AMD Polaris architecture – GCN 4.0

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The last leaks indicate the GP106 is Q3 2016,and the die size looks around 200MM2.

That will be large increase in transistors over a GTX960,so maybe GTX970 level performance at least??

 

[shankly1985]

So true. I'm still shocked it takes them so long to get a proper driver out after the launch of the product or game sometimes.

It's still great that their 79xx and 290 series are still doing amazingly well now, but it also shows how lacking their original drivers were. I hope these latest cash injections really give them the resources they need for Driver development and PR.

This is completely wrong man.. When a new GPU comes out its not down to AMD or Nvidia to get the full performance out of the GPU. Its down to the Devs making the games. Sure AMD and Nvidia can gain some performance, but the real work comes from the devs optimisation.

The reason why AMD 7900 and 290 is still doing well is because the Devs are now getting more from the GPU.
Its the same thing when a New console is released. It takes time for the devs to get full use out the hardware.

What will help AMD in the long run is GCN being in Consoles and Desktop this is why performance is doing well for even older cards.

Why do people think Drivers are the Be ALL to END All??

Does Nvidia and AMD make these Games?

 

[ICDP]

It been known Amd were/is launching around June/July anyway for months.

Yes exactly, AMD claimed back to school period for US as a release and then a further statement from the CEO stated mid 2016.

It would be too much of a cioncidence that AMD suddenly have a hard launch (rumours) planned right around when Pascal is released. Of course the same applies the other way and Nvidia expected Polaris around mid 2016 and could not afford to be any later than that.

IMHO it looks like AMD have been quietly building stock ready for a mid 2016 launch and they waited until Nvidia showed their hand first before committing. They will be desperately tweaking core clocks and drivers to ensure they are competitive on price/perf to 1070.

It is genuinely exciting to see both Nvidia and AMD move on from 28nm after almost 4.5 years.

 

[Rroff]

This is completely wrong man.. When a new GPU comes out its not down to AMD or Nvidia to get the full performance out of the GPU. Its down to the Devs making the games.

It isn't so black and white as that - developers learn better techniques and/or where the strengths and weaknesses lie but there are a lot of things that are improved in drivers, etc. as time goes on as well. I used to do a fair bit of beta testing (what would be closed alpha testing these days but it used to be beta testing then) for games and it wouldn't be unusual to have to go back to ATI/AMD or nVidia and say that support for X texture format wasn't working to standard or wasn't working as efficiently as it should when using certain blending modes, etc.

 

[shankly1985]

It isn't so black and white as that - developers learn better techniques and/or where the strengths and weaknesses lie but there are a lot of things that are improved in drivers, etc. as time goes on as well. I used to do a fair bit of beta testing (what would be closed alpha testing these days but it used to be beta testing then) for games and it wouldn't be unusual to have to go back to ATI/AMD or nVidia and say that support for X texture format wasn't working to standard or wasn't working as efficiently as it should when using certain blending modes, etc.

Wouldn't that be true for that timing? What about all the extra work Devs now have with DX11 and DX12. Optimising the code for the GPU surely is the hands of the Devs and not AMD.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

Why do people think Drivers are the Be ALL to END All??

Does Nvidia and AMD make these Games?

Mostly because NVIDIA's driver team has come out and said that They need to fix so much and make games playable via their drivers as developers let so much broken stuff through.

The same is there for AMD, and we see it an awful lot on newly released games. Developers don't go back year on year to optimize their games anymore, but AMD does do that for drivers. Squeezing out more performance.

It's very evident in how well the 290 series is doing. Originally barely matching the Titan, and now keeping up and beating the 980 at times.

Many times in games that have partnerships with NVIDIA as well.

While DX12 allows devs to finally get proper access to everything GPUs can do, with DX11 it was primarily in the hands of the driver teams. Especially in regards to multi GPU setups.

 

[Gregster]

Donning a tin foil hat... Maybe NVidia have seen what is coming from AMD and panicked into launching the 1080 quickly.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

Donning a tin foil hat... Maybe NVidia have seen what is coming from AMD and panicked into launching the 1080 quickly.

If only. I admit the 1080 got my excited when I was watching the stream. Although then you realise the performance jump from Titan X - 1080 is rather similar to Titan - 980. Along with the 1080 costing $50 more for recommended price than the 980 did as well.

So I'm hoping Polaris 10 is good and they have a proper hard launch during their event.

 

[Lokken86]

Donning a tin foil hat... Maybe NVidia have seen what is coming from AMD and panicked into launching the 1080 quickly.

Unlikely. He who strikes first usually wins.

 

[old gamer]

Donning a tin foil hat... Maybe NVidia have seen what is coming from AMD and panicked into launching the 1080 quickly.

Tbh I would be surprised if amd and nvidia did not know what each other was up to

 

[Mauller]

If only. I admit the 1080 got my excited when I was watching the stream. Although then you realise the performance jump from Titan X - 1080 is rather similar to Titan - 980. Along with the 1080 costing $50 more for recommended price than the 980 did as well.

So I'm hoping Polaris 10 is good and they have a proper hard launch during their event.

But their figures are more than likely for a stock titan x that has been limited to the specified boost figures. When everyone around here knows the titan x will easily boost far beyond that.

So i feel the jump between a well clocked Titan X and the 1080 is not as big as Nvidia are making it out to be. The same with the 1070 beating the Titan x, it more than likely matches or just comes ahead of it when the sheet is clocked out of it.

What makes me think the above more is the power figures they are showing for the titan X, far lower than they should be for one clocked up to 1.4-1.5ghz.

 

[shankly1985]

Mostly because NVIDIA's driver team has come out and said that They need to fix so much and make games playable via their drivers as developers let so much broken stuff through.

