AMD Radeon R9 300 Series MegaThread: FAQ and Resources

[de5_Roy]

the off-package components like power delivery system will need cooling. i am assuming amd will use a pcie lane switcher chip from PLX. the PCB could be smaller in terms of area... though i don't think amd will skip a dual slot center-mounted fan for cooling the card.

here's a crazy idea, amd could allow quadfiring fiji based gfx cards and allow using 16GB aggregate vram under directx 12.

 

[Ranth]

I really don't think it makes sense if the 390x WCE is a dual chip card, due to all the other leaks, except the 8GB memory. The naming is off, the core count is off, unless AMD did some magic and made ~2000 cores as good as ~3000 on Hawaii. (Which would be amazing). Unless it's ~4000 per chip but then the 8GB, and the leaked performance doesn't make sense, to me atleast.
True it would be more efficient chip, but if the benchmarks are true, and the 390x is ~50% faster than 290x, then it would be disappointing since a single chip version won't be able to beat a 290x.

Also the leaked cooler doesn't exactly seem dualgpu optimized

Well I am assuming that everyone is talking about 390x WCE, if you're talking about a possible 395x WCE it'd be more believable to me.

 

[Share2Care]

More of a logical thought process and question than anything else if you Ladies & Gents would be so kind;

I certainly have been waiting in anticipation for the next generation (hopefully not next re-branded..) GPU's. AMD must know there are some leaps to be made, which may well be the case with the small bits of information we are hearing.

My question / point is that at the moment you can purchase a 8GB R9 290X for a relatively small sum of money, when compared to what you are getting in terms of 'strength / beast' of a card that is the 290X. With the launch of the new GPU's, would I get a similar or faster GPU? OF course many benefits to be had with HBM, possibly integrated water cooling (wish more cards had that option), possibly running on 20nm (well, at least the top end...) etc. etc.

Anyhow, just a thought!

 

[leeb2013]

More of a logical thought process and question than anything else if you Ladies & Gents would be so kind;

I certainly have been waiting in anticipation for the next generation (hopefully not next re-branded..) GPU's. AMD must know there are some leaps to be made, which may well be the case with the small bits of information we are hearing.

My question / point is that at the moment you can purchase a 8GB R9 290X for a relatively small sum of money, when compared to what you are getting in terms of 'strength / beast' of a card that is the 290X. With the launch of the new GPU's, would I get a similar or faster GPU? OF course many benefits to be had with HBM, possibly integrated water cooling (wish more cards had that option), possibly running on 20nm (well, at least the top end...) etc. etc.

Anyhow, just a thought!

everything indicates that AMD's new top-end GPU will be intended to beat current GPU's including GTX980 by a good margin.
It would be unusual for AMD to release new GPUs just for a power saving for example. They are the Jeremy Clarkson of GPUs (and CPUs).....MORE POWER!!!

 

[de5_Roy]

XFX Radeon R9 390 Double Dissipation Allegedly Pictured - Features XDMA Crossfire, 8+6 Pin Power Configuration
http://wccftech.com/xfx-radeon-r9-390-double-dissipation-allegedly-pictured/

GTA 5 PC graphics options in full
http://www.pcgamer.com/gta-5-pc-graphics-options-in-full/
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Revealed with New Trailer - Features DX12 and TressFX 3.0 Support, Uses the New Dawn Engine
http://wccftech.com/deus-mankind-divided-revealed-trailer-features-dx12-tressfx-support-dawn-engine/

 

[leeb2013]

XFX Radeon R9 390 Double Dissipation Allegedly Pictured - Features XDMA Crossfire, 8+6 Pin Power Configuration
http://wccftech.com/xfx-radeon-r9-390-double-dissipation-allegedly-pictured/

GTA 5 PC graphics options in full
http://www.pcgamer.com/gta-5-pc-graphics-options-in-full/
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Revealed with New Trailer - Features DX12 and TressFX 3.0 Support, Uses the New Dawn Engine
http://wccftech.com/deus-mankind-divided-revealed-trailer-features-dx12-tressfx-support-dawn-engine/

shame it turned out to be a R9-380 (possibly just a renamed Hawaii chip)

 

[uglyduckling81]

