There Is No Sea Island

[Lupine]

We participated in AMD's recent press briefing to clarify what is and is not happening in 2013 for desktop GPUs. The bad news is no new cards until Q4, the good news is more Radeon HD 7000 series are on the way!

There Is No Sea Island

[bman212121]

PR speak is PR speak... Sounds like they were in full bore for this event.

So I'm guessing we'll see some higher clocked skus for 1H and slight price drops. Not necessarily a bad thing but we'll all have to wait a while longer for some new cards.

[caveman-jim]

Originally Posted by bman212121

PR speak is PR speak... Sounds like they were in full bore for this event.

So I'm guessing we'll see some higher clocked skus for 1H and slight price drops. Not necessarily a bad thing but we'll all have to wait a while longer for some new cards.

New higher clocked SKU's and a some new chips too, yes.

[Redeemed]

Hmm...

[AlexV]

The image of Roy Taylor and Wavey (f.e.) having a polite, friendly discussion and figuring out how it really is in AMD's best interest not to launch anything because people are mean and don't see the awesome is...interesting. OTOH, validation costs money, promotion costs money, writeoffs suck etc., so one does not hit the OpEx level that Rory is aiming for without optimizations.

[train2win]

Originally Posted by bman212121

PR speak is PR speak... Sounds like they were in full bore for this event.

So I'm guessing we'll see some higher clocked skus for 1H and slight price drops. Not necessarily a bad thing but we'll all have to wait a while longer for some new cards.

I think that's great! Do we really need next gen now? The newer cards from both camps are pretty good right now. I would love to see a more energy efficient card with 7950 capabilities....especially if it could be used for an HTPC set up.

[bill dennison]

hmm so if the 8970 is the end of this year then no 20nm 9970 till maybe the end of 2014

this is unacceptable they must redouble their efforts

[Qb2k5]

With AMD having their hands full with next gen consoles, maybe they had to move more resources so that they have enough chips ready when the consoles launch this fall.

[Greasy]

The 7970 already has its hands full with the kepler cards, so if Nv does a refresh it's going to be rough going for AMD.

Unless of course Nv decide to charge $599 for the GTX 685. I'm sure that's probably what they'll do!

[AlexV]

Originally Posted by Qb2k5

With AMD having their hands full with next gen consoles, maybe they had to move more resources so that they have enough chips ready when the consoles launch this fall.

AMD is not manufacturing those, and the design is done (and has probably been done for quite a while). It's possible that engineering shuffling upstream mandated by the need to do all of this console work (think much longer than a few months) actually had a festering effect that only burst out now, but not necessarily likely.

[CurrentlyPissed]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

New higher clocked SKU's and a some new chips too, yes.

What would they call it? 7975? 7970.5? 7970XT?

[Kombatant]

Originally Posted by AlexV

It's possible that engineering shuffling upstream mandated by the need to do all of this console work (think much longer than a few months) actually had a festering effect that only burst out now, but not necessarily likely.

That, and the slowing down of the PC Market, which allows the companies to slow down in their development cycle frenzy as well, maximizing profits. That's my guess. Don't forget that the Titan will be essentially a "Reviewer's edition" part, if the 10k rumour is true, so I doubt it'll make a difference.

edit: It could also be that AMD saw that the enthusiast 8000 series wouldn't cut it, and they simply decided to skip it and focus on the next one.

[Athlon-pv]

Originally Posted by Kombatant

That, and the slowing down of the PC Market, which allows the companies to slow down in their development cycle frenzy as well, maximizing profits. That's my guess. Don't forget that the Titan will be essentially a "Reviewer's edition" part, if the 10k rumour is true, so I doubt it'll make a difference.

edit: It could also be that AMD saw that the enthusiast 8000 series wouldn't cut it, and they simply decided to skip it and focus on the next one.

It is not the end of the world as we know it , Even Nvidia is not not doing anything beside Titan (which still baffles me, since the GPGPU market is so hot according to Nvidia).

If we can see prices coming down for this generation products that would be nice, When graphicscard used to cost around $300 that was a lot even now cost just has been rising without seeing a good amount of performance in return.

