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AMD Radeon R9 285 with Tonga GPU pictured

I'm with FUD on this one.

From AMD's perspective, the 7950 out sold the 7970 by quite a lot, the reason is they were only about 5% apart once clocked up, how often have we said to prospecting buyers "don't bother with the 7970, get the 7950 its the same card and just as fast"

Its the same with the 290 and 290/X. AMD may well be pretty sick of that and will now make them different cards, the lesser being markedly slower and less Vram.

As for Core differences....

7750: GCN 1.0, 45 Watts
7770: GCN 1.0, 73 Watts >>>>> Now R7 260
7790: GCN 1.1, 78 Watts >>>>> Now R7 260X
7850: GCN 1.0, 96 Watts >>>>> Now R7 265
7870: GCN 1.0, 115 Watts >>>>> Now R9 270/X
7950: GCN 1.0, 144 Watts """"""""""""""""""""""""
7950 B: GCN 1.0, 184 Watts >>>>> Now R9 280
7970: GCN 1.0, 188 Watts """"""""""""""""""""""""
7970 GE: GCN 1.0, 238 Watts >>>>> Now R9 280X
R9 290: GCN 1.2, 245 Watts
R9 290X: GCN 1.2, 271 Watts

# GCN 1.0 vs 1.1:
10% performance per Watt improvement.

# GCN 1.0 vs 1.2:
25% performance per Watt improvement, 25% smaller Die per SP count, 4x more Ace units.

Speculation...

285: GCN 1.3, 140 Watts = 10% performance per Watt improvement over GCN 1.2
285X GCN 1.3 160 Watts = ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
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I know Orangey posted a link to the Wccftech version of the same story on page 2 but I thought I would post up the Anandtech link with the following image just in case people missed it last time round.

tonga.jpg


http://www.anandtech.com/show/8371/amd-firepro-w7100-w5100-w4100-w2100
 
FoxEye said:
That would be valid *if* they weren't pricing the 285 the same as the 280.

If it's going from high-end to mid-range, then two things: why is the price staying the same, and why is the number going up? It isn't the 370. If we were talking about 280 -> 370 then I'd agree. We aren't.

What we know so far is that the spec is broadly similar to the 280, with a smaller bus, for the same price.

We're talking 280 -> 285. Same series, less performance (?), same price. Hard to swallow!
Click to expand...

7970 was £400 at launch, it's circa £200 now, this isn't particularly because AMD want the price there, card prices come down over time, that is life and it's partially to shift stock. A card launching at £400 and a card launching at maybe £200 can't be called the same price just because end of life pricing of the former is close to the start of life pricing of the latter.

Tonga isn't being and will never be sold as a high end part with high end pricing, the same is not remotely true of the 7970.

ubersonic said:
While I fully agree that different silicon isn't a rebrand even if it has the same price or market placement. I just wanted to point out rebrands don't have to be perfectly identical, bumping the clocks or shrinking the die then relaunching with a new name is still rebranding.
Click to expand...

Different clocks is rebranding, because it's the same silicon.

I don't personally consider a die shrink to be a rebrand, while changing architecture is a bigger deal a shrink is no small feat and if you take something from a high end price to a midrange price then I really have no problem with that.

I don't care about rebranding if you're not trying to mislead people, turning a 8800gts into a 9800gtx is dodgy as hell, you're implying it's a new gen high end part, an appropriate name would be a 9600gt(s), 9800gtx to 9800gtx + with a die shrink I'm fine with, the name makes you think it's a slightly better version which is what it was. Then it got to further rebrands into new generations each time.

7970 > 280x isn't great, however 7970 was the high end and with the R290x we could see clearly there was a newer faster card. and it's not a terrible name for it. If they had called it a 8970 I'd have had a big issue with that(even without the new cards introduction) it would imply it's faster than the old x970 when it wouldn't have been.
 
One thing's for sure, it doesn't sound like many of us are going to be interested in this Tonga card. Desktops, that is. In laptops probably it's more appealing.

For a desktop, you can get a full-fat 280X for £110-£120 on the MM, why would anybody buy a crippled 7950 with only 2GB VRAM for £150 (minimum - no doubt early adopter prices are higher).

Perhaps the 285X will be better - if not then only Maxwell can save us :p

Frankly, as a 7850 owner, this 285 looks DOA.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Different clocks is rebranding, because it's the same silicon.

