AMD denies graphics card rumours

humbug · 15 Feb 2013 at 07:38

"We will have cards out this year"

14 Feb 2013 10:37

AMD has denied fairly credible rumours that it will not be releasing a next generation graphics card family this year.

The rumours that new Radeon 8000s will not hit the shops this year as planned have been gathering momentum and appeared to have been confirmed when Japan's 4Gamer.net released an interview with AMD product manager Devon Nekechuk.

Nekechuk also provided 4Gamer.net with a chart, which indicated that the Radeon 7000 series will be "Stable throughout 2013". Which at the time no one seemed to twig that the Radeon HD 7000 and 8000 series could both be available at retail at the same time. The slide only covered the third quarter.

AMD also made matters worse by retweeting a link to the article calling it the 2013 GPU roadmap. Just a few days prior, AMD marketing manager Robert Hallock took to the @AMDRadeon account to tell a follower that "The HD 7000 Series will remain our primary focus for quite some time".

To be fair all this countered other rumours that 8000 range would be in the shops in the middle of the year, which also seemed pretty credible. That is the thing about rumours.

PCWorld was told by a much amused AMD representative that the company will certainly have new GPU products this year and there were plans to shed light on its 2013 plans for the Radeon brand later this week.

The AMD representative suggested that the 4Gamer article was taken out of context, and said the company will be clarifying its 2013 strategy for the Radeon brand in a conference call.

While many believed that it did not make much sense for AMD to waste much needed cash on a product launch, the release of the 8000 series later in the year is logical. The company always has problems at the end of the year and having a solid product launch could help.

http://news.techeye.net/chips/amd-denies-graphics-card-rumours

Locky · 15 Feb 2013 at 10:02

I don't mind at all, means my 7970's will be worth more longer.

Phixsator · 15 Feb 2013 at 10:52

While im sure the 8000 series is going to kick some serious behind, i dont see the reason to upgrade if you are already on a 7000 series crossfire setup. That should last you well into 9000 series or nvidia equalant 900 series launch.

LtMatt · 15 Feb 2013 at 11:00

Locky said:
I don't mind at all, means my 7970's will be worth more longer.

This.

Orangey · 15 Feb 2013 at 11:02

I thought it was weird for people to believe this so quickly. Why would they give up a market they are competitive in when they are so behind in CPUs.

Frenzy · 15 Feb 2013 at 11:04

I thought there would be some truth to the 8000 delay because they hold the performance crown, why release new gpus before nvidia show their cards?

Kind of annoying for me but, I won't go 8k unless the performance is amazing. Will be the shortest amount of time I've ever owned a card

Mattyjw · 15 Feb 2013 at 12:14

I thought the reports focus more on a delay from spring to winter for the 8 series launch, rather than no new series launch this year.

drunkenmaster · 15 Feb 2013 at 12:15

Phixsator said:
While im sure the 8000 series is going to kick some serious behind, i dont see the reason to upgrade if you are already on a 7000 series crossfire setup. That should last you well into 9000 series or nvidia equalant 900 series launch.

Its highly likely the 8000 series won't be much of anything at all, its still 28nm, theres very little room to go bigger, the 521mm^2 Nvidia GK110(titan and their professional cards) has insanely low yields making it painfully expensive, selling at £1500+ a card is profitable, very, selling at £400 a card would make a loss the yields are that low, yields go down exponentially fast so while AMD is currently doing circa 350mm^2 cards, they are close to the point yields would tank if they get bigger, Nvidia's mainstream cards are 300mm^2 when they usually on bigger processes went for a 500mm^2 mainstream card, which should tell you how happy nvidia are with yields of larger cores, as in not happy at all.

Not many more transistors = not much more performance.

Frenzy said:
I thought there would be some truth to the 8000 delay because they hold the performance crown, why release new gpus before nvidia show their cards?

Kind of annoying for me but, I won't go 8k unless the performance is amazing. Will be the shortest amount of time I've ever owned a card

Why release their cards before Nvidia show theirs.... well why would Nvidia show their cards before AMD show their cards by that logic why would either company ever launch.