[Nascar24]

Cost is definitely down from when the 7970 was released. I picked up a 7970 OC last week for $360 with the 2 triple AAA titles as well, big difference from the launch price.

[AlexV]

Originally Posted by Kombatant

That, and the slowing down of the PC Market, which allows the companies to slow down in their development cycle frenzy as well, maximizing profits. That's my guess. Don't forget that the Titan will be essentially a "Reviewer's edition" part, if the 10k rumour is true, so I doubt it'll make a difference.

edit: It could also be that AMD saw that the enthusiast 8000 series wouldn't cut it, and they simply decided to skip it and focus on the next one.

Yes, market softness is probably another important factor. As is the likely inventory build-up that has been happening given NVIDIA's very strong competitive pressure. I just think that their marketing signaling for this has been (as usual) super-weak, and this whole clarifying thing looks more like a shot to the foot than anything - I honestly think they looked better than with this somewhat amusing yet completely disoriented exercise.

As for Sea Islands actually being just some umbrella to gather some stuff as opposed to GCN2(or whatever, another GCN iteration), and that having always been the plan, maybe they should have checked their own site where the Sea Islands ISA doc is available, and explicitly outlines a number of in-hardware changes versus Southern Islands - WHOOPS! What's wrong with just coming out and saying "Guys, we changed our plans, we're no longer going to do what we publicly announced at AFDS2012 and on other occasions"?

[caveman-jim]

Last, but certainly not least, you’ll note the addition of the “Sea Islands” family to our graphics roadmap. As is typical with our graphics roadmap, we don’t disclose many details beyond the codename. You will have to wait until 2013 to get the rest of the story on that one.

Phil Hughes is a Senior PR Manager at AMD

http://blogs.amd.com/work/2012/02/02...d-decoder-key/

A look ahead to 2013…

While 2012 has been mega, 2013 is shaping up to be just as hectic! The next 12 months is poised to see AMD remain at the heart of the biggest and best industry gaming events, working with the top publishers to get the best out of upcoming titles and, of course, launching the next generation of graphics cards, the AMD Radeon HD 8000 Series graphics (codename: “Sea Islands”) – from which you can expect a hefty performance boost.

Peter Ross is Manager, AMD Gaming Evolved Marketing at AMD.

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2012/12/21...-in-pc-gaming/

http://developer.amd.com/tools/heter...documentation/ : AMD Sea Islands Instruction Set Architecture


I think AMD are selling the **** out of Radeon 7000 series in China and want to continue doing that. Any comments on sales still ramping mean globally and not in specific markets. It would be interesting to see if Jon Peddie or other analysts have visibility into the different markets.

[Lupine]

[B.A. Baracus]

Originally Posted by Lupine

I was waiting for that

[Redeemed]

I wonder what impact this will have on nVidia's launch schedule as they could argue pretty much the same thing AMD is. Will nVidia launch the GTX700 series this year? Rumor has it March is when we should see the GTX700 cards surface, or there abouts.

On potential problem is this: Titan should be for all intents and purposes comparble in performance to a GTX690 (give or take a bit). Titan is a single GPU card then that should compete with GTX680 SLi or 7970 CFX, while consuming less power and heat than both dual card offerings. Is Titan the high end GTX700 offering from nVidia? If so and AMD does launch the 8000 series in Q4 won't that be comparable to the Titan then in performance? If so how could it possibly be priced competitively after being launch so late?

From how I see it whatever new high end parts they launch in Q4 it's going to have to outpace Titan, or AMD just sells their parts for less than nVidia meaning AMD gets smaller margins on each batch sold.

Really curious how this is going to play out. If Titan is not of the GTX700 family and is just a refresh- mighty freaking powerful refresh then. Granted there's only supposed to be 10,000 of them but still- pretty amazing refresh and likely even more concerning for AMD then. If nVidia can pump out a gpu that brings close to twice the performance of a 680 while consuming less power and generating less heat than 680 SLi, and that GPU is only a refresh- what are the proper next-gen high-end parts going to bring? Will whatever AMD launches in Q4 be able to compete? AMD might have to launch them at significantly lower prices than desired. Meaning no $600 price tag for the 8970 at launch cause the GTX780 will have been out for the better part of a year, cost less, while performing comparably, with arguably more mature drivers and game support.