There is clearly a problem with the new chips. Almost a year and a half now with no new release. A demo model shown of an unknown new model so clearly there is a yield issue with what ever that card was.
Most likely the problem is the new card isn't going to perform as well as a 980 and has a reported 300 max watts usage. How are they going to market their new flagship that falls somewhere between a 290x and a 980 but draws half again as much power as the 980.
They clearly have to get something out the door to reinvigorate sales but its going to be an advertising nightmare if it is indeed slower than a 980.
It really makes me wonder about the quality of the engineers AMD are employing. They have already fallen two to three generations behind Intel in the CPU race which has resulted in them giving up the race altogether. They push into the APU space which as far I can tell is a bit of a dead zone besides the ultaportable, ie phones, tablets. Atmiddely this is a huge market but I don't want AMD to just become a competitor to Qualcomm in the mobile space.
How long before they give up on the dedicated GPUs as well? They will have fallen at least one generation behind Nvidia after this next release if it is as I suspect the 390/490 will perform.
It makes me worried if Team Red can't get back on top. We are heading toward not only a monopoly of the CPU space as we have now but also of the GPUs.
Once that happens we will have PC's rivalling Macs for price.
Then Microsoft will force me to start interacting with Windows only through a horribly interfaced program called WinTunes in which every file on my computer is placed in the root directory and I'm forced to scroll through every file placing a tick next to each one I wish to copy onto my USB stick.
There is no legalised assisted suicide in Australia so Ill be forced to suffer through it and complain every day of my life or even worse be made to stop using a PC and go outside for my entertainment.

 

[-Fran-]

Depends on the front you're talking about. A GPU design covers a lot more than just "games".

From the Kepler generation, nVidia has been able to make 2 different GPU classes for 2 very different markets: compute and gaming. You know which cards I'm referring to, so no need to get any deeper. Point is, AMD hasn't been able to nail that part quite well with GCN. It appears the core design for GCN is not allowing them to scale it down for games, but it's very effective at compute tasks. This means, in practical terms, they make do with their compute flagships dialed up for games as much as they can.

Not a justification, but works as a simple clarification of how things stand.

Cheers!

 

[grilledcheez]

The 380/385 probably will be same as 380x with less stream processors with roughly a 300w tdp set to compete with the gtx970.

This is about the range I'd be looking at. Assuming that the 380 and 385 would have less stream processors than the 380X, but still utilizing HBM memory. I'm wondering though, with all the extra throughput you can utilize with the HBM memory, would it really matter if the processor architecture stayed at 28nm instead of jumping to 20nm? Is the current architecture able to fully saturate the GDDR5 memory? I was thinking this HBM memory would unlock some serious power in GPUs, but I guess upgrading architecture and processors would make for an insanely high priced GPU when launched?

Personally, my computer is the oldest computer I've kept in awhile since the i7 came out, I'm still running 1st generation i7 Xtreme 975 overclocked to 4.0GHz, and my computer is still fast and good enough to play any game 6 years later, minus the several graphics cards I've gone through in this computer already.

To be honest, I'm getting sick of upgrading graphics cards every 2 - 3 years to keep my games looking awesome and the prices are just getting out of control... at least with nvidia GPUs, haven't really looked at AMD pricing in awhile. Just to put that in perspective I remember years ago buying a overclocked GTX285 when it first came out, top of the line, that card was boss. It cost me around $400 at the time. Now for a top of the line GTX, lets say 980's and Titan Black it's like $500 - $1000+. Even the GTX970's are like $420+. I apologize, this turned into a rant.

 

[The_Psyrex]

There is clearly a problem with the new chips. Almost a year and a half now with no new release. A demo model shown of an unknown new model so clearly there is a yield issue with what ever that card was.
Most likely the problem is the new card isn't going to perform as well as a 980 and has a reported 300 max watts usage. How are they going to market their new flagship that falls somewhere between a 290x and a 980 but draws half again as much power as the 980.
They clearly have to get something out the door to reinvigorate sales but its going to be an advertising nightmare if it is indeed slower than a 980.
It really makes me wonder about the quality of the engineers AMD are employing. They have already fallen two to three generations behind Intel in the CPU race which has resulted in them giving up the race altogether. They push into the APU space which as far I can tell is a bit of a dead zone besides the ultaportable, ie phones, tablets. Atmiddely this is a huge market but I don't want AMD to just become a competitor to Qualcomm in the mobile space.
How long before they give up on the dedicated GPUs as well? They will have fallen at least one generation behind Nvidia after this next release if it is as I suspect the 390/490 will perform.
It makes me worried if Team Red can't get back on top. We are heading toward not only a monopoly of the CPU space as we have now but also of the GPUs.
Once that happens we will have PC's rivalling Macs for price.
Then Microsoft will force me to start interacting with Windows only through a horribly interfaced program called WinTunes in which every file on my computer is placed in the root directory and I'm forced to scroll through every file placing a tick next to each one I wish to copy onto my USB stick.
There is no legalised assisted suicide in Australia so Ill be forced to suffer through it and complain every day of my life or even worse be made to stop using a PC and go outside for my entertainment.

