AMD RX 400 series (Polaris) MegaThread! FAQ & Resources

[Sakkura]

AMD could very well be ready with Vega design. but they probably waiting for HBM2 mass production. also i also thinking that AMD did not want to replace the original Fury X only after a year hitting the market. Vega most likely AMD flagship gpu for 2017-2018 time frame.

It's been 1½ year since the Fury X launched, it's definitely due for replacement.

 

[renz496]

AMD could very well be ready with Vega design. but they probably waiting for HBM2 mass production. also i also thinking that AMD did not want to replace the original Fury X only after a year hitting the market. Vega most likely AMD flagship gpu for 2017-2018 time frame.

It's been 1½ year since the Fury X launched, it's definitely due for replacement.

well to me it's more like AMD want their flagship to last at least 1 year plus (or even exactly 2 years) before replacing them with 'true' successor.

late 2011 (paper launch) - 7970
2012 - no new flagship
2013 - 290X
2014 - no new flagship
2015 - Fury X

AMD might some non public conference about Vega right now but i don't think they going to release them this year. looking at this pattern i was thinking when nvidia brings out Volta in 2018 AMD probably have no proper answer to volta flagship until 2019.

 

[Sakkura]

AMD could very well be ready with Vega design. but they probably waiting for HBM2 mass production. also i also thinking that AMD did not want to replace the original Fury X only after a year hitting the market. Vega most likely AMD flagship gpu for 2017-2018 time frame.

It's been 1½ year since the Fury X launched, it's definitely due for replacement.

well to me it's more like AMD want their flagship to last at least 1 year plus (or even exactly 2 years) before replacing them with 'true' successor.

late 2011 (paper launch) - 7970
2012 - no new flagship
2013 - 290X
2014 - no new flagship
2015 - Fury X

AMD might some non public conference about Vega right now but i don't think they going to release them this year. looking at this pattern i was thinking when nvidia brings out Volta in 2018 AMD probably have no proper answer to volta flagship until 2019.

7970 to 290X took 21 months. 290X to Fury X took 20 months. It's been 18 months since the Fury X (and 19 months by January).

 

[-Fran-]

Then that validates the theory of having Vega by Jan/Feb 2017. If they have it ready, then might as well paper launch it now and deliver it a bit later?

Cheers!

 

[kansaw]

I really enjoy seeing all the new chips coming out over the next few months. AMD is preparing a massive expansion on several fronts at the same time. Nvidia is coming out with new products. Intel has new CPUs coming. Qualcomm has a 10nm 48 core server chip late 2017. Windows has a major spring update coming to support multi media and new hardware (VR). 2017 will be a techies dream year.

 

[jaymc]

@renz496 If ya look at it the other way round, if vega comes out now or early next year (realistically) nvidia may have no real answer to it.

An judging by what Lisa Su has been saying she wants 2017 to be a full year of profitability. The release of Zen and the rumour of it being the 17th Jan (which happens to be when their 4th Quarter 2016 ends)...

It doesn't surprise me one bit that she wants Vega to launch right along side it... (hench the roadmap) now weather this happens or not is a different story, hbm 2 ramp etc...
But I really do think it was the plan all along to launch both at the same time, as she say's she wants 2017 to be the comeback year with "a full year of profitability on the books"... "their year" as stated by the woman herself.

As I say hence the rumour that Zen is launching at the very beginning of Q1 2017.

Jay

PS @kansaw me to mate me too... gonna be some year alright..

 

[renz496]

@renz496 If ya look at it the other way round, if vega comes out now or early next year (realistically) nvidia may have no real answer to it.

their answer already sitting on the shelf since may/june? because right now people expecting vega to match 1080 performance. what if vega end much faster than 1080? nvidia also have answer for that in form of GP102. and GP102 is still not the best nvidia can do with pascal.

 

[jaymc]

Well fair point mate... so we could be looking at a tuned maybe oc'd polaris with hbm2...

If this is the case though, that would mean that their own roadmap is wrong, which would be unfortunate... They seem to be fairly hitting their deadlines with Zen...

Maybe Vega is behind schedule !!!

I suppose we will find out in a few day's, I can't wait. Either way, exciting times for sure...

