AMD Polaris architecture – GCN 4.0

Drollic · 19 May 2016 at 19:57

I'm hoping this release is a positive one for AMD. As much as I'd like a 1080, I'd prefer an IPS 1440p Freesync monitor for a few hundred less than a gsync equivalent.

HEADRAT · 19 May 2016 at 20:22

Kaapstad said:
I don't know about you guys in the Polaris and Pascal threads but I am going to go and use my cards for a bit of gaming.

That's crazy talk right there

Really want AMD to launch something to trade blows with the GTX 1080 as I've just invested in a 34" 21:9 freesync monitor.

Dave2150 · 19 May 2016 at 20:52

beany_bot said:
Hilarious. That's exactly what Nvidia want. They deliberately break games so AMD cards perform poorly on them. It might fool you but not me. The very reason they do this is why I will NOT be buying a 1080 or indeed any Nvidia card in the near future. Call me an AMD fan boy if you will. But at least I'm doing it because I value their business practices, not get suckered in for shiny marketing. (not to mention my card is faster and cheaper than a 980). That's just a bonus for me. I would rather support an underdog, honest company than a greasy, underhand tactic dog like Nvidia.

I'm not 'fooled' at all - I simply want to have the best gaming experience possible. If I buy another AMD GPU - I'd be making a decision to have less performance in many games - something I'm prepared to do anymore.

Yes it's sad state of affairs, though there is nothing we can do about it. Just know that even if AMD make a superior architecture, they lack the market share to ensure that performance advantage translates into greater performance in games.

Developers will always prioritize the higher market share vendor over the smaller one.

So sure, call yourself a hero for sticking with AMD in the current climate if you want, meanwhile I'll be enjoying much higher performance in many game titles.

fs123 · 19 May 2016 at 21:08

Dave2150 said:
So sure, call yourself a hero for sticking with AMD in the current climate if you want, meanwhile I'll be enjoying much higher performance in many game titles.

Much higher performance in which games? Afaik AMD does pretty well in most new games and are not that far behind in Gameworks games either.

Ayahuasca · 19 May 2016 at 21:13

nVidia's tactic seems to be working whatever it is, I was very surprised to see the likes of humbug and tommybhoy buy 970's considering how much they rip into their practices.

LoadsaMoney · 19 May 2016 at 22:20

AMD Polaris 10 Sample Spotted at 1.27 GHz clock frequency

One of the major benefits for Nvidia's Pascal architecture is that they can achieve really high clock frequencies. The 16nm Pascal based GeForce GTX 1080 boosts over 1800 MHz. AMD will bake Polaris at 14nm and as some information found in the SiSoft Sandra database, they reach 1.27 GHz with Polaris 10.

The SiSoftware Sandra 2015 OpenGL benchmark entry (look it up here) was entered 3 days ago and allegedly shows an entry of a Polaris 10 sample at 1266 MHz. The chip is identified by its Hardware ID, 67DF: C7 and 67DF: C4. These are both Polaris 10 ASICs, one Pro and one XT model.

The entry denotes once again 36 compute cores (Nvidia call theirs SMs), 36 x 64 shader processors per cluster would mean 2304 active shader processors. The entry also reveals 8 GB memory being clocke at 7.6 GHz running over a 256-bit, so that would be 243 GB/s It however is unclear if AMD opted for GDDR5 or GDDR5X.

Obviously this might be just a reference sample, AMD can still increase the clock frequency at launch, with that in mind it remains to be seen what we finally going to see from the red camp.

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/amd_polaris_10_samples_work_at_1_27_ghz.html

Mauller · 19 May 2016 at 22:29

I still think the 2304 shader is the desktop pro version.

Troezar · 19 May 2016 at 22:30

The one thing these threads prove is as a species we are tribal and will argue the toss over almost anything. For that reason alone the EU project is doomed. Imagine if the topic was something that actually mattered

That said I'm glad I don't have anything more serious to worry about! At least the tech scene is getting a bit more interesting these days it has been quite stagnant for a while.

Davedree · 19 May 2016 at 22:33

Ayahuasca said:
nVidia's tactic seems to be working whatever it is, I was very surprised to see the likes of humbug and tommybhoy buy 970's considering how much they rip into their practices.

I'm guilty too,.hence my sig. But for £140 and with it being 1600mhz 24/7 stable it was a great upgrade over my aging 7950 or any 390 at the time.