The same is there for AMD, and we see it an awful lot on newly released games. Developers don't go back year on year to optimize their games anymore, but AMD does do that for drivers. Squeezing out more performance.

It's very evident in how well the 290 series is doing. Originally barely matching the Titan, and now keeping up and beating the 980 at times.

Many times in games that have partnerships with NVIDIA as well.

While DX12 allows devs to finally get proper access to everything GPUs can do, with DX11 it was primarily in the hands of the driver teams. Especially in regards to multi GPU setups.

AMD have no control over what a devs does with code inside the game. If X game optimised for Nvidia Shadow and not AMD, AMD cant do anything about it.
If the rendering was more optimised for Nvidia and not AMD again AMD have nothing they can do.
DX11 was and is in the hands of the devs how they optimize the code for each GPU architecture.

The same With MGPU before AMD or Nvidia can do anything the Devs need to put in the workloads to support MGPU.

A prime example of this is Elite Dangerous, Nvidia worked with them on getting Sli working, AMD couldn't just flick a switch and Xfire would work. Nope they have had to work with the devs getting Xfire working. ED now supports Xfire.

 

[Nexus18]

There are no problems with AMD drivers for the majority of people.

Only crossfire is struggling and going by some comments, SLI doesn't seem to be an awful lot better... Not to mention, mGPU just seems to be getting worse in general i.e. just cause 3 and batman AK, no support at all and with dx 12, from what I understand, it will be more or less entirely down to developers, which is not a good thing in my eyes given how broken most games are on release as well as missing basic features/options so if they are not concerned about that stuff, which affects all then why would they be concerned with something that a relatively small amount of people have...

I would dare say that AMD's drivers are better than nvidia's in the last several months tbh, given the issues that quite a large majority of nvidia users have had with crashing even on desktop usage with chrome, blue screens etc. as well damaging PC components.

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=29450092&postcount=5977

Even on nvidia's forums, there are huge threads on the stability/crashing issues.

Give me stability over more features every day of the week.

AMD certainly need to get a better alternative to shadowplay etc. out though

 

[Mauller]

Give me stability over more features every day of the week.

AMD certainly need to get a better alternative to shadowplay etc. out though

Something more important is getting all of the resolution and display control options added to the new Crimson settings control panel. Is daft that they stuck in all of the eyefinity stuff but lacked adding in all of the basic display resolution and control options.

 

[Nexus18]

Something more important is getting all of the resolution and display control options added to the new Crimson settings control panel. Is daft that they stuck in all of the eyefinity stuff but lacked adding in all of the basic display resolution and control options.

Yup indeed. Still not sure why they haven't moved that over yet.

Also, we need better VSR support, still not able to use any custom 21.9 resolutions.

Got to say though, at first, I really hated the new crimson look but it has grown on me a lot, so much simpler and nicer to use than the old CCC.

 

[D.P.]

Donning a tin foil hat... Maybe NVidia have seen what is coming from AMD and panicked into launching the 1080 quickly.

No, almost always the opposite is going to be True. If Nvidia are really in a situation where they can not get volume and their cards under perform compared to Polaris then a paper launch early doesn't get them any sales. If there is a performance problem then the best they can do is continuing analyze the silicon and find any weaknesses that allow them to increase core clocks and reduce power usage. likewise if yields are low, find the failures and try to mitigate as many as possible so you can ramp up volume faster upon release. All the while you get the driver team working 100 hour weeks (hopefully nicely compensated) to squeeze out ever drop of performance before the cards go off to reviewers.


Launching early without products on the shelves doesn't gain you sales because by definition you have nothing to sell. If you look at the examples of bad GPU executions form the past like the AMD 2900 and nvidia FX800, they were released later, not earlier.

 

[TheRealDeal]

Something more important is getting all of the resolution and display control options added to the new Crimson settings control panel. Is daft that they stuck in all of the eyefinity stuff but lacked adding in all of the basic display resolution and control options.

The launch of Polaris would be a perfect time to do it. Lets hope that's what happens. I like crimson but it's made some things harder to do. i used to be able to duplicate my monitor with my TV easily now i can't or haven't figured out how to. My mate has the same problem since Crimson. It's just a few niggles that should be easily sorted out when they update the rest of the ccc.

 

[TheRealDeal]

No, almost always the opposite is going to be True. If Nvidia are really in a situation where they can get volume and their cards under perform compared to Polaris then a paper launch early doesn't get them any sales. If there is a performance problem then the best they can do is continuing analyze the silicon and find any weaknesses that allow them to increase core clocks and reduce power usage. likewise if yields are low, find the failures and try to mitigate as many as possible so you can ramp up volume faster upon release. All the while you get the driver team working 100 hour weeks (hopefully nicely compensated) to squeeze out ever drop of performance before the cards go off to reviewers.


Launching early without products on the shelves doesn't gain you sales because by definition you have nothing to sell. If you look at the examples of bad GPU executions form the past like the AMD 2900 and nvidia FX800, they were released later, not earlier.

What about Pre-orders and the illusion of always being sold out to make people think the product is selling that great it's never available.

 

[D.P.]

AMD have no control over what a devs does with code inside the game. If X game optimised for Nvidia Shadow and not AMD, AMD cant do anything about it.

yes they can, they can work with the developer to produce code that works better for AMD cards.

 

[Mauller]

The launch of Polaris would be a perfect time to do it. Lets hope that's what happens. I like crimson but it's made some things harder to do. i used to be able to duplicate my monitor with my TV easily now i can't or haven't figured out how to. My mate has the same problem since Crimson. It's just a few niggles that should be easily sorted out when they update the rest of the ccc.

Just hit the windows key and tap P, is the easiest way to manage it.