[Leak] AMD Prepares Two Next Generation High End GPUs

[TechFan@ic]

NOTE: No site has reported on this until now, so this is essentially breaking news. I expect WCCFTech to pick it up very soon.
UPDATE: VideoCardz & WCCFTech picked the news story up but I'm happy to announce that we've beaten them to the punch!

 

This leak is very interesting, the source is not AMD or any of its board partners, it's actually not really a leak either.
Synapse Design is a company that offers services such as software and development SDKs to help companies like AMD design floor plans for chips. These floor plans are then used to start manufacturing the chips at third party fabs such as TSMC & Globalfoundries.

When a floor plan is finalized that's labeled as a "tape out" in semiconductors. Well Synapse Design just recently released a list of the chips which have been taped out in the last 12 months by a number of their partners.

At the top of the list are two VERY interesting chips, both of which are large GPUs.


Synapse Design only has one client which makes GPUs this large & that's AMD.
http://www.synapse-da.com/Corporate/Clients

To put this into perspective the Hawaii GPU powering the R9 290X is 438mm² large & the GK110 GPU powering the 780 Ti is 551mm² large.
According to Synapse Design they have taped out a 500mm²+ GPU & a 350mm²+ GPU.
AMD's largest GPU ever was Hawaii so AMD has never designed a GPU this large before so I'm very interested to see the implications of this.

These two new GPUs might very well end up being AMD's upcoming successors to the 290X and 280X, presumably the 390X and 380X.

28HPM is a TSMC node so these are not the GPUs which AMD reportedly intends to build at Globalfoundries.
The alleged time frame for these chips' release is the second half of 2014 up to the first quarter of 2015 (July 2014 to March 2015)..

[dizmo]

This means nothing to me but I am looking forward to AMD's next cards so...yay?

[Oshino Shinobu]

The alleged time frame for these chips' release is 2H2014-1Q2015.

Sounds like their new naming scheme to me. 

[Misanthrope]

Interesting, however without any other news regarding the tech behind this chips, I'm more concerned than intrigued: their last cards were already not quite easy to drive as they had fairly large power requirements and heat output. If something hasn't radically changed, this could end up like the equivalent of the FX 9590: too difficult for almost anyone not running custom water loops to handle.

 

Of course they could be sitting on new tech and not just a size increase, let's hope that's the case.

[Katsu-K1L]

Well i hope they come up with something good and not fail but well i have some faith in AMD (Waiting for R9 390 Tri-x)

[TERAFLOP]

Interesting, however without any other news regarding the tech behind this chips, I'm more concerned than intrigued: their last cards were already not quite easy to drive as they had fairly large power requirements and heat output. If something hasn't radically changed, this could end up like the equivalent of the FX 9590: too difficult for almost anyone not running custom water loops to handle.

 

Of course they could be sitting on new tech and not just a size increase, let's hope that's the case.

We already know that AMD's upcoming architecture focuses on efficiency according to the news we have about Tonga, it's AMD's Maxwell if you will.

It's also very unlikely that they would repeat the same mistake again & release GPUs which they can't properly cool with their standard blower cooler.

It's also possible that AMD would have designed a new cooler to go with the larger GPUs as well, we know they did with the 290X but OEMs disliked it because it was an axial design and not a direct exhaust so AMD ended up abandoning it.

[GPUXPert]

Sweet, new AMD cards to compete with Nvidia mean cheaper prices for everyone !

[Misanthrope]

We already know that AMD's upcoming architecture focuses on efficiency according to the news we have about Tonga, it's AMD's Maxwell if you will.

It's also very unlikely that they would repeat the same mistake again & release GPUs which they can't properly cool with their standard blower cooler.

It's also possible that AMD would have designed a new cooler to go with the larger GPUs as well, we know they did with the 290X but OEMs disliked it because it was an axial design and not a direct exhaust so AMD ended up abandoning it.

 

Agreed, but those road maps are first not set in stone and second, not an indication on how much of that is just AMD optimism and how much will be an actual improvement. I concede your points however it's very speculative before we see benchmarks.

[TechFan@ic]

This means nothing to me but I am looking forward to AMD's next cards so...yay?

