AMD To Chase Market Share Over High End With First Polaris Offerings

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tntom

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Glad they are upfront with this otherwise I would interpret it as AMD falling behind. Which... they are but it is also intentional strategy.
Anyways just bought me a GTX950 over AMD GPU because I needed a particular power budget regarding PSU. Hope Polaris is power efficient.
 

InvalidError

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If Nvidia prices the 1050 and 1060 following the 950 and 960, there will be plenty of room for AMD to undercut Nvidia at a given performance level with the R7-450/460/R9-470.
 


True true.
 
G

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AMD's stock price increased quite a bit. Who knows, but one thing is sure, the next few generations of graphic cards will be great, on both sides. We will get 10-bit 4k resolution soon folks, at 60 fps min! It's a great time to be a pc master race.
 

VaporX

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Glad they are upfront with this otherwise I would interpret it as AMD falling behind. Which... they are but it is also intentional strategy.
Anyways just bought me a GTX950 over AMD GPU because I needed a particular power budget regarding PSU. Hope Polaris is power efficient.

I am curious what limitation you where facing? I have seen a 380 running on a 350 watt PSU with no issues.
 


"350W PSU" is an extremely generalized term.
 
AMD is confident that they have an open market segment in low to mid end, but right when they release their cards Nvidia will whip out the 1050 and 1060 probably.

I doubt that Nvidia will be able to compete in that market well given that their die size is 33% bigger than last gen. If Nvidia does come out with 1050 and 1060s it'll either be to low quantity or some time from now as they will have to redesign and gear up another production line.
 


Bigger die size, though, with the node size decrease means a ton of potential for more transistors. Think of it, they could probably pack 6X as many transistors in that chip that way. That's a massive performance potential. Of course, that won't be the reality, but I think if they pull it off right, they can do well with a die size increase while having a more power efficient chip. Plus, an increased die size means better contact with the heat sink and better cooling, in a sense.
 


Bigger die size, though, with the node size decrease means a ton of potential for more transistors. Think of it, they could probably pack 6X as many transistors in that chip that way. That's a massive performance potential. Of course, that won't be the reality, but I think if they pull it off right, they can do well with a die size increase while having a more power efficient chip. Plus, an increased die size means better contact with the heat sink and better cooling, in a sense.

They aren't fitting 6x the transistors into it, that is proven by the 1080 and 1070. The 1060 and 50 are going to be cutdown versions of those cards. What does matter for mid-range cards the most is yields. Large die sizes means lower yield, there's no if, ands, or buts about that. If Nvidia is only getting a handful of 1060 and 1050 per wafer that means they won't be able to sell many of the cards, prices will inflate ect. AMD has a distinct advantage here, especially when you consider they are targeting a lower power usage as well. Simply having a smaller die alone means the cards will be cheaper to produce and yields will be better.

Increased die size does not equal better cooling. Bigger dies contain more transistors and thus produce more heat. Just look at the 1080, not even Nvidia's larger Pascal chip, and it's already having thermal throttling issues. I'm guessing that the 1080 Ti will not come with a blower cooler as it would pretty much melt.

If die size was a good thing AMD would be winning the CPU war right now. Intel has managed to decrease it's die size over the years while increasing performance by little bits. Not only does it make the chips easy to manufacture but it also means they are very cheap for Intel. They make much more per chip than AMD, that is for sure.
 

kevinhoque

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If AMD's new mid-range 14nm graphics cards cannot beat or equal their older 28nm higher end chips then I don't think that this is great news for anybody. We'll have to see how things go at Computex. Not long to wait.
 

BulkZerker

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" Increased die size does not equal better cooling. Bigger dies contain more transistors and thus produce more heat. Just look at the 1080, not even Nvidia's larger Pascal chip, and it's already having thermal throttling issues. I'm guessing that the 1080 Ti will not come with a blower cooler as it would pretty much melt. "

That's assuming every part of the chip is functional. If parts of said chip are disabled it becomes nothing more than a heatsink which can only decrease temps.