Other possibility, which I believe was already speculated, is that Sea Islands was to be the 8000 series but AMD was not happy with the results so scraped it for a proper 22nm GCN2.0 based part they'll release at years end. This could be very competitive, likely outperforming whatever parts nVidia has out at the time for less power and heat, allowing AMD to charge more of a premium for them. However- will 22nm be ready that early? Wasn't 22nm scheduled for next year (2014)?

Either way my original hope was to upgrade December of this year or Jan/Feb of next so looks like the prices on the GTX700 series should have stabalized by then, and I'll even have the option to choose from AMD's 8000 series. Now if my 2nd 5870 will only hold out that long...

[badsykes]

Originally Posted by bill dennison

hmm so if the 8970 is the end of this year then no 20nm 9970 till maybe the end of 2014

this is unacceptable they must redouble their efforts

I just get a feeling that we need a pool and some bets here...
I vote that if NV or AMD will not come with something new in next months someone will not get his anual "dosage" of new graphic tech/cards.. ..
A desperate move will happen...
Here are a couple of "horses" that i am thinking about:

1st choice horse that can win: Bill wll buy dual 780
2nd choice horse : Bill will go Quadfire 7970 with 4x Asus Ares
3rd horse: Bill will quit buying expensive VGA's and play Limbo with an APU ... and may make some gifts overseas (i will be here -- I will send you a postcard as a thank you)
4th horse: Bill will buy a single 780 ...

Place your bets gentlemens ...

[bill dennison]

Originally Posted by badsykes

I just get a feeling that we need a pool and some bets here...
I vote that if NV or AMD will not come with something new in next months someone will not get his anual "dosage" of new graphic tech/cards.. ..
A desperate move will happen...
Here are a couple of "horses" that i am thinking about:

1st choice horse that can win: Bill wll buy dual 780
2nd choice horse : Bill will go Quadfire 7970 with 4x Asus Ares
3rd horse: Bill will quit buying expensive VGA's and play Limbo with an APU ... and may make some gifts overseas (i will be here -- I will send you a postcard as a thank you)
4th horse: Bill will buy a single 780 ...

Place your bets gentlemens ...

i will buy a second 680 directcu ii top after tax time for the nv system, but they can keep the over priced titan or anything based on their old big monolithic die system
but no more 7970's for the ati system, two 7970's put out more heat than I like
was hoping to skip the 8970's and go two years to the next upgrade but not 3+ to the 9970's, but my poor old asus 7970's may go out of the 3 year warranty before I get a new 9970
so I will now have to look at the 8970's to see if one can run all games at 2560x1600 but will most likely still need two

[badsykes]

Originally Posted by bill dennison

i will buy a second 680 directcu ii top after tax time for the nv system, but they can keep the over priced titan or anything based on their old big monolithic die system
but no more 7970's for the ati system, two 7970's put out more heat than I like
was hoping to skip the 8970's and go two years to the next upgrade but not 3+ to the 9970's, but my poor old asus 7970's may go out of the 3 year warranty before I get a new 9970
so I will now have to look at the 8970's to see if one can run all games at 2560x1600 but will most likely still need two

I choose my monitor wisely...My ideal monitor would be one profesional with 99% Adobe RGB colour reproductions with very high quality panel but lower resolution 1680 or 1920 native..
I had a Dell 2209WA and it broke in guarantee..It was discontinued...I loved because it was IPS and 1680x1050 native resolution..They sent me a Dell 2212 model with a 1920 native resolution..Fortunetly i had already 6950 to get the power for this resolution..I still preffer dot pitch to be lower and 1680x1050 resolution..There are just TN panels with this native resolution and they are out of discussion...
A lower native resolution will keep things in perspective when comes to upgrades...For 1920 and above i need to buy top of the line cards (300$ +) always..Of course things are now getting instersting as the 7870 or 7850 can pretty much run the 1920 and they are not top of the line..(by top of the line i mean 79xx or 670 and 680)..
If you always aiming for 2560 resolution and want to run latest and greates settings things are tough for you and your wallet and you have very little choices..My advice downgrade the monitors to very good ones but with 1920 resolution and see how is going for you.The Dell Ultrasharp U2413 is a good start..

