AMD Launching 'Volcanic Islands' GPUs in 2013

[aggroboy]

It's pretty hard to believe.
Isn't 2013 a bit ambitious for a 20nm part? Also didn't they say they will use 7000/8000 series for the rest of this year?

 

[somebodyspecial]

hmm, Nvidia rebranding current products and selling the only new tech at extreme price points (Titan at $1k, 780 rumored to be $699...). if AMD comes out with new architecture, it can potentially rival the 780 or even the Titan at a much lower price point. plus with all the extra game optimizations they'll have due to new consoles, I think AMD's got a nice set up to dominate the graphics market for the coming year

LOL...IF you think they're going to fit that many cores in a 28nm die and price it much below NV you're smoking something. There is a reason why titan is 550mm or so. AMD will have to blow up the die to double perf (which I don't believe) and lost even more money than they are now.

All you fools asking for cheap AMD cards apparently don't understand they keep losing a Billion a year. Meanwhile, NV just had another RECORD margin quarter, income up 29% etc in a crappy PC environment. Even the free games aren't helping steal share from NV. Why? They spent their wad for drivers on PS4/Xbox/Wiiu. People read reviews and find out in forums their drivers have sucked (see notebookcheck for the 7970m review and hardocp for their driver reviews of both NV and AMD...took AMD a whole year to get things right and still has stuttering issues - Fcat etc showing flaws). You MIGHT get a working driver this year for crossfire (prototype driver) but how long are you supposed to wait for your product to work? A year and half? This is why NV owns 65% discrete share.

If AMD comes out much lower they're bankrupt. Even the CFO said they'll need a loan to get past the end of the year. Quit asking for low prices, you're killing your favorite company.

 

[somebodyspecial]

As I'm firmly in the "GK110 should have been the GTX 680" camp, I would love it if AMD came out and took a steamy dump on Nvidia's Titan by offering a card 40-50% faster than it for 2/3rds the price (assuming 2x7970 performance from specs & ~$600 launch price).
That said, I highly doubt that will be what actually happens. Definitely look forward to seeing what they bring to the table, though... I'm thankful they're not rebranding like Nvidia is. Is there anything more boring in the world of GPUs than rebrands?

How is it rebranding when Titan is a ~550mm die? This is not a GTX680.
If this is 20nm for AMD it's no surprise they double things...But NV already has an answer anyway. It's called maxwell Q1. I don't understand why this is being said like this is new info. AMD already said a while back Q4 for their next release was on schedule, and Maxwell is already Q1 to find out what AMD looks like. I'm guessing NV has 2-3 drivers for it. If AMD sucks you'll get the crap one (like all last year, nothing new perf wise from NV until Dec after never settle...why give you perf when the competition is losing?), if this chip is awesome we'll get the REAL NV driver. Anyone thinking NV doesn't have an answer with 3.7B in the bank and making PROFIT vs. a company that loses 1.18B last year and is still losing now while blowing a ton no doubt on PS4, Xbox720, wiiu, must not be paying attention.

Anyone asking for cheap AMD cards is asking for NO COMPETITION soon as they'll go bankrupt if you don't start paying them more money for their stuff. Doesn't anyone read balance sheets these days? I hope this card is released at a grand...Otherwise they are idiots. They just lost 310mil (when including austin land sale 164mil+146mil loss), and are on track to lose their last Billion. How badly do all you people want AMD to go out of business? Pull your heads out and start praying for HIGHER prices so they actually make some damned money! They have lost ~6B in the last 10yrs (yeah, that's ZERO freaking profit!). Do the math. They already have junk bond status for their credit. You can't even get worse than that! I like AMD, but people like you are killing them. All AMD does is lose money making people happy about cheap prices.

All the AMD lovers on here (Toms is full of them and NV haters) should start asking for PRICE HIKES! NV understands you can't GIVE away your cards and make a profit. Not to mention their drivers are WORTH the money they ask. They actually WORK as advertised. AMD on the other hand can't afford to make a stutter free driver. Why? You keep asking for cheap prices so they have no R&D money!

 

[vmem]

hmm, Nvidia rebranding current products and selling the only new tech at extreme price points (Titan at $1k, 780 rumored to be $699...). if AMD comes out with new architecture, it can potentially rival the 780 or even the Titan at a much lower price point. plus with all the extra game optimizations they'll have due to new consoles, I think AMD's got a nice set up to dominate the graphics market for the coming year

LOL...IF you think they're going to fit that many cores in a 28nm die and price it much below NV you're smoking something. There is a reason why titan is 550mm or so. AMD will have to blow up the die to double perf (which I don't believe) and lost even more money than they are now.