Jay

Ps after saying that though we still could be in for a surprise with a cut down version of vega.

 

[kansaw]

Enjoyed the comments from jaymc and renz496.

Lisa Su said AMD will gain 50% market share with two products: Zen and Vega

Doesn't leave much wiggle room for Polaris. I use an RX480, so I have to deal with it. I was hoping for one or two more Polaris products.

 

[jaymc]

@kansaw polaris is still a great product for low to mid range... I mean unless you want 4k at full whack, other than that the 480 should pretty much run anything at 1080p. Very good card, thats why it stole so much market share I suppose.

 

[renz496]

Enjoyed the comments from jaymc and renz496.

Lisa Su said AMD will gain 50% market share with two products: Zen and Vega

Doesn't leave much wiggle room for Polaris. I use an RX480, so I have to deal with it. I was hoping for one or two more Polaris products.

she just try to be positive with the question thrown at her. but in reality it won't be easy. even if AMD able to reach 50% market share that will not be done in vega generation.

 

[renz496]

@kansaw polaris is still a great product for low to mid range... I mean unless you want 4k at full whack, other than that the 480 should pretty much run anything at 1080p. Very good card, thats why it stole so much market share I suppose.

AMD actually gain more market share before they launch polaris which is Q2 this year. AMD launch polaris at the very end of Q2 this year so polaris sales can only affect Q3 market share. for Q3 this year AMD actually lost a bit of market share to nvidia.

 

[jaymc]

Well I suppose that remains to be seen... Future will tell, AMD is back up an coming out swingin.... game on !

 

[kansaw]

Enjoyed the comments from jaymc and renz496.

Lisa Su said AMD will gain 50% market share with two products: Zen and Vega

Doesn't leave much wiggle room for Polaris. I use an RX480, so I have to deal with it. I was hoping for one or two more Polaris products.

she just try to be positive with the question thrown at her. but in reality it won't be easy. even if AMD able to reach 50% market share that will not be done in vega generation.

50% GPU market with great customer support and Vega. And yes, in time. I misquoted. Here's the original statements: https://www.mobipicker.com/amd-ceo-lisa-su-reveals-2-ingredients-can-win-amd-50-share-global-gpu-market/

 

[kansaw]

@kansaw polaris is still a great product for low to mid range... I mean unless you want 4k at full whack, other than that the 480 should pretty much run anything at 1080p. Very good card, thats why it stole so much market share I suppose.

You're right and I'm extremely happy with the 480. Seems to everything well.

 

[Sakkura]

Enjoyed the comments from jaymc and renz496.

Lisa Su said AMD will gain 50% market share with two products: Zen and Vega

Doesn't leave much wiggle room for Polaris. I use an RX480, so I have to deal with it. I was hoping for one or two more Polaris products.

she just try to be positive with the question thrown at her. but in reality it won't be easy. even if AMD able to reach 50% market share that will not be done in vega generation.

Depends whether she's talking percentage or percentage points.

If you have 10% market share and gain 50%, then your market share becomes 15%. If you gain 50 percentage points, you instead end up at 60% market share.

I think she's talking percentage. Meaning a gain of 50% isn't necessarily that huge.

But either way it's just PR.

Edit: Okay, her statement was actually a little different.

 

[jaymc]

It's beginning to look a lot like Vega.....

Ho ho ho an all that

 

[BurgerandChips66]

Unlock some extra shaders in your RX 460...

https://www.mobipicker.com/unlocking-radeon-rx-460-gives-you-12-5-more-performance-how-to-unlock-amd-rx-460/

Apparently up to a 12.5% boost in performance is possible, going from 896 to 1,024 stream processors.

 

[-Fran-]

That is neat. And just like the article is asking, why did AMD lock them anyway? If there's a lot of chips that seem to be working fine with the unlock, why not just go ahead with the 2 variants? Maybe the performance gap wasn't big enough to justify 2 models? Then again, they could have just placed a RX465 to combat the 1050 variants easier, right?

Could Apple had a hand in all of this? MYSTERIES! XD

Cheers!

