AMD Polaris architecture – GCN 4.0

flopper · 30 May 2016 at 10:26

Main reason one buys Polaris/Vega are due to Dx12 and the future.
If one does not buy cards often and most dont then dx12 is important as AMD designed Mantle and since its codebase is used for dx12 and vulkan the amd cards are fully dx12 compatible. Maxwell and Pascal is another story. I wouldnt like to find out that suddenly my card cant do something as well as the other brand due to its lacking such features. Maybe thats important maybe not.

I am concerned about the future of gaming due to Dx12 and such articles like this,
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/7...-crimson-edition-rsce-16-overview/index2.html

Maybe something is going on that I should concern myself with if I do buy a card?
However can it be some sudden PR? someone afraid thats thinking we can hide those lacking features?

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=263880&postcount=1486

In all it paints a pictrue about the recent released cards from one brand.

I await Polaris and Vega with a renewed interest and the future is indeed brighter now

JediFragger · 30 May 2016 at 10:32

flopper said:
as AMD designed Mantle and since its codebase is used for dx12

This is just rumour and conjecture tbh flopper, unless you can post proof from MS or AMD stating such?

When anyone posts that I always ask for proof and no-one has ever been able to supply any...

Seanspeed · 30 May 2016 at 10:34

Mauller said:
If it was a solid 60, then it could have been fps locked in game which is an option.

But WHY? Why do that on a 144hz Freesync monitor? Makes no sense.

And I see now that there wasn't actually any FPS info available. Could have been running 45fps average for all we know. Freesync would obviously make that much harder to tell just by watching it.

That said, 1440/60fps probably should be possible with P10 in Doom. A 970 can do it with console-esque settings.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 30 May 2016 at 10:34

I honestly have lost all hope with this generation. I was looking at older reviews and realised that the GTX670 and GTX470 on new nodes destroyed the previous high end cards in performance by like 20% or thereabouts. Now with the GTX1070 on a new node not doing the same,it makes me wonder how good Polaris 10 and the GTX1060 will be.

I just did some number crunching looking at the GTX1080 review from TPU:

https://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/images/perfrel_2560_1440.png

Even at £320 and making the assumption the GTX1070 matches the Titan X,it only takes the GTX1060 and Polaris 10 at £250,to match a GTX980 to be no worse in price/performance and to be only slightly cheaper than £250 to be better price/performance.

It also means AMD and Nvidia only need to have a 10% to 20% improvement in basic performance at £250 for their PR to massage everything.

If the GTX1070 ends up being more like £350,than it makes things even worse under £300.

beany_bot · 30 May 2016 at 10:36

JediFragger said:
This is just rumour and conjecture tbh flopper, unless you can post proof from MS or AMD stating such?

When anyone posts that I always ask for proof and no-one has ever been able to supply any...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=IS+DX12+MANTLE

Mtom · 30 May 2016 at 10:42

Just heard, that Oct/Nov was the original target with Vega, the tech sites just assumed from the slide that it is early 2017.
So they don't really brought it ahead, it was the plan all along.

Also Vega is not one GPU but a family like Polaris, but only one chip will launch this year.

Seanspeed · 30 May 2016 at 10:47

flopper said:
Main reason one buys Polaris/Vega are due to Dx12 and the future.
If one does not buy cards often and most dont then dx12 is important as AMD designed Mantle and since its codebase is used for dx12 and vulkan the amd cards are fully dx12 compatible. Maxwell and Pascal is another story. I wouldnt like to find out that suddenly my card cant do something as well as the other brand due to its lacking such features. Maybe thats important maybe not.

I am concerned about the future of gaming due to Dx12 and such articles like this,
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/7...-crimson-edition-rsce-16-overview/index2.html

Maybe something is going on that I should concern myself with if I do buy a card?
However can it be some sudden PR? someone afraid thats thinking we can hide those lacking features?

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=263880&postcount=1486

In all it paints a pictrue about the recent released cards from one brand.

I await Polaris and Vega with a renewed interest and the future is indeed brighter now

Like, you've been aware of all this stuff before, yet you're acting like it's only just popped up in your mind and you're just 'concern trolling' here. :rolleyes:

Anyways, I would agree that anybody who doesn't upgrade every 1-3 years should probably treat DX12-capabilities as more of a priority, but outside from that, I would look more at performance of different games overall. If you dont tend to go more than 3 years before upgrading, dont concern yourself too much with 'future proofing'. Your card will always fall behind, if not in specific functionality, then simply in raw horsepower.

For me, I consider good DX12 performance a nice bonus in 2016. What I'm eager to see is whether AMD have really improved their DX11 instructions. That's something I'd value more at this point.

Seanspeed · 30 May 2016 at 10:49

Mtom said:
Just heard, that Oct/Nov was the original target with Vega, the tech sites just assumed from the slide that it is early 2017.
So they don't really brought it ahead, it was the plan all along.

Well to be fair, that's exactly what the slide said!

Mtom said:
Also Vega is not one GPU but a family like Polaris, but only one chip will launch this year.

That'd be really ideal and what I was hoping.

Where are you 'hearing' this, though?