I don't personally consider a die shrink to be a rebrand
Click to expand...

That's interesting, and I would agree.

gives this post a different outlook as well seeing as the 250's were a 55nm die shrunk variant of the original 65nm 8800GTS.

ubersonic said:
HD7950 > HD7950BE > R280 > R285
HD7970 > HD7970GE > R280X > R285X

If true then it's closing on the record:

8800GTS 512MB > 9800GTX > 9800GTX+ > GTS250 > GTS250 Green

:D
Click to expand...

That puts them level pegging at 3 cards each. :p:D:p

I do agree with what you said about the whole 8800GTS (not the top card)being redranded to the 9800 and 9800+ (the top cards), being completely out of order though.
 
The W7100 is designed to be a significant step up compared to the outgoing W7000. Along with the doubling W7000’s memory from 4GB to 8GB, the Tonga GPU in W7100 inherits Hawaii’s wider geometry front-end, allowing W7100 to process 4 triangles/clock versus W7000’s 2 tris/clock. Overall compute/rendering performance should also greatly be increased due to the much larger number of stream processors (1792 vs. 1280), but without clockspeeds we can’t say for sure.
Click to expand...

So not a rebrand then.
 
humbug said:
I'm with FUD on this one.

From AMD's perspective, the 7950 out sold the 7970 by quite a lot, the reason is they were only about 5% apart once clocked up, how often have we said to prospecting buyers "don't bother with the 7970, get the 7950 its the same card and just as fast"

Its the same with the 290 and 290/X. AMD may well be pretty sick of that and will now make them different cards, the lesser being markedly slower and less Vram.

As for Core differences....

7750: GCN 1.0, 45 Watts
7770: GCN 1.0, 73 Watts >>>>> Now R7 260
7790: GCN 1.1, 78 Watts >>>>> Now R7 260X
7850: GCN 1.0, 96 Watts >>>>> Now R7 265
7870: GCN 1.0, 115 Watts >>>>> Now R9 270/X
7950: GCN 1.0, 144 Watts """"""""""""""""""""""""
7950 B: GCN 1.0, 184 Watts >>>>> Now R9 280
7970: GCN 1.0, 188 Watts """"""""""""""""""""""""
7970 GE: GCN 1.0, 238 Watts >>>>> Now R9 280X
R9 290: GCN 1.2, 245 Watts
R9 290X: GCN 1.2, 271 Watts

# GCN 1.0 vs 1.1:
10% performance per Watt improvement.

# GCN 1.0 vs 1.2:
25% performance per Watt improvement, 25% smaller Die per SP count, 4x more Ace units.

Speculation...

285: GCN 1.3, 140 Watts = 10% performance per Watt improvement over GCN 1.2
285X GCN 1.3 160 Watts = ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Click to expand...
Have to say i'm with hum on this , If amd has been paying attn they will make more of a difference for the price.
 
triss said:
Have to say i'm with hum on this , If amd has been paying attn they will make more of a difference for the price.
Click to expand...

They will always sell more cheaper products in general, Nvidia is the same. The difference between a 290/290x or a 7970/7950 isn't relevant but the price difference is.

Don't forget these are salvaged parts, the general point is getting good money for parts that can't be sold as full parts is great. You will also, depending on the product, the process, the time in the life of a process, you will have more salvaged parts than full parts available.

The 780ti came out a ridiculous time after the GK110 was in production because Nvidia were getting next to no full yield parts off the wafer. In general, particularly early on a process like the 7970/50 were, the yields are lower so there are significantly more 7950's coming off a wafer than full 7970's. They don't lose sales via 7950's they gain them. Humbug is looking at it entirely the wrong way around.

If you suggest maybe off an early wafer of 7970's you are getting 60 7950's off a wafer and 15 7970's, the 7950 is going to be sold at a healthy profit and 7970 sales are gravy.

There is a reason there was basically a 280x and no 280 for ages... because that much later on the yields on the full part were significantly up. Nvidia will have sold WAY more 780's than 780ti's. AMD sold way more 5850's than 5870's, 4850's than 4870's.

AMD/Nvidia sell more £100 cards than they sell £200 cards, which sell more than £300 cards, etc, etc. Intel the same with cpu's, they sell more dual cores than quads, then more quads than hex's(in a given segment so desktop). This isn't because of performance differentiation but more £400 pc's are sold than £500 pc's, which sell more than £600 pc's.