 

[BurgerandChips66]

There is a suggestion that the shaders were locked to help improve efficiency. As in power efficiency I assume. In which case there is a good chance that the vast majority of RX 460's should successfully unlock to 1024. That combined with a bit of overclocking on top should help cheer up RX 460 owners anyway.

Merry Christmas from AMD!

 

[renz496]

That is neat. And just like the article is asking, why did AMD lock them anyway? If there's a lot of chips that seem to be working fine with the unlock, why not just go ahead with the 2 variants? Maybe the performance gap wasn't big enough to justify 2 models? Then again, they could have just placed a RX465 to combat the 1050 variants easier, right?

Could Apple had a hand in all of this? MYSTERIES! XD

Cheers!

power consumption reason? when AMD showcase polaris 11 back in january one of the AMD primary highlight was it's power efficiency. back then they purposely compare polaris 11 directly with GTX950 to show you can get GTX950 like performance or even more within 75w with polaris 11 instead of 90w with GTX950. doubt that it was yield issue since polaris 11 is much more smaller chip than polaris 10 and AMD have no trouble launching RX480 with fully enabled polaris 10

 

[renz496]

There is a suggestion that the shaders were locked to help improve efficiency. As in power efficiency I assume. In which case there is a good chance that the vast majority of RX 460's should successfully unlock to 1024. That combined with a bit of overclocking on top should help cheer up RX 460 owners anyway.

Merry Christmas from AMD!

but does the unlocking going to worth it because using the modded BIOS will definitely going to void the warranty since AMD never give people their blessing to unlock this card unlike what they did with 6900 series before. not to mention with the latest driver AMD have BIOS check for polaris based cards. so on top of modded BIOS you also need modded driver if you want to use unlock RX460.

 

[Sakkura]

There is a suggestion that the shaders were locked to help improve efficiency. As in power efficiency I assume. In which case there is a good chance that the vast majority of RX 460's should successfully unlock to 1024. That combined with a bit of overclocking on top should help cheer up RX 460 owners anyway.

Merry Christmas from AMD!

but does the unlocking going to worth it because using the modded BIOS will definitely going to void the warranty since AMD never give people their blessing to unlock this card unlike what they did with 6900 series before. not to mention with the latest driver AMD have BIOS check for polaris based cards. so on top of modded BIOS you also need modded driver if you want to use unlock RX460.

They didn't give their blessing to 6950 unlocking.

This is like overclocking, which also voids the warranty.

 

[-Fran-]

I have just one nitpick with the power efficiency theory (which seems to be the best one anyway): isn't enabling the full GPU better for *more* efficiency in the same power envelope it has? I mean, disabling a few shaders can't really translate to a lot of power saving vs the performance drop, can it?

I mean, there's a reason Apple gets the fully enabled chips. I don't think it's just because they are "golden" chips and can operate with lower voltage, but because the power vs performance has a better efficiency for them, right? Am I missing something else from the puzzle?

Cheers!

 

[renz496]

There is a suggestion that the shaders were locked to help improve efficiency. As in power efficiency I assume. In which case there is a good chance that the vast majority of RX 460's should successfully unlock to 1024. That combined with a bit of overclocking on top should help cheer up RX 460 owners anyway.

Merry Christmas from AMD!

but does the unlocking going to worth it because using the modded BIOS will definitely going to void the warranty since AMD never give people their blessing to unlock this card unlike what they did with 6900 series before. not to mention with the latest driver AMD have BIOS check for polaris based cards. so on top of modded BIOS you also need modded driver if you want to use unlock RX460.

They didn't give their blessing to 6950 unlocking.

This is like overclocking, which also voids the warranty.

i think it might depends on manufacturer? overclocking to certain extend still covered by warranty....as long as you did not deal with modded BIOS maybe. i think that is the restriction nvidia did starting with kepler. nvidia allow board partner to make factory overclocked card as long as they did not exceed the limit that nvidia allowed for the chip. meaning as long as overclocking are done within that limit nvidia will agree to provide board partner the replacement. hence i was thinking if user simply overclock their card and not making any changes that will enable them to exceed nvidia restriction then if their gpu go poof board partner will provide a replacement.

in fact i just brick my 970 like that back in august and i still get my replacement from MSI.