AllBodies · 19 May 2016 at 22:45

Mauller said:
I still think the 2304 shader is the desktop pro version.

Yeah does seem like a weird amount of shaders for an XT version. Then again, the 1070 is effectively a similar die size and has 1920.

brawl3r · 19 May 2016 at 23:21

Dave2150 said:
Developers will always prioritize the higher market share vendor over the smaller one.

I don't disbelieve this statement, as we are all aware this is true, but for how long. How many games are going to be getting ported over from consoles using the GCN architecture in the future, with easy ports, and DX12.
How about waiting to see what the future brings in the form of polaris, and then make a decision.
I will be waiting for both to drop so I can decide what monitor to go with g sync or free-sync 1400p. well that's my stance.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 19 May 2016 at 23:35

Gameworks is so 2015!!

Dat' Gameworks effect is having less and less of an issue - you only have to look at games like The Division.

All the Gameworks defenders are very silent about that game and it is one of the main Nvidia sponsored Gameworks titles this year. Same old tired arguments used back years ago - all the games have PhysX and 3D Vision,don't buy ATI/AMD.

But it also applies to people running older Nvidia cards or the less powerful mainstream cards like what I have. You might as well tone down the effects unless you don't mind lower framerates.

Never listened in reality to all the effects lock-in people and bought the best value card for my budget based on performance,be it AMD/ATI or Nvidia. Apparently had no issues running the games I wanted to play.

People are getting so suckered into the marketing not realising that Gameworks is just a rebranded modern PhysX and 3D Vision for a new generation.

But looking at the improvements that are being made to the way Polaris handles tessellation,I expect less and less of an impact Gameworks will have,since many of the more intensive effects use tessellation. Plus if the new consoles actually use GCN1.4 instead of GCN1.1,it will have a knock-on effect IMHO.

Nobody cared about PhysX when the HD4870 came on the scene.

Anyway,back to Polaris.

LoadsaMoney said:
http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/amd_polaris_10_samples_work_at_1_27_ghz.html

Thats over a 20% frequency increase over a R9 390 or R9 390X. Even if the uarch has not changed that would mean similar performance to an R9 390X for the 2304 shader part.

Lokken86 · 19 May 2016 at 23:43

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Gameworks is so 2015!!

Dat' Gameworks effect is having less and less of an issue - you only have to look at games like The Division.

All the Gameworks defenders are very silent about that game and it is one of the main Nvidia sponsored Gameworks titles this year.

People are getting so suckered into the marketing not realising that Gameworks is just a rebranded modern PhysX.

But looking at the improvements that are being made to the way Polaris handles tesellation,I expect less and less of an impact Gameworks will have,since many of the more intensive effects use tessellation.

Thats over a 20% frequency increase over a R9 390 or R9 390X. Even if the uarch has not changed that would mean similar performance to an R9 390X for the 2304 shader part.

My Furo Pro is looking nervous.

OnionSpark · 20 May 2016 at 02:50

fs123 said:
Much higher performance in which games? Afaik AMD does pretty well in most new games and are not that far behind in Gameworks games either.

It depends on your setup. Even Nvidia's GTX 750 (not even the Ti) pulls ahead of AMD's Fury on some systems.

beany_bot talks about the 390 being faster and cheaper than a 970 and so therefore being the best value, but that's an incredibly blinkered view. If you have to upgrade your PSU to run a 390 but not a 970, the 970 is clearly better value. If you're putting together an ITX build and a 390 literally won't fit (never mind heat/power issues), the 970 will naturally be a better choice - and with mini-ITX, there's no choice at all. Using Linux or have any interest in SteamOS? Again, you'd have to be ignorant of the issues to go with the 390. No-one sane would put an AMD GPU in a Steam Machine.

These are the issues I hope AMD finally addresses with Polaris, because for me, AMD's Windows performance is not its problem (despite seemingly everyone here focusing on nothing else). I'm sure people here will tell me that it's all just around the corner, but we've been hearing these promises for nine years now, so let's wait for something tangible rather than being suckered in by marketing, shall we?

