AMD might reveal the first 20nm GPUs this year, or they might not :<

[KakaoDj]

WCCF article

Kitguru article has a different conclusion

 

Updated the post with additional info, check bottom part of OP.

 

 

I don't hink we will be seeing R9 23xx this year 

They will use a FinFET process, which TSMC just released some info on here: TSMC reveals new 16nm FinFET+ process, vows to start 10nm production in Q4 2015

 

 

Lisa Su – SVP and General Manager of Global Business Units

 

Sure, Chris. So let me take that and give you a little bit of our thinking.

So in terms of product and technology selection, certainly we need to be at the leading-edge of the technology roadmap. So what we’ve said in the past is certainly this year all of our products are in 28-nanometer across both, you know, graphics client and our semi-custom business. We are, you know, actively in the design phase for 20-nanometer and that will come to production. And then clearly we’ll go to FinFET. So that would be the progression of it.

 

Lisa Su – SVP and General Manager of Global Business Units

 

UPDATE

 

 

 

KitGuru interprets the quote differently.

it is logical to assume that the first AMD products to be made using 20nm fabrication process are graphics processing units (GPUs).

While the senior vice president of AMD did not officially confirm that the first 20nm AMD Radeon GPUs are set to emerge in 2014, her comment regarding coming “to production” may hint on the plan to reveal such GPUs already this year.

[XTankSlayerX]

No clue what smaller dies mean but this is going to be interesting!

[ERSCreeper]

So re-branding here we come

[ZetZet]

Well then f u amd i'm definitely buying 760 now 

[AlwaysFSX]

So re-branding here we come

Unless they be like Nvidia and do anything to change their architecture to be more efficient/faster/etc.

[Humbug]

Was expected. Nvidia too has been unable to get 20nm out the door.

[qwertywarrior]

So re-branding here we come

same node =/= rebrand

[Unhelpful]

They also announced last year that there would be no new GPUs. Then R7 and R9 happened.

[Bluuz]

Introducing the AMD time machine!

"No new gpus coming out this year!"

...releases r9 290/290x

[KakaoDj]

No clue what smaller dies mean but this is going to be interesting!

More performance, less energy consumption and higher prices basically

[Me1z]

Was expected. Nvidia too has been unable to get 20nm out the door.

 

Yes, but there is an expected window of Q3 for 20nm maxwell production and a possible Q4 release. Hearing that AMD will have nothing until 2015 is a bit disappointing. I prefer Nvidia, but I desperately want AMD to kick them around and force down prices. Those chunks of silicon cant possibly cost more than $300 to produce and charging $500 for them is acceptable, hence the GTX 780 & R9 290. As a hardware enthusiast, the $700 GTX 780 ti & R9 290X makes me want to cry.

[Fetzie]

Those chunks of silicon cant possibly cost more than $300 to produce and charging $500 for them is acceptable, hence the GTX 780 & R9 290. As a hardware enthusiast, the $700 GTX 780 ti & R9 290X makes me want to cry.

 

Yeah, especially as you could buy a GTX 590 for $600.

[Humbug]

Yes, but there is an expected window of Q3 for 20nm maxwell production and a possible Q4 release. Hearing that AMD will have nothing until 2015 is a bit disappointing. I prefer Nvidia, but I desperately want AMD to kick them around and force down prices. Those chunks of silicon cant possibly cost more than $300 to produce and charging $500 for them is acceptable, hence the GTX 780 & R9 290. As a hardware enthusiast, the $700 GTX 780 ti & R9 290X makes me want to cry.

It's not just AMD, I have my doubts whether nvidia can get 20nm Maxwell out the door within this year. If they do I expect it will be the end of the year, but more likely 2015 for them too.

[ShiverMePenguins]

Yes, but there is an expected window of Q3 for 20nm maxwell production and a possible Q4 release. Hearing that AMD will have nothing until 2015 is a bit disappointing. I prefer Nvidia, but I desperately want AMD to kick them around and force down prices. Those chunks of silicon cant possibly cost more than $300 to produce and charging $500 for them is acceptable, hence the GTX 780 & R9 290. As a hardware enthusiast, the $700 GTX 780 ti & R9 290X makes me want to cry.

actually they yield much more money than that for gpu's. amd is just terrible at marketing and managing volume.

[Opcode]

No clue what smaller dies mean but this is going to be interesting!

Lower power consumption and also a small performance boost due to the electrical circuits being shorter. We are only a couple of short years away from seeing HD 7850 level performance on a card that requires no external power. The further they get with that, the more performance they can also cram into low powered units (laptops, cell phones, etc).

[dragosudeki]

Wccf D: Though isn't the article a general idea anyways? 20nm Maxwell is going to be out just before 2015, or possibly in 2015 or something like that anyways?