All you fools asking for cheap AMD cards apparently don't understand they keep losing a Billion a year. Meanwhile, NV just had another RECORD margin quarter, income up 29% etc in a crappy PC environment. Even the free games aren't helping steal share from NV. Why? They spent their wad for drivers on PS4/Xbox/Wiiu. People read reviews and find out in forums their drivers have sucked (see notebookcheck for the 7970m review and hardocp for their driver reviews of both NV and AMD...took AMD a whole year to get things right and still has stuttering issues - Fcat etc showing flaws). You MIGHT get a working driver this year for crossfire (prototype driver) but how long are you supposed to wait for your product to work? A year and half? This is why NV owns 65% discrete share.

If AMD comes out much lower they're bankrupt. Even the CFO said they'll need a loan to get past the end of the year. Quit asking for low prices, you're killing your favorite company.

I fully understand what you mean, however while we're on the topic of executive strategy I think you missed a few things.

Roy is clearly going for an all in gaming win. he's picked his target audience: the gaming community, both PC and console, and he's throwing EVERYTHING AMD has at it to go for a kill or die strategy. you really think AMD's making a lot of profit on their current 7000 series with all the game codes they're giving out? Yes, AMD needs a loan to make it past a year, but judging by what they've done so far, Roy and AMD are willing to take that loan, cuz it's either that, or a slow and painful death over the next 10 years.

and here's why they would do it. if you look at AMD's history, their CPU wars with Intel, and more recently GPU wars with Nvidia, where did they start losing? is it actual performance, no, never. remember the earlier days of Athlon and then phenom. Intel played dirty, and Intel threw a tremendous amount of money at OEMs and general marketing/branding to pull a win out of their asses over that decade. and now come a few years later AMD finds themselves in the same position with the GPU market. us here at Toms, Guru, OC.net etc can argue about performance etc all we want. out in the wild, in the general consumer market, Nvidia is outselling AMD more than 2 to 1 off the selves and AMD's losing even faster with OEMs. In fact, Nvidia has become synonymous with graphics in the general market, just ask around at best buy etc, I dare you. If I were AMD, I'd do what exactly they're doing now, throw everything I have to do the best I can to shove an AMD component in EVERY SINGLE MACHINE that's going to be sold over the next year, and make damn sure the consumer knows they just bought AMD. if they can do that, and have a firm grip on the graphics crown (we all know they gave up on the CPU crown, at least for now), then they actually have a chance. otherwise they'll just be slowly cornered out of the market

 

[vmem]

Oh and btw, we all want AMD to squeeze all that power into a 20nm process, 28nm would mean an impossibly huge die 😛

and if 9970 actually comes out being what it is, I'd pay $700 for it, that's what NV is rumored to charge for the 780 anyway.

 

[RobotJesus84]

So I have a question/suggestion about the AMD Huma/HSA architecture. To my understanding, the unified memory architecture will only benefit the APU format. But in a discrete GPU format, if they were to dedicate a portion of the CPU memory to mirror the discrete GPU memory, then both the GPU and CPU would have access to the same data at the same time, without having to set aside additional cycles to transfer. I'm just worried if AMD goes big with the Huma/HSA thing, the discrete GPU's will suffer relative to optimization, and I like the idea of having a discrete GPU being able to upgrade my GPU more often than my CPU.

 

[Wisecracker]

So I have a question/suggestion about the AMD Huma/HSA architecture. To my understanding, the unified memory architecture will only benefit the APU format. But in a discrete GPU format, if they were to dedicate a portion of the CPU memory to mirror the discrete GPU memory, then both the GPU and CPU would have access to the same data at the same time, without having to set aside additional cycles to transfer. I'm just worried if AMD goes big with the Huma/HSA thing, the discrete GPU's will suffer relative to optimization, and I like the idea of having a discrete GPU being able to upgrade my GPU more often than my CPU.

I think you need to factor IOMMU and DDR4 into your unified memory equation, in addition to something called "T-RAM" which AMD is working on (which, as I understand it, is a type of low-latency embedded memory that functions as a last-level cache that could be shared between 'Onion and Garlic')

 

[Manuel Tamesis]

I FULLY RESPECT AMD and the things they are doing! If the "9970" does come out and it cost $700-$900 with Titan DESTROYING performance I WILL BUY 2! I will support AMD as much as I can as they are the ones causing prices to drop and providing competition and options for the consumers(US). To each his own, but what I stated above is the main reason why I WILL CONTINUE to buy AMD products. 😀