stupid.
I think AMD do know, now, that FPS is everything. (As long as there are no Latency issues) < "and specifically looking to smoothness concerns" Nice bit of PR.

~Mike~ · 16 Feb 2013 at 09:16

Very happy with my 7970 and will be for quite a while yet.

VIPER258 · 16 Feb 2013 at 10:55

well that's about as clear as mud :rolleyes:

FoxEye · 16 Feb 2013 at 11:04

I think this all ties in with the shift from PC to mobile devices.

The desktop PC market is super unfashionable for companies atm, who are falling over themselves to get tablet and phone tech wins instead.

It wouldn't surprise me if the PC gfx market ends up with 2-3 year release cycles.

Gregster · 16 Feb 2013 at 11:05

The title reminds me of that film quote "There is no spoon" and the write up is representitive of what that film quote means

Bacon? · 16 Feb 2013 at 11:08

You mean the Matrix Greg

Gregster · 16 Feb 2013 at 11:11

Bacon? said:
You mean the Matrix Greg

humbug · 16 Feb 2013 at 11:40

gregster said:

Did someone in the background drop the soap?

Final8y · 16 Feb 2013 at 11:43

Bacon? · 16 Feb 2013 at 11:44

gregster said:

Is that your missus when she finds out your ordering SLI Titans

muppet · 16 Feb 2013 at 12:01

quality lol

Darujhistan · 16 Feb 2013 at 14:26

I'm not doing anything GPU wise until I see how demanding Rome Total War 2 is, which will probs be Q4 this year anyway.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 16 Feb 2013 at 14:51

I want GTX580 level performance at £125 to £150.

Until then I can wait.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 16 Feb 2013 at 15:13

The funny thing is that I remember reading on the HardOCP forums early last year,that the HD7000 series would be around longer than normal. It seems whoever said that was correct.

BS Dave · 16 Feb 2013 at 15:19

strokes launch day 7970 (even if it was overpriced)

Spudgun · 16 Feb 2013 at 15:41

makes it tough for people who are considering upgrading, hard to make sense of this press release and perhaps confusion will mean that people will keep their wallets in their pocket and wait and see.

Pretty much exactly the same scenario/end result as if they had announced new hardware - so I can't see any winners here

Bacon? · 16 Feb 2013 at 18:16

To be honest it looks like all PC hardware has stalled.

I mean CPU's aren't getting noticeably different between gens and the same is happening with GPU's so I am not surprised the 7*** series is staying around for longer.

spoffle · 16 Feb 2013 at 18:36

Bacon? said:
To be honest it looks like all PC hardware has stalled.

I mean CPU's aren't getting noticeably different between gens and the same is happening with GPU's so I am not surprised the 7*** series is staying around for longer.

It's because hardware has been advancing so much faster than the software, that there's not as much need for people to upgrade their hardware.

CPUs are getting faster, a lot faster, for example if you're willing to pay out for it. Like my 3930K is silly fast. Compared to my old Q6600 at specific tasks, my overclocked 3930K is nearly 8 times faster (at rendering) than a stock Q6600, and about 5 times faster than an overclocked Q6600.

But, for the vast majority of people, a Q6600 is more than enough for everything they'll do, because the software that they are using simply doesn't need anything faster.

That's happened with a lot of games too, loads of mainstream software is going through a period of stagnation.

Buckster · 16 Feb 2013 at 18:57

my 480 and 3770k at 4.5 seem good enough for all games I try at 1900

would I get double the frames with a 680 ? prob - but wouldn't make much difference

I can't see it being much different this time next year either - what with the next-gen consoles looking quite a way behind even a gtx480 and not that many games that will take advantage of full pc power

pity really as I love upgrading