Companies that react have historically done poorly, not brilliantly, look at Apple, first with a new product, even if its crap compared to the competition it wins by being first. GPU's work on year + timescales, you can't see what Nvidia have and then change your line up to release completely different cards to be better, if they wait for Nvidia then increase performance, you're talking about a minimum of 7-8 months between taping out a new product and release. If you have spent 10's to 100's of millions designing the 8000 series cards, and they are ready, you don't sit on something for 6 months and release it because, every second longer its out, there will be people who buy a 8xxx card who without its release buy a Nvidia card instead of a 7xxx card.

Fact is, AMD can only produce X amount of performance on this gen, due to architecture, business decisions and those all got made likely well over 2 years ago now, the 8970 has been whatever card its going to be for months now, it won't suddenly change to be better. The sooner its out the sooner its taking whatever sales its going to take off Nvidia, the later its out, the less sales it will take off nvidia. If Nvidia's next card beats the 8970, it beats it, its always going to beat it, the longer the 8970 is out before it, the more sales it will get.

Frenzy · 15 Feb 2013 at 13:32

drunkenmaster said:
Why release their cards before Nvidia show theirs.... well why would Nvidia show their cards before AMD show their cards by that logic why would either company ever launch.

I don't think you understand my point.

flopper · 15 Feb 2013 at 13:42

drunkenmaster said:
Its highly likely the 8000 series won't be much of anything at all, its still 28nm,

with redesign, tweaks a 20% or such is doable on the same node unless they made further progress. You could say the driver that have added a lot in the recent development made the 7900 series a new card

humbug · 15 Feb 2013 at 13:54

The consensus seems to be the 8970 will have 25% more Stream Processors, 42 or 48 ROP's, Clocked at at least 1050Mhz and 1500Mhz Memory.

So..

7970 Ghz: 2048 SP, 32 ROP, 1050Mhz, 1250Mhz
8970 Ghz: 2560 SP, 42 ROP, 1050Mhz, 1500Mhz
..............+25%......+30%....###.........+20%

Marine-RX179 · 15 Feb 2013 at 14:03

Well, as long as the gain is more than the HD5xxx to HD6xxx (which was a bit of a joke), it would be decent already.

Armageus · 15 Feb 2013 at 14:13

Any possibility that the 8xxx generation might kick off with some low or mid range cards first...

I know it's almost at odds with their APU strategy, but surely there is still a market for low to mid range cards for Intel machines / HTPCs / Multimonitor setups...

Last low end card was the 6450...

The first 8xxx series chip will be the 8450!

humbug · 15 Feb 2013 at 14:21

Armageus said:
Any possibility that the 8xxx generation might kick off with some low or mid range cards first...

I know it's almost at odds with their APU strategy, but surely there is still a market for low to mid range cards for Intel machines / HTPCs / Multimonitor setups...

Last low end card was the 6450...

The first 8xxx series chip will be the 8450!

hhmm? yeah

Given that they have a new APU just around the corner, next week i think, they may just come out with 86## series GPU's pretty soon.

KillBoY_UK · 15 Feb 2013 at 14:36

I thought it was already said that the 8000 cards where brands ?

Rroff · 15 Feb 2013 at 14:40

humbug said:
The consensus seems to be the 8970 will have 25% more Stream Processors, 42 or 48 ROP's, Clocked at at least 1050Mhz and 1500Mhz Memory.

So..

7970 Ghz: 2048 SP, 32 ROP, 1050Mhz, 1250Mhz
8970 Ghz: 2560 SP, 42 ROP, 1050Mhz, 1500Mhz
..............+25%......+30%....###.........+20%

8970 will almost certainly have 48 rather than 42 ROPs.

Orcvader · 15 Feb 2013 at 15:09

For some reason, I don't feel excited with the next gen cards, I feel sort of happy with the current gen

.

Wouldn't suprise me if the next gen cards gets delayed to next year.

GoogalyMoogaly · 15 Feb 2013 at 15:31

I'm hoping we do see the 8000 cards sooner rather than later, gives me a reason to upgrade.

Of course I'll probably wait to see Nvidia's offering too, so I hope they both launch soon.

Rusty0611 · 15 Feb 2013 at 15:32

I just got another 7950 so I hope they aren't coming soon. If so then I guess I'll be taking a sell on hit sooner rather than later

.

flopper · 15 Feb 2013 at 15:39

Rroff said:
8970 will almost certainly have 48 rather than 42 ROPs.

still value from theory and actual difference isnt exactly a match and crossover.
if I hazard a guess its aimed for those pesky eyfunity setups