[caveman-jim]

Yeah, but back to Sea Islands...



Looks identical at this level but the HSA capabilities are different, new abilities for data sharing between different work items which was previously private (if I'm reading the docs right )

[Akumajo]

Well chances are that if Crytek's claims are true, then Crysis 3 might become a new Crysis 1 in the sense that both AMD and Nvidia will simply just focus on selling SLI/Crossfire set ups and rake in the dough with no new refresh till next year.

Then there is the console factor where AMD teams were busy there so they may be planning a new arch for much much later...

[caveman-jim]

Originally Posted by Akumajo

Then there is the console factor where AMD teams were busy there so they may be planning a new arch for much much later...

This doesn't make sense.

[bill dennison]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

Yeah, but back to Sea Islands...

snip

Looks identical at this level but the HSA capabilities are different, new abilities for data sharing between different work items which was previously private (if I'm reading the docs right )

hmm how about a 8970 with 2304 cores

[badsykes]

Originally Posted by Akumajo

Well chances are that if Crytek's claims are true, then Crysis 3 might become a new Crysis 1 in the sense that both AMD and Nvidia will simply just focus on selling SLI/Crossfire set ups and rake in the dough with no new refresh till next year.

Then there is the console factor where AMD teams were busy there so they may be planning a new arch for much much later...

Even i am not a fan of Crysis series i played the Multiplayer Beta for Crysis 3 and i don't see the case of Crysis 1 repeating itself..
With my current rig could run multiplayer map at High settings smothly ...
I5 750 oced to 3.8ghz
8gb ram
6950 shaders unlocked to 6970 (but freqs keep 6950 stock)
w7 x64
Essence ST
13.2 beta 5 driver

On the other hand when Crysis 1 apeared i had 2900XT and some 4800 X2 CPU, 2gb ram and even on high and single player it barely worked at 1280x768 with DX10 feautures enabled..2900XT wasn't a cheape card back then..My first 300$+ card ever..

Of course if you want 50X AA and 50X AF and 2560x or Eyefinity Crossfire is the way (this includes dual GPU on same board too)...A 6950 that is not newest gen can handle Crysis 3 decently enough..I don't feel the need to upgrade to 7000 series...

[Lupine]

Originally Posted by B.A. Baracus

I was waiting for that

It was the first thing to come to mind, even if it isn't the least bit applicable lol.

[aviphysics]

I am going to stick with my perennial favorite theory and say AMD is going to try and cash in on all the noise that will come with next gen consoles as people feel the need to pep up there PC to prepare for the next gen cross platform titles.

With the way things are right now, the average user doesn't feel a lot of pressure to upgrade, so not a whole lot of reason to release new hardware.

I could also imagine that AMD might want a little extra time to tune their next gen cards to be more competitive with whatever Nvidia plans to put out, but I don't have the impression that a few extra months would make all that much of a difference.

Personally, I have always been a fan of top to bottom launches. It lets the company put forward a fresh face and clear product lineup. For example, ignorant users won't be left wonder if a just released 8870 is better than a 7970 just because the former has a bigger number than the latter.

[badsykes]

Originally Posted by bill dennison

hmm how about a 8970 with 2304 cores

Off topic...

Bill this is the tech-lady naked..As you said when you plug 2 or 4 of them together it will make your electricity BILL look sexy on papers..GTX285 reloaded...

http://www.techpowerup.com/180297/NV...d-in-Full.html

Reading the comments Nvidia fanboys were plugged already to nvidia electricity bill.. (i mean to nvidia wallets)

On topic:

There is one paradox about the 8000 series that i don't understand..How AMD will gonna sell the "new" 8000 series with this big sales for Never Settle bundle on the 7000 series...Amd already made pressures on gamers wallets with this bundle..They expect people that buy new 7000 series to jump in a couple of months or next to the "new" but the "same" 8000 series....