AMD Radeon R9 300 Series MegaThread: FAQ and Resources

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Thx for the link. Assuming that the card gets released on date mentioned in above link, how long does it generally take for 3rd party companies (Gigabytes etc....) to come up with theirs? Basically, I'm trying to figure out how long would I have to wait to buy the card. Should we wait before it goes thru the driver issues etc?
thx.
 


USually the board partners have the GPU core and have already made designs for the card MOST of the time.
 
Older chips, although un-probable, there's still a small chance some models could use HBM. No, there has not been any news about this anywhere that I remember and it's coming all from me, but in the past AMD has used "current line" chips to test out newer stuff (4770 -> 40nm and 4870x2 -> in-PCB PCIe interlink and dual GPU, for example).

It is a big longshot, yes, but the chance is not zero at least 😛

Well, HBM does go on package so they would have to modify the packaging for the GPUs, but it can be done.

Cheers!
 
this time amd is using a new...ish gpu fabbed on an older fabrication process to test the new HBM tech. i think amd's trying to hold out till finfet processes ramp up an costs go down. i doubt amd can pay for risk production of a full lineup of new gpus.
 

fiji will be fabbed on 28nm according to the not-so-official info available. i am posting a tsmc process related article's link in the amd cpus thread. my speculation is that amd is with tsmc for the next gen (r9 400/x series) and tsmc's high performance 16nm finfet process is late, and expensive. tsmc sorta failed with their 20nm process and possibly asked too high price (redux of 32nm?) from partners. since both processes are expensive and risky, it makes sense for amd to fab fiji on 28nm. on 28nm it can have high yields since the big gpu needs as little defects as possible.. not like amd will get a lot of dies out of a single wafer anyway. so amd is trading off efficiency for maximum production. then it is balancing off high power use with HBM and then some.
 


it depends on how AMD want to play it. do you know why none reference 290X/290 only available after a few months? because they choose the route to do so. this probably the case with the new 390X as well.
 


I figured it was because of the terrible reference cooling on the reference cards for the 290X.
 


I figured it was because of the terrible reference cooling on the reference cards for the 290X.
 


I figured it was because of the terrible reference cooling on the reference cards for the 290X.
 
so other than rebranding, will the 380x be anywhere close to 980 ish ? trying to figure out what should i upgrade to, as the 390x seems kinda over priced..
 
It's always annoyed me that AMD threw Dual GPUs into a single card, (essentially SLI) then slapped a massive watercooler on it that you have to squeeze into your case. Then tried to pawn it off like it's supposed to compete with single GPU cards...Just because you managed to do SLI into a single slot doesnt mean it's an amazing GPU. If Nvidia were to put two 980 Maxwell GPUs into a single card it would beat the 295X2 easily, but they don't.

It's a neat idea, but in terms of comparison. Keep the Dual GPU cards seperate, they are technically SLI. It should be a GPU versus GPU basis.

As far as the 300 series. Seeing as the 290X (Top of AMDs lineup last year) only competes with the 970 and is easily beaten by the 980. I'm thinking the 980 Ti might be the one to wait around for because it will most likely beat everything the 300 series puts out. Plus, looking at Witcher 3 which has features that only Geforce cards have access to like Nvidia Gameworks, It would seem developers are favoring Nvidia at this point.
 
On the nail pretty much. AMD really isn't offering the code/apis to help devs to what want. Sure that have Vulkan/MAntle, but that only goes so far. It is also rumored that the 980 ti will either beat the titan x by a lot or be just under it. Either way, the 390x really has to show performance otherwise they might die.
 
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