There is no reason for this to change, and a 50% increase in bandwidth between cards will make for a poorly balanced, badly performing card.

If yields of a full part are expected to be say over 80%, the top card will be priced to moved for the performance and the lower card will be priced very close. If the full part is only expected to be say 20% of all cores on the wafer, with another 70% being the salvaged parts then you price the salvaged part as the volume part, and you price the high yield part a little higher.
 
drunkenmaster said:
They will always sell more cheaper products in general, Nvidia is the same. The difference between a 290/290x or a 7970/7950 isn't relevant but the price difference is.

Don't forget these are salvaged parts, the general point is getting good money for parts that can't be sold as full parts is great. You will also, depending on the product, the process, the time in the life of a process, you will have more salvaged parts than full parts available.

The 780ti came out a ridiculous time after the GK110 was in production because Nvidia were getting next to no full yield parts off the wafer. In general, particularly early on a process like the 7970/50 were, the yields are lower so there are significantly more 7950's coming off a wafer than full 7970's. They don't lose sales via 7950's they gain them. Humbug is looking at it entirely the wrong way around.

If you suggest maybe off an early wafer of 7970's you are getting 60 7950's off a wafer and 15 7970's, the 7950 is going to be sold at a healthy profit and 7970 sales are gravy.

There is a reason there was basically a 280x and no 280 for ages... because that much later on the yields on the full part were significantly up. Nvidia will have sold WAY more 780's than 780ti's. AMD sold way more 5850's than 5870's, 4850's than 4870's.

AMD/Nvidia sell more £100 cards than they sell £200 cards, which sell more than £300 cards, etc, etc. Intel the same with cpu's, they sell more dual cores than quads, then more quads than hex's(in a given segment so desktop). This isn't because of performance differentiation but more £400 pc's are sold than £500 pc's, which sell more than £600 pc's.

There is no reason for this to change, and a 50% increase in bandwidth between cards will make for a poorly balanced, badly performing card.

If yields of a full part are expected to be say over 80%, the top card will be priced to moved for the performance and the lower card will be priced very close. If the full part is only expected to be say 20% of all cores on the wafer, with another 70% being the salvaged parts then you price the salvaged part as the volume part, and you price the high yield part a little higher.
Click to expand...

Agreed on the yield argument, yet 28nm is now very mature, they can charge a bit less for the full fat card while still more than salvage and in that way sell more of the higher priced card because customers get a real difference.

If they are based on Hawaii, which is extremely likely, I can see the 285 performing to -5% of the 280X with a 256Bit Bus and 1792 SP's, with 2048 SP's and an 384Bit Bus I can see the 285X performing about 20% faster, the 290 is about 35% faster than the 280X, so right in-between.

285 = 100%, 285X = 120%, 290 = 140%.

285 = £180, 285X = £220, 290 = £270

Add also that Tonga should get the same shrinking treatment as Hawaii so will be ~290mm^2 instead of 365mm^2 giving ~30% more chips per wafer

Customers get faster and significantly more power efficient cards for about the same money, AMD get increased margins per card.

The 285X may even challenge the GTX 870 depending on its price and performance.

Its all rather neat.
 
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bru said:
That's interesting, and I would agree.

gives this post a different outlook as well seeing as the 250's were a 55nm die shrunk variant of the original 65nm 8800GTS.
Click to expand...

It was the 9800GTX+ that was the 55nm die shrink, that's what the + was supposed to denote :p

They launched the 8800GTS 512MB at the end of the GF8 cycle (because they weren't ready for GF9 yet but wanted a new card) then renamed it four months later to 9800GTX and bumped the clocks to make it the flagship of the GF9 series, then they shrank the die to 55nm called it the 9800GTX+ and bumped the clocks again, next they kept everything the same and called it the GTS250 and then finally they used low voltage chips and a slight clock drop and called it the GTS250 Green.
 
faceman123 said:
Love AMD graphics cards, but isn't this the most pointless card EU? New nvidia is around the corner, AMD should be approaching 390 etc. hmmm
Click to expand...

It might be made on the GF 28NM process(instead of the TSMC one),and if it introduces the next iteration of GCN it could be a test card like the HD4770 was.
 
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