I feel quite the opposite of this. I still build a lot of computers for personal use and for companies and I still don't touch intel CPU's. Yes they may have better numbers by a small margin when clocked similarly. Intel is better as some things and AMD is better at others. But we are building PC's to get the best PC for the money. AMD will always win the performance per $ in my book. Spend $450 for a CPU or spend $100 for a CPU. If I buy Intel CPU and Nvidia graphics card. That is what the whole computer built on AMD will cost with maybe a 9-5% performance difference in them for a 300% price difference? not very feasible to me. I completely disagree with you on the APU's. There are a lot of companies using them now for computers for people who do not require anything graphics intensive. about 150 of our 300 computers in my office are APU's because they are quite, and super small and you get a GPU and a CPU for the same price of a CPU. about 1/5th the size of previous computers and use a ton less power. AMD has not fallen behind in the GPU. Discuss the fact that you can buy a radeon R9 295x2 for about $600-$700 right now. To beat that with Nvidia, you need to buy of a $500 card and then it only beats it in some things. I am not a fan boy by any means. I have Intel Builds and AMD Builds, just with me always building for price/performance on all my customers now, AMD always wins out and never have reliability issues.

 

[de5_Roy]

AMD reiterates plans to introduce new Radeon R9 300 GPUs in June
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-reiterates-plans-to-introduce-new-radeon-r9-300-series-gpus-in-june/

 

[-Fran-]

I just don't get what AMD is doing here... They already have the 390X working, but they're not releasing it. The Titan X can't be that much better; it just can't. Did they get scared with the 12GB? Are they trying to revisit drivers or cooling? Man, I hate this AMD silence and giving nVidia such a LARGE lead into the market is not making them any favors.

Lisa Su, what the F'ing hell are you planning?

Cheers!

 

[de5_Roy]

I just don't get what AMD is doing here... They already have the 390X working, but they're not releasing it. The Titan X can't be that much better; it just can't. Did they get scared with the 12GB? Are they trying to revisit drivers or cooling? Man, I hate this AMD silence and giving nVidia such a LARGE lead into the market is not making them any favors.

Lisa Su, what the F'ing hell are you planning?

Cheers!

chances are:
- the fiji gpus are so big that even on 28nm the yields are not enough and it's taking amd longer to stockpile gpus for sales.
- amd has unsold existing cards and is still facing the blowback from cryptocoin mining crash.
- HBM yields are not yet satisfactory level.
- amd hasn't finalized how it'll clock the fiji gfx cards. huge power hungry die with stacked vram and tdp limits are tricky.
- amd is waiting how nvidia plays it's hand while stockpiling and tweaking it's fiji. may be amd can't price fiji cards under a certain price point.

maxwell is a low power oriented desig scaled upwards. meanwhile amd was hitting gcn 1.1's upper limits already.

new launches are a few weeks away anyway. we'll now soon.
+salt

 

[-Fran-]

chances are:
1- the fiji gpus are so big that even on 28nm the yields are not enough and it's taking amd longer to stockpile gpus for sales.
2- amd has unsold existing cards and is still facing the blowback from cryptocoin mining crash.
3- HBM yields are not yet satisfactory level.
4- amd hasn't finalized how it'll clock the fiji gfx cards. huge power hungry die with stacked vram and tdp limits are tricky.
5- amd is waiting how nvidia plays it's hand while stockpiling and tweaking it's fiji. may be amd can't price fiji cards under a certain price point.

maxwell is a low power oriented desig scaled upwards. meanwhile amd was hitting gcn 1.1's upper limits already.

new launches are a few weeks away anyway. we'll now soon.
+salt

If your intuition is correct, I'd go with 2, 4 then 1 in terms of most probable to least (IMO, of course). And having 2 as their main problem is really messy. That includes OEMs, which are basically their buyers. Since AMD doesn't do "BBA"s (build by ATI; man, those were sweet), they can't eat the stock issue so easily since OEMs will refuse to buy new stuff if they have a lot of previous stuff stacked. Stating the obvious is good from time to time

In any case, even if they don't have a long term winner. You just sell what you have so you turn a profit sooner than later. I know in the past not having stock of cards was a problem, but you really *want* that problem, don't you? This could be the very first bad idea Lisa Su has had, but I'll just bite my tongue since I don't have all the information to pass judgement (yet).

