Rumor: AMD R9 390X 'Captain Jack' In The Offing

[Orofjord]

Great codename to let everyone know this card is going to blow the competition out of the water.

 

[hjj174]

I sincerely hope the second chart is accurate, AMD really needs to improve their efficiency, which from the chart appears to be getting better in the upcoming months!

For those of you wondering, the entire r9 3xx series is referred to as Pirate Islands, hence the Captain Jack. The 390X is codenamed Bermuda, 380X is Fiji, and the 370X is Treasure Island. Also, there most likely will not be a Nvidia GPU named the 980ti as it implies an unlocked version of the 980. The 980 is already fully unlocked so that name is pointless.

Yes i know that its been announced a long time ago but the series is known as THE PIRATE ISLAND.

Dude, I know it called Pirate Island, I even said it in my original post.

 

[hjj174]

This is 15% faster then a 980, and the 980ti is supposed to be 50% faster - so AMD is still #2.

It's more than likely the 380X, the 390X is the the one that will be competing with GM200.

 

[matmanj]

I think you made an incorrect connection to the wrong Jack. Obviously it's called Captain Jack because it's just the same old silicon that just won't die. Code name for the 2016 flagship is the Face of Bo.

 

[rokit]

Captain Jack Simple maybe is ok but I'll patiently wait for Captain Jack Sparrow or Black Pearl.

If AMD really brings on this efficiency to the table without cutting out capabilities like Nvidia does than its a win. But rumors are rumors its better to wait for the real tests.

 

[leeb2013]

From what I've heard (rumor), the whole nvidia energy efficiency improvements were caused by the manufacturing node improvements, which means that those improvements became immediately available to amd.

Seems like this is the case, if this card is real. Everybody gave nvidia praises for the energy improvements, and they had nothing to do with that, it was TSMC that figured out how to improve the 28nm process.

Where did you hear that? The manufacturing node didn't change, Maxwell is a completely new architecture, that's where the increased efficiency came from, without changing node. Hence why it's so impressive.

 

[renz496]

This has to be priced right from the start. The reason I switched to AMD when I upgraded from an 8800GT to a Radeon 4870 was because the 4870 gave GTX260(and sometimes GTX280 i.e. GRID)-class performance, for a lot less money than what nVidia was providing. I believe the GTX260 was going for $400+ while the 4870 was $250 or $300. AMD has to do that again. Release "Captain Jack" as the R9-380x, release it for $330 or less and deflate any interest in nVidia's products. I don't know what they would do with all the 290 and 290X's in the wild, probably what nVidia did to the GTX780, GTX780Ti and Titan, discontinue and collapse the price.

AMD for their part would like to avoid that. in the long run it is something that they don't want to do against nvidia. i've seen this a few times. they were very aggressive countering nvidia 460 back in the fermi days but they didn't really did it with 6900 series. instead they price their card accordingly to competition. (6970 was faster than 570 but instead of trying to undercut nvdia 570 pricing they choose to sell 6970 at 390 because it is slightly faster than 570). AMD if possible want to stay away with that cheap or alternative product to nvidia in public eyes. that's why they try to play the premium game when they launch 7970 to show the public they deserve to be premium brand just like nvidia (obviously it does not play well). if 380X indeed faster than 980 you won't see it for 330. more likely in 400-500 mark. even current 290X price did not dropped until nvidia come very aggressive with 970 price.

 

[renz496]

if its the 380x im kinda expecting/worried itll be $450-$500 US

Nope i dont think the prices would be that high i expect the prices to be similar with gtx 970 or probably lower than it because AMD has always kept their prices lower compared to nvidia.

not really. because if that's really the case we won't see 6970 much more expensive than 570 or 7970 much more expensive than nvidia 580 when they come out (and many people expecting 7970 will cost for 400 because 6970 MSRP was 390). they often lower their price because of competition reason. not because they afford to. if this captain jack beating 980 performance they are not going to sell it cheaper than 970.

 

[renz496]

From what I've heard (rumor), the whole nvidia energy efficiency improvements were caused by the manufacturing node improvements, which means that those improvements became immediately available to amd.

Seems like this is the case, if this card is real. Everybody gave nvidia praises for the energy improvements, and they had nothing to do with that, it was TSMC that figured out how to improve the 28nm process.

Where did you hear that? The manufacturing node didn't change, Maxwell is a completely new architecture, that's where the increased efficiency came from, without changing node. Hence why it's so impressive.

i heard people talking about this. they say maxwell efficiency comes from 'new' 28nm process from TSMC while AMD use much older one. but then again why AMD have no access to such process with Tonga since Tonga comes out even much later than nvidia first generation maxwell (GTX750)? so i don't think improved 28nm alone will make what maxwell is today.