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 30 May 2016 at 10:51

I don't care what they call them,just make sure the price is decent. If Polaris 10 cannot beat the price/performance of the GTX1070(which for me is meh improvement for a 70 series part on a new node) by a big amount,then it will continue this generation as being rather boring for a new node.

All these stupid Fury,Titan and TI brands have done is just bumped prices up meaning people's expectations are low.

After looking at the GTX1070 reviews,I expect Polaris 10 will be around R9 390X/GTX980 level performance and maybe £240. This by extension will make it slightly better price performance than a GTX1070 and AMD can call it a victory even though it is barely 10% to 20% faster than the R9 390 and GTX970 for the same price.

You want that extra 25% performance the GTX1070 offers?? Pay 33% to 50% more for it.

Mtom · 30 May 2016 at 10:57

Seanspeed said:
Well to be fair, that's exactly what the slide said!

That'd be really ideal and what I was hoping.

Where are you 'hearing' this, though?

Well theres a foreign forum where theres a developer guy, and one of the authors tend to slip things, but i don't really want to link. Don't want to cause them trouble.
The dev guys asked if they really brought Vega forward and why because they told him October 4 months ago.

On the slide yes that is what it shows, but everyone assumed very late 2016/early 2016.

Seanspeed · 30 May 2016 at 10:59

Mtom said:
Well theres a foreign forum where theres a developer guy, and one of the authors tend to slip things, but i don't really want to link.

Huh ok. You'll have to forgive me if I dont consider that a terribly credible source, especially if you wont even provide a link. Though I do hope they're(or you're) right.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 30 May 2016 at 11:01

We will probably know when Polaris is released as I expect AMD will want to provide more details about Vega,especially since Polaris 10 won't be beating a GTX1080 anytime soon.

nashathedog · 30 May 2016 at 11:01

beany_bot said:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=IS+DX12+MANTLE

The links the search provides do not confirm it though, Do they?

The top one sounds close to doing so but the quote below say's the opposite.

The two APIs won’t be identical — Microsoft is doing its own implementation — but the end result, for consumers, should be the same: lower CPU overhead and better scaling in modern titles.

Seanspeed · 30 May 2016 at 11:03

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
After looking at the GTX1070 reviews,I expect Polaris 10 will be around R9 390X/GTX980 level performance and maybe £240. This by extension will make it slightly better price performance than a GTX1070 and AMD can call it a victory even though it is barely 10% to 20% faster than the R9 390 and GTX970 for the same price.

You want that extra 25% performance the GTX1070 offers?? Pay 33% to 50% more for it.

About what I'm expecting, too.

Whether it turns out to be a victory in consumer's minds is another thing, though.

Mtom · 30 May 2016 at 11:08

Seanspeed said:
Huh ok. You'll have to forgive me if I dont consider that a terribly credible source, especially if you wont even provide a link. Though I do hope they're(or you're) right.

You don't have to ofc, until its proven or official its just rumor as every other. I'll just post what i hear.

Mauller · 30 May 2016 at 11:59

Well the atmosphere from the Macau event point to things being very positive for Polaris from the general hearsay and tweets.

Relentless81 · 30 May 2016 at 12:03

This waiting is killing me, in 20 years of PC gaming I dont think I've been this impatient for a GPU to launch!

Toss3 · 30 May 2016 at 12:35

Relentless81 said:
This waiting is killing me, in 20 years of PC gaming I dont think I've been this impatient for a GPU to launch!

I'm refraining from becoming too excited after the disappointment that was Fiji. Basically hyping it up like it was the second coming of Christ and then having the GTX 980 Ti soundly beating it on almost every front. They also said it would be an overclocker's dream, yet it wouldn't overclock for ****. Then the coil-whine issues with the first batch started to appear. So in essence, let's just say that you should take what AMD are promising with a teaspoon of salt.

Marine-RX179 · 30 May 2016 at 12:37

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
After looking at the GTX1070 reviews,I expect Polaris 10 will be around R9 390X/GTX980 level performance and maybe £240. This by extension will make it slightly better price performance than a GTX1070 and AMD can call it a victory even though it is barely 10% to 20% faster than the R9 390 and GTX970 for the same price.

You want that extra 25% performance the GTX1070 offers?? Pay 33% to 50% more for it.

Nvidia is no fool, and they have learned that having the 70 cards performance being too close to the 80 is bad for business (as we keep on telling people the 980 is not worth the extra money just go for the 970 or 390), so the 1070 actually has the biggest nerf/downgrade from its 80 big brother to date (comparing to 670/680, 970/980) in terms of spec, as one of the reviews put it.

Steampunk · 30 May 2016 at 12:42

My biggest problem is that I just don't think Polaris will be good enough for me to upgrade from a 290. 390 wasn't, Fury was absurdly priced. If P10 is just a bit more performance than 390 at a cheap price, then I'll be waiting on Vega, and hoping the pricing is sensible as it looks like it will be 490, rather than some extra vanity product above the normal stack.

I'm hoping Polaris does well, as Vega will build on that and will have to be better again. I think Vega will be the true increase in performance, where Polaris is just bringing the current top performance down into the mainstream.