[jezza39]

same node =/= rebrand

 

Yes but look how physically big GK110 is. Without shrinking the transistors down from 28nm, you can't fit anymore on the die, thus we aren't going see any massive performance increases, and will likely see tons of rebranding if another 28nm GPU range is launched. 

[samuel]

Not AMD but Globalfoundries dictates the node size of AMD products...  They are getting close to silicon minimal tranzistor size so they have to keep their business up and running until graphene becomes available.

[qwertywarrior]

Yes but look how physically big GK110 is. Without shrinking the transistors down from 28nm, you can't fit anymore on the die, thus we aren't going see any massive performance increases, and will likely see tons of rebranding if another 28nm GPU range is launched. 

shrinking isnt the only way to increase performance .Shrinking and making clocks higher is an old strategy that stopped during Pentium's  late days

 

also sticking to 28nm doesnt mean rebranding if they are using an entirely new architecture they will not use the GK110

rebranding means they are using the exact same architecture , the same node with a different name

 

architectural changes is where the big differences are

pretty much every company does intel's tick tock method or a variation of it 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

 

an example would be intel's 45nm penryn to intel's 45nm Nehalem  Or pentium's netburst to Core all on 65nm

 

shrinking doesnt make many big improvements

an example would be 8xxx to 9xxx or 4xx to 5xx

but architectural  changes make big improvements like from 9xxx to 2xx or 5xx to 6xx

[Grave]

So re-branding here we come

Actually it opens up more flexibility with a new architecture by sticking with 28nm. While it won't be as 'jam packed' and could just be that, rebranding of similar products, they may end up pulling a rabbit out of their hats and surprising everyone with something very, very good. The flexibility comes with less pressure to shrink, already having 28nm architectures to modify may assist with something that's a step forward outside of size. Also, more resources to dedicate.

Edit: Then again, this could be all heresay. WCCFTech blows.

[ERSCreeper]

Actually it opens up more flexibility with a new architecture by sticking with 28nm. While it won't be as 'jam packed' and could just be that, rebranding of similar products, they may end up pulling a rabbit out of their hats and surprising everyone with something very, very good. The flexibility comes with less pressure to shrink, already having 28nm architectures to modify may assist with something that's a step forward outside of size. Also, more resources to dedicate.

Edit: Then again, this could be all heresay. WCCFTech blows.

I do agree but I think it is time for AMD to change things up. But I do also understand that they don't have the money for R&D.

[Fetzie]

Not AMD but Globalfoundries dictates the node size of AMD products...  They are getting close to silicon minimal tranzistor size so they have to keep their business up and running until graphene becomes available.

 

The next set of AMD chips are going to be made by TSMC, globalfoundries are likely to be making the low-end stuff and power saving chips.

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20131017231002_AMD_to_Tape_Out_First_20nm_14nm_FinFET_Chips_Within_Next_Two_Quarters.html

[jezza39]

shrinking isnt the only way to increase performance .Shrinking and making clocks higher is an old strategy that stopped during Pentium's  late days

 

also sticking to 28nm doesnt mean rebranding if they are using an entirely new architecture they will not use the GK110

rebranding means they are using the exact same architecture , the same node with a different name

 

architectural changes is where the big differences are

pretty much every company does intel's tick tock method or a variation of it 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

 

an example would be intel's 45nm penryn to intel's 45nm Nehalem  Or pentium's netburst to Core all on 65nm

 

shrinking doesnt make many big improvements

an example would be 8xxx to 9xxx or 4xx to 5xx

but architectural  changes make big improvements like from 9xxx to 2xx or 5xx to 6xx

 

Sure, not rebranding in a technical and true sense like you described, I think the masses feel it's a rebrand when a slightly cheaper product is almost the same as a last gen one people see it as a rebrand (GTX770 not technically a rebrand but close vs R9 280X which is identical to an HD7970 GHz).

 

I would have said that the Kepler Refresh is the 'tick' tbh, look at the gains from GTX570 --> GTX670 --> GTX770. Of course shrinking doesn't automatically give more performance, but it gives more space for more cores etc. 

 

People will feel the 800 series is a crap shoot from NVidia if we get <20% performance gains. Tweaking/improving general things with the architecture isn't going to give anyone a performance increase like what you would see with 50% more cores.

[Misanthrope]

same node =/= rebrand

 

Not necessarily, but come on you know they'll rebrand most of the cards and only release maybe 1 or 2 new flagships

[Misanthrope]

Yes, but there is an expected window of Q3 for 20nm maxwell production and a possible Q4 release. Hearing that AMD will have nothing until 2015 is a bit disappointing. I prefer Nvidia, but I desperately want AMD to kick them around and force down prices

 

This: you guys need to realize how damaging this is for overal growth: Now Nvidia has no fucking reason whatsoever to release top of the line Maxwell cards. They might release gimped cards as we expected (256 bit memory) but they can chill out in that relaxed state without actually pushing maxwell for the entirety of 2015 it seems.