 

[8350rocks]

LOL...that is the 380X. 390X has not been leaked, and will be even more powerful than that...might take nvidia 2 generations to catch up.

 

[renz496]

LOL...that is the 380X. 390X has not been leaked, and will be even more powerful than that...might take nvidia 2 generations to catch up.

LOL

 

[maximalgaming]

So is this better than a ASUS ROG Ares III?

 

[Mac266]

For the moment, I'll take this as a rumor. If it is a 390X (I highly doubt it's a 380X) then the competition it generates will be great! I'm thinking GTX 9xx/R9 3xx will go something like this:

GTX 970 (GM204)
GTX 980 (GM204)
R9 380x (970 competitor- Maybe a tad slower but also a little cheaper)
R9 390x (Faster than a 980 for the same price)
980 Ti (Fastest GPU, but probably ~$700)

 

[looncraz]

This is more likely to be a ~3584 core card than a 4096 core card. That would match well with the ~30% bump over the 290x.

However, if the architecture was improved, and HBM memory was in use, then I'd suspect even fewer cores in play, possibly as few as 3072, but probably closer to 3200.

If the 4096 count for the 390x is accurate, then the early rumors of this being the 380X seems to be more convincing. If, however, it has 4096 stream processor cores, then each core has lost a considerable amount of performance - or we are seeing some poor scaling - or we are seeing reduced clocks (maybe to put the GPU in an efficiency sweet spot).

 

[jasonelmore]

man these benchmarks look hugely dissapointing. This thing should scream based off of leaked feature specs. Hybrid Cube Memory, 4096 bit bus?!?! it should be doing 3x to 5x of a GTX 980 with that wide of a bus and that crazy fast parallel memory.

 

[renz496]

man these benchmarks look hugely dissapointing. This thing should scream based off of leaked feature specs. Hybrid Cube Memory, 4096 bit bus?!?! it should be doing 3x to 5x of a GTX 980 with that wide of a bus and that crazy fast parallel memory.

that would be the case if bandwidth is the limiting factor. total bandwidth did not reflect direct performance of a card. to drive the performance up you still need raw power from the gpu itself. HBM give the possibilities to use high bandwidth with much lower power consumption but it doesn't automatically giving more raw power to the gpu itself.

 

[leeb2013]

From what I've heard (rumor), the whole nvidia energy efficiency improvements were caused by the manufacturing node improvements, which means that those improvements became immediately available to amd.

Seems like this is the case, if this card is real. Everybody gave nvidia praises for the energy improvements, and they had nothing to do with that, it was TSMC that figured out how to improve the 28nm process.

Where did you hear that? The manufacturing node didn't change, Maxwell is a completely new architecture, that's where the increased efficiency came from, without changing node. Hence why it's so impressive.

i heard people talking about this. they say maxwell efficiency comes from 'new' 28nm process from TSMC while AMD use much older one. but then again why AMD have no access to such process with Tonga since Tonga comes out even much later than nvidia first generation maxwell (GTX750)? so i don't think improved 28nm alone will make what maxwell is today.

Both nvidia and amd have had gpus on the 28nm process for over 2 years now.

 

[renz496]

From what I've heard (rumor), the whole nvidia energy efficiency improvements were caused by the manufacturing node improvements, which means that those improvements became immediately available to amd.

Seems like this is the case, if this card is real. Everybody gave nvidia praises for the energy improvements, and they had nothing to do with that, it was TSMC that figured out how to improve the 28nm process.

Where did you hear that? The manufacturing node didn't change, Maxwell is a completely new architecture, that's where the increased efficiency came from, without changing node. Hence why it's so impressive.

i heard people talking about this. they say maxwell efficiency comes from 'new' 28nm process from TSMC while AMD use much older one. but then again why AMD have no access to such process with Tonga since Tonga comes out even much later than nvidia first generation maxwell (GTX750)? so i don't think improved 28nm alone will make what maxwell is today.

Both nvidia and amd have had gpus on the 28nm process for over 2 years now.

yes i understand that. but they say maxwell were using 'improved' version of 28nm while AMD were using the older version of 28nm. and it seems this info actually coming from charlie D. so you know what it is all about. they want to say nvidia have the advantage of TSMC improved process and not from maxwell itself. anyway we shall see later how it goes. if AMD really have the part now they will release it soon.