" If die size was a good thing AMD would be winning the CPU war right now. Intel has managed to decrease it's die size over the years while increasing performance by little bits. Not only does it make the chips easy to manufacture but it also means they are very cheap for Intel. They make much more per chip than AMD, that is for sure. "

Intel also has a better sales dept and some pretty damn draconian contracts that large OEMS are agreeing to. Never mind the Apple like mob mentality that Intel chips are bar none the best for you to buy, always, at every price point.
 

InvalidError

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The price point does not matter when the chips fail to deliver the performance people expect and where gaming is concerned, the cheaper i3 often beats the FX-8350 even when the FX is overclocked. AMD desperately needs a new architecture but Zen might not hit retail until 2017.
 


The smaller die size of Pascal is one of the reasons it is a little hot, as kcarbotte told me.
 

vpoko

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The worry is that Nvidia being the undisputed king of the high-end means people will associate them with quality, and buyers of lower-end cards will buy Nvidia ones even if AMD outperforms them in that segment.
 
" Increased die size does not equal better cooling. Bigger dies contain more transistors and thus produce more heat. Just look at the 1080, not even Nvidia's larger Pascal chip, and it's already having thermal throttling issues. I'm guessing that the 1080 Ti will not come with a blower cooler as it would pretty much melt. "

That's assuming every part of the chip is functional. If parts of said chip are disabled it becomes nothing more than a heatsink which can only decrease temps.

" If die size was a good thing AMD would be winning the CPU war right now. Intel has managed to decrease it's die size over the years while increasing performance by little bits. Not only does it make the chips easy to manufacture but it also means they are very cheap for Intel. They make much more per chip than AMD, that is for sure. "

Intel also has a better sales dept and some pretty damn draconian contracts that large OEMS are agreeing to. Never mind the Apple like mob mentality that Intel chips are bar none the best for you to buy, always, at every price point.

Making a large chip and then disabling parts of it is what Nvidia will most likely do. Once again though there is a huge downside to that. If you take large chip and use it for lower end offerings, it still takes up a large part of the wafer, meaning less chips/wafer. In otherwords, Nvidia will be paying more for less and still only get a handful per wafer, meaning it will take a long time to get any volume.
 


are you assuming that 1060/1050 will be using the same chip use in 1080/1070?
 

CrazzyHeartz

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I am happy that AMD is launching the $200/300 cards first, as these are the ones that I'll b buying.

@$400/600 respectively..

Sadly, GPU prices are too damn inflated in India..

GTX 960 @ GTX 970 /R9 390x prices.. YAY!! :-/
 

epobirs

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Another factor here is the console market that AMD currently dominates. The same emphasis on power efficiency and mid-range value plays right into the needs of console makers.
 
Ok, AMD, you say you're focusing on the $150 - $300 segment. Here's what you do: make the 960 Ti that NVidia won't and undercut the 970. If you can make a worthy successor to the 7950/280 and 7970/280X that runs on 175W, performs like the 290 ( sans heat ), and sell it for $275, you're golden. Everyone that wants more performance than the 960 but won't shell out the price of the 970 will flock to your banner.

Granted, this would have been easier six months ago. With the 1070 coming out, who knows how that will shake up the market?
 

Rogue Leader

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Glad they are upfront with this otherwise I would interpret it as AMD falling behind. Which... they are but it is also intentional strategy.
Anyways just bought me a GTX950 over AMD GPU because I needed a particular power budget regarding PSU. Hope Polaris is power efficient.

I am curious what limitation you where facing? I have seen a 380 running on a 350 watt PSU with no issues.

No you haven't. Theres nearly 0 350w PSU's on the market that are underrated enough to just about keep a 380 going. 450 I would believe, thats enough, but 350, Not a chance.
 


If nothing is overclocked, I see it working out.

R9 380 ~180W
CPU ~ 100W (overestimation for an Intel)
Rest of System ~40W

About 320W max load. And since OCP/OPP trigger points are usually pretty high anyway, I could see it working fine on a good 350W unit.
 
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