Sounds like their new naming scheme to me. 

Apparently it was too technical, I've edited a few items, hopefully it's more comprehensible now.

[GRJohn]

It's really good to know that AMD is ready to respond to Maxwell with high end offerings, keep Nvidia prices in check.

[GamerDude]

It's really good to know that AMD is ready to respond to Maxwell with high end offerings, keep Nvidia prices in check.

Exactly, I don't know why some green team fanboys want AMD to fail, they have forgotten that if it weren't for the launch of the R9 290 series, GTX780 would still be sold at 650USD. Competition is good for the industry and benefits us the consumers.

[imthewalrus]

Lets hope it runs cool. 

[Tech_Dreamer]

Good news, But either way,When it comes to new graphics card release, i feel like they're playing the consumers, nothing really much of an advantage overall, it's just 5-10% bump each & every time they release a new one, they keep the whole bread & throw us the tiny bread crumbs... Sad actually..

[wpirobotbuilder]

There's only so much you can do by increasing the die size, though.

 

It'll be awesome short-term, but long-term the yields might be a problem.

 

Still excited for more powerful GPUs.

[Kamina]

I'm guessing larger dies is an indication that we are going to see 28nm for another generation?

[Humbug]

 it's just 5-10% bump each & every time they release a new one, they keep the whole bread & throw us the tiny bread crumbs... Sad actually..

 

290x was about 30% faster than the previous flagship 7970Ghz edition.

 

Same with the Geforce Titan compared to the 680.

[Ashaira]

290x was about 30% faster than the previous flagship 7970Ghz edition.

 

Same with the Geforce Titan compared to the 680.

Titan and flagship have no place in the same sentence.

[mr moose]

How do we know it's not a new competitor or even an apple GPU for their AIO or laptops?

[papeles]

 

 

[Leak] AMD Prepares Two Next Generation High End GPUs

 

#cringe

[GPUXPert]

How do we know it's not a new competitor or even an apple GPU for their AIO or laptops?

It can't be a new competitor or an Apple tape out for several reasons.

1- Nobody has the experience to design a GPU this large other than AMD or Nvidia, not even Intel.

2- The tapeouts are just in time for a Maxwell release time-frame so it's obviously either Nvidia or its competitor AMD and since Nvidia isn't a client of Synapse Design this only leaves AMD.

3- Fitting a 500mm or even a 350mm processor, in this case a GPU, in an all-in-one or a laptop is terribly unrealistic, the largest GPU to have ever gone into laptops is Nvidia's GK104 which is 294mm large and the GPU had to be severely underclocked to manage heat, we're talking about a sizable 30%+ underclock.

[MilkyWhite]

Sounds like their new naming scheme to me. 

Sounds like a troll attempt to me.

[CarlosRex]

Sounds like a troll attempt to me.

Sounds like their new naming scheme to me.

Why are people liking this? it makes no fuckin sense !

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Why are people liking this? it makes no fuckin sense !

 

It makes perfect sense. 

 

AMD have had some really bad naming schemes in the past (R9 290x2, come on). I was just making a joke that the release date looked complicated, so maybe it was AMD's new naming scheme. (he edited the post to make it easier to understand though).

 

I really didn't think I'd have to explain it. And I'm not sure what @MilkyWhite meant by a troll attempt. 

[mr moose]

It can't be a new competitor or an Apple tape out for several reasons.

1- Nobody has the experience to design a GPU this large other than AMD or Nvidia, not even Intel.

2- The tapeouts are just in time for a Maxwell release time-frame so it's obviously either Nvidia or its competitor AMD and since Nvidia isn't a client of Synapse Design this only leaves AMD.

3- Fitting a 500mm or even a 350mm processor, in this case a GPU, in an all-in-one or a laptop is terribly unrealistic, the largest GPU to have ever gone into laptops is Nvidia's GK104 which is 294mm large and the GPU had to be severely underclocked to manage heat, we're talking about a sizable 30%+ underclock.

 

cool, but on the off chance it turns out to be someone other than AMD, I am coming back to say I told you so.

[harrynowl]

#cringe

How so?