Cheers!

 

[de5_Roy]

Spoiler

chances are:
1- the fiji gpus are so big that even on 28nm the yields are not enough and it's taking amd longer to stockpile gpus for sales.
2- amd has unsold existing cards and is still facing the blowback from cryptocoin mining crash.
3- HBM yields are not yet satisfactory level.
4- amd hasn't finalized how it'll clock the fiji gfx cards. huge power hungry die with stacked vram and tdp limits are tricky.
5- amd is waiting how nvidia plays it's hand while stockpiling and tweaking it's fiji. may be amd can't price fiji cards under a certain price point.

maxwell is a low power oriented desig scaled upwards. meanwhile amd was hitting gcn 1.1's upper limits already.

new launches are a few weeks away anyway. we'll now soon.
+salt

If your intuition is correct, I'd go with 2, 4 then 1 in terms of most probable to least (IMO, of course). And having 2 as their main problem is really messy. That includes OEMs, which are basically their buyers. Since AMD doesn't do "BBA"s (build by ATI; man, those were sweet), they can't eat the stock issue so easily since OEMs will refuse to buy new stuff if they have a lot of previous stuff stacked. Stating the obvious is good from time to time

In any case, even if they don't have a long term winner. You just sell what you have so you turn a profit sooner than later. I know in the past not having stock of cards was a problem, but you really *want* that problem, don't you? This could be the very first bad idea Lisa Su has had, but I'll just bite my tongue since I don't have all the information to pass judgement (yet).

Cheers!

#4 is related to nvidia's gtx 980ti's launch and specs. i think nvidia still has at least 3 unreleased cards it can use against fiji cards - gtx 980ti, gtx titan x ultra and gtx 990/990TI. the first being gm200's consumer gaming iteration, the second being higher clocked titan x and the last one being a dual gm204 card. another likely competitor could be a dual gm200 (titan xz..?) card if nvidia feels it can cram two of those gpus and appropriate amount of vram on a pcb. depending on pricing, a gtx990 has potential to undercut r9 390x or a duall-fiji card.
the problem is #2, unsold/dumped r9 290/x cards and their prices will hurt the new cards more. i feel like amd shoulda anticipated this and shoulda risk-produced some of the fiji gous on 20nm/finfet. they also shoulda branched gcn early e.g. a low power branch-design of gcn 1.2, 2- 4 compute units with 4 ace and 64-128 bit bus (much like kabini's igpu) capable of running tablets. it also needs laptop dgfx design wins.
unsold stock wouldn't have been as much an issue in the past, but i've neglected a big issue - a shrinking pc market which hurts intel which in turn hurts amd more. i think amd has repeatedly ignored this. amd had unsold stock during llano, then trinity. with the gfx cards, i understand cryptocoin mining's effect and foundries taking longer to develop and volume-produce chips. but the pc market has shrunk since 2011 and amd has no wiggle room. amd can't even lower hawaii prices, retailers might stock up cards to sell them at a bigger profit when fiji launches.

 

[renz496]

the way i see it AMD simply have no answer to nvidia current line up. if they really have their cards ready they don't need to wait to release them. the unsold R 200 series might a bit concerning to them but losing market share are much worse for AMD. in 2010 AMD release 6800 series ahead of 6900 series to protect their market share. IMO if they want to they can release their upper mid range card first to fight of GTX980/970 if their flagship are not ready. they need to protect their market share first before thinking of sweeping nvidia from top to bottom.

but then again in 2010 AMD was under different CEO. when Rory Read take the helm back in 2012 one thing he did first was to delay the next series. his reasoning was he want get more profit from 7k series gen of card before introducing new series. many would hope AMD would release their R 300 series in late 2014 or Q1 2015 at worst. in the end it goes even worse when AMD R 300 series will not going to launch late Q2 or Q3 this year.

 

[yeskay]

AMD reiterates plans to introduce new Radeon R9 300 GPUs in June.

“As we go into the second half of the year, we would like to see some regain of share in both the desktop and the notebook business,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer of AMD, in the company’s quarterly conference call with investors and financial analysts. “I talked about Carrizo being a strong product for us, I talked about some of our graphics launches that we will talk about later this quarter.”

Radeon R9 300-series range so far (please keep in mind that not all model numbers and specifications may be accurate):

AMD Radeon R9 390/390X – Fiji Pro/Fiji XT graphics processing units featuring GCN 1.3 architecture with up to 4096 stream processors and 4096-bit interface to HBM memory. Price range: $649 and upwards.