AllBodies · 20 May 2016 at 03:07

OnionSpark said:
It depends on your setup. Even Nvidia's GTX 750 (not even the Ti) pulls ahead of AMD's Fury on some systems.

beany_bot talks about the 390 being faster and cheaper than a 970 and so therefore being the best value, but that's an incredibly blinkered view. If you have to upgrade your PSU to run a 390 but not a 970, the 970 is clearly better value. If you're putting together an ITX build and a 390 literally won't fit (never mind heat/power issues), the 970 will naturally be a better choice - and with mini-ITX, there's no choice at all. Using Linux or have any interest in SteamOS? Again, you'd have to be ignorant of the issues to go with the 390. No-one sane would put an AMD GPU in a Steam Machine.

These are the issues I hope AMD finally addresses with Polaris, because for me, AMD's Windows performance is not its problem (despite seemingly everyone here focusing on nothing else). I'm sure people here will tell me that it's all just around the corner, but we've been hearing these promises for nine years now, so let's wait for something tangible rather than being suckered in by marketing, shall we?

Lol, gaming on Linux (at this point in time, the future may change my opinion)

shankly1985 · 20 May 2016 at 03:19

AMD Announces June 1st Press Conference For Polaris & 7th Gen APUs – Computex 2016

AMD has just announced that it will be holding a press conference on June 1st at Computex for its upcoming Polaris & 7th generation APUs. The event will be held in Computex Taipei in Taiwan. Speakers include AMD’s President and CEO Lisa Su as well as AMD’s head of the Radeon Technologies Group Raja Koduri in addition to the company’s head of the CPU & APU side of the business, Jim Anderson.

Read more: http://wccftech.com/amd-announces-j...ris-7th-gen-apus-computex-2016/#ixzz499tUnzps

http://wccftech.com/amd-announces-j...utm_campaign=Feed:+Wccftechcom+(WCCFtech.com)

OnionSpark · 20 May 2016 at 05:41

AllBodies said:
Lol, gaming on Linux (at this point in time, the future may change my opinion)

I know, right? Watching a GTX 950 get more than 120FPS while the Fury manages 67... the choice of gaming on Linux is essentially not available for my AMD GPU machines.

And I can't imagine anyone being so short-sighted as to support a lack of choice - and on PC of all platforms!

N19h7m4r3 · 20 May 2016 at 10:02

Regarding those SiSoft Sandra numbers; the P10 card shown there also has 36 Compute Units, while the GTX 1080 only has 20, and GTX 980Ti 22.

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/amd_polaris_10_samples_work_at_1_27_ghz.html

Also if the SISoft Sandra scores mean anything the P10 card on it scored more than a GTX 980Ti. Mostly because it does significantly better in Double and Quad float GP Compute.

Polaris 10 = 1674.64 Mpix/s
http://ranker.sisoftware.net/show_r...efdce4dde4d5e5c3b18cbc9aff9aa797b1c2ffc7&l=en

GTX 980Ti = 1256.49 Mpix/s Note: The GTX 980Ti has a baseclock of 1215Ghz/1.32Ghz here; looks overlocked.
http://ranker.sisoftware.net/show_r...efdce5d5e6d4e7c1b38ebe98fd98a595b3c0fdc5&l=en

So from that benchmark Polaris has some amazing:
Double compute 527.88 vs 175.32
Quad compute 29.17 vs 7.92
Lacklustre Single Compute 5312.60 vs 9005.12

GFX-Kid · 20 May 2016 at 10:11

N19h7m4r3 said:
Regarding those SiSoft Sandra numbers; the P10 card shown there also has 36 Compute Units, while the GTX 1080 only has 20.

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/amd_polaris_10_samples_work_at_1_27_ghz.html

Also if you the SISoft Sandra scores mean anything the P10 card on it scored more than a GTX 980Ti. Mostly because it does significantly better in Double and Quad float GP Compute.

Polaris 10 = 1674.64 Mpix/s
http://ranker.sisoftware.net/show_r...efdce4dde4d5e5c3b18cbc9aff9aa797b1c2ffc7&l=en

GTX 980Ti = 1256.49 Mpix/s
http://ranker.sisoftware.net/show_r...efdce5d5e6d4e7c1b38ebe98fd98a595b3c0fdc5&l=en

So from that benchmark Polaris has some amazing:
Double compute 527.88 vs 175.32
Quad compute 29.17 vs 7.92

That is all great, but will any of it translate into gaming performance? Hopefully yes

N19h7m4r3 · 20 May 2016 at 10:25

GFX-Kid said:
That is all great, but will any of it translate into gaming performance? Hopefully yes

Let's hope! My main concern is the single compute. It's much slower than the 980Ti.

Single Compute 5312.60 vs 9005.12