 

[looncraz]

man these benchmarks look hugely dissapointing. This thing should scream based off of leaked feature specs. Hybrid Cube Memory, 4096 bit bus?!?! it should be doing 3x to 5x of a GTX 980 with that wide of a bus and that crazy fast parallel memory.

The math suggests about a 50-60% faster than the R9 290x should be expected with 4096 stream processors and HBM memory. That is a huge jump.

The leaked performance shown fits very well with 3584 stream processors - about a 30% increase. That could be the 380x... meaning AMD could be just out of reach from the 980 Ti with the 390x in terms of performance AND efficiency.

Not much of a disappointment, if true.

 

[renz496]

They have to compete, but if they have superior performance, I would expect at least a differential. Both Maxwell and whatever-AMD's-next-architecture-is-called have their own unique value added features as well as games bundles so it's not as if AMD needs to undercut NVIDIA due to lacking a given feature.

AMD now has their own Lossless Screen Recording Software, Freesync is on its way (and will cost less since AMD doesn't charge royalties for companies to make freesync monitors), and AMD's Mantle is officially a part of the Crytek engine, future Capcom games, and many more, even GTA V will utilize it. The performance gain Mantle gives is increasing with each game released with it.
Nvidia better prepare to hold their ground, cause AMD's ripping it from right underneath them.

is this even confirm?

 

[jkteddy77]

They have to compete, but if they have superior performance, I would expect at least a differential. Both Maxwell and whatever-AMD's-next-architecture-is-called have their own unique value added features as well as games bundles so it's not as if AMD needs to undercut NVIDIA due to lacking a given feature.

AMD now has their own Lossless Screen Recording Software, Freesync is on its way (and will cost less since AMD doesn't charge royalties for companies to make freesync monitors), and AMD's Mantle is officially a part of the Crytek engine, future Capcom games, and many more, even GTA V will utilize it. The performance gain Mantle gives is increasing with each game released with it.
Nvidia better prepare to hold their ground, cause AMD's ripping it from right underneath them.

is this even confirm?

http://videocardz.com/50945/amd-gaming-evolved-slowly-receiving-features-geforce-experience
http://videocardz.com/51018/exclusive-upcoming-games-support-mantle
^^^
All I need to say
not confirmed for GTAV, but look at that title list. this is old too, most of the unconfirmed have been confirmed

 

[renz496]

^ you sure that list can be fully trusted? double check that list. a few games from that list already come out. see if those game have mantle support or not

 

[jkteddy77]

^ you sure that list can be fully trusted? double check that list. a few games from that list already come out. see if those game have mantle support or not

They all do -_-

Civ Beyond Earth and Dragon Age Inquisition came out with mantle, no reason to suspect the others won't either

Many developers like Sims 4 and Dying Light have already confirmed they have mantle support with their game on release

Mantle is hitting AAA titles, and AMD's tech is growing.
GTA V is still a maybe, and COD and Alien didn't end up having mantle in the pending category, but it's still possible
Nvidia better be ready to put out, this year they won't have the same advantages they did this year

 

[renz496]

^ you sure that list can be fully trusted? double check that list. a few games from that list already come out. see if those game have mantle support or not

They all do -_-

Civ Beyond Earth and Dragon Age Inquisition came out with mantle, no reason to suspect the others won't either

Many developers like Sims 4 and Dying Light have already confirmed they have mantle support with their game on release

Mantle is hitting AAA titles, and AMD's tech is growing.
GTA V is still a maybe, and COD and Alien didn't end up having mantle in the pending category, but it's still possible
Nvidia better be ready to put out, this year they won't have the same advantages they did this year

then why you make it like it the support has been confirm? also i haven't heard anything about Sims 4 using mantle despite the game was listed under confirmed mantle support. if Sims 4 really is supporting mantle EA will talk about it as well as AMD. the same goes to COD:AW. that is triple A games. if mantle support really is in the wait AMD will not going to sit quiet and use the chance to promote their mantle being used in such big games. even if mantle support not going to come for another few months after game launch. as for Lichdom battlemage the game will not support mantle at all due to game engine limitation. and we see something like this in the past:

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/Upcoming-Never-Settle-Bundle-Games-Leaked

 

[NotExpertAtAll]

all the power of the graphics card and still dependent on OS, Main CPU, Main Memory, and mother board.

Nvidia and ATI.... listen up!!! build a game and a system with your GPU and OS only. and stop depending from MS, Intel, AMD, and motherboard manufacturer. Game developers .... help ATI and NVIDIA. Your GPU has more processing power than anything I have seen. USE IT.....