AMD Radeon R9 380/380X – Grenada Pro/Grenada XT graphics processing units featuring GCN 1.2 or GCN 1.3 architecture with up to 2816 stream processors and 512-bit interface to GDDR5 memory. Price range: $249 – $299 – $329. Since “Grenada” GPU is basically a revamped “Hawaii”, it is possible that instead of making a new GPU, AMD will simply use the old one under a new moniker.

AMD Radeon R9 375X – Tonga XT graphics processing units featuring GCN 1.2 architecture with up to 2048 stream processors and 384-bit interface to GDDR5 memory. Price range: around $229.

AMD Radeon R9 375 – Tonga Pro graphics processing units featuring GCN 1.2 architecture with up to 1792 stream processors and 256-bit interface to GDDR5 memory. Price range: around $199.

AMD Radeon R9 370/370X – Trinidad Pro/Trinidad XT graphics processing units featuring GCN 1.3 architecture with up to 1536 stream processors and 256-bit interface to GDDR5 memory. Price range: $119 – $149.


Source: KitGuru - Read the full article here.

 

[grilledcheez]

AMD Radeon R9 380/380X – Grenada Pro/Grenada XT graphics processing units featuring GCN 1.2 or GCN 1.3 architecture with up to 2816 stream processors and 512-bit interface to GDDR5 memory. Price range: $249 – $299 – $329. Since “Grenada” GPU is basically a revamped “Hawaii”, it is possible that instead of making a new GPU, AMD will simply use the old one under a new moniker.

Are you f***ing kidding me.... They couldn't even put the HBM memory with less stream processors into the 380?! Which could have still landed in a reasonable price range. ffs.

 

[yeskay]

AMD Radeon R9 380/380X – Grenada Pro/Grenada XT graphics processing units featuring GCN 1.2 or GCN 1.3 architecture with up to 2816 stream processors and 512-bit interface to GDDR5 memory. Price range: $249 – $299 – $329. Since “Grenada” GPU is basically a revamped “Hawaii”, it is possible that instead of making a new GPU, AMD will simply use the old one under a new moniker.

Are you f***ing kidding me.... They couldn't even put the HBM memory with less stream processors into the 380?! Which could have still landed in a reasonable price range. ffs.

Only the launch in June 2015 is reliable info. Specs and Price are still speculative. So calm down.

 

[ern88]

I need a true upgrade to my HD7950. Not a R9 3XX card that is just a rehash of it!!!!

 

[de5_Roy]

AMD Radeon R9 M385 High End Mobility GPU Benchmarks Leak Out - Tonga Core Rebranded
http://wccftech.com/amd-mobility-radeon-r9-m385-flagship-gpu-benchmarks-leaked/
AMD Radeon R7 360X 'Tobago' GPU Spotted - Radeon 300 Series Begins AIB Seeding
http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-r7-300-series-gpus-aib-seeding/

edit:
Two AMD Fiji cards coming in June
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphics/37566-two-amd-fiji-cards-coming-in-june
apparently, the dual-fiji is being called "fiji-VR". the other one is single fiji, ofc. +salt

 

[grilledcheez]

Only the launch in June 2015 is reliable info. Specs and Price are still speculative. So calm down.

You're right... I apologize. Just frustrated with the way GPUs have been going.

 

[uglyduckling81]

“As we go into the second half of the year, we would like to see some regain of share in both the desktop"
AMD aren't expecting much from their new GPU's. They would like to see some regains but they aren't sure if they will or not.
If they had a killer product ready to launch they would be talking with more confidence than that. Nvidia are just going to pull further and further ahead unfortunately.
Time for AMD to start flashing some money around and poaching some of the Nvidia and Intel Engineers.

 

[de5_Roy]

GTA V Now Out For PC; Nvidia Updates Drivers (Update: AMD, Too)
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/gta-v-pc-release,28919.html
updated with the latest statement from amd rep.

 

[BadDragon_]

From what I understand, the R9300 series is releasing in June of this year (2015). I know Nvidia fanboys will still bash AMD for having inferior cards, even if the supposed 380 beats out the Titan X entirely. But if AMD actually does use this 3D vram stuff (sorry, I'm kinda new to techie stuff), and it works as well as we all hope, then Nvidia will kind of be out of a job until they can get their hands on it as well. This 3D vram will give a significant boost in performance across the board, and from what I've gathered will basically make 4gb of vram act as 8gb (I'm probably wrong). Please, however, don't really acknowledge what I say as fact or correct, as again I'm pretty new to all this tech stuff. But yea, 3D vram stuff...seems legit?