R9 390X Speculations & Questions

[Jayhawk]

First of all let's establish something. Nothing is for certain and the specs that I'm using will most likely be shat on by rumor and facts that will arise in the coming months. These questions are based on the 390X having the specs that are currently rumored. Now, let's get on with this.

 

So the R9 390X will supposedly have 4096 stream processors, 4 gigabytes of hbm stacked vram, and a theoretical bandwidth of 650GB/s on the Fiji architecture on the 20nm manufacturing process. There are either 64 or 96 ROPs on the card. 96 should be what they have, but AMD might cut costs to make more of a budget for a large memory bus width.Considering the R9 285's improved efficiency, which should continue on to Fiji architecture or we'll have a 400+ watt card, the R9 390X should have a power demand of 350 watts at the very most due to the new architecture and manufacturing process although 325 watts or less is much more likely. If the new architecture is similar to the Hawaii, we'll at best have a power-hungry, hydra cooled reference card with a huge amount of overclocking headroom.

 

Now these are where rumors from talking to ex-AMD employees and helpful, and hopefully accurate, leaks leave us. This is also where my questions begin.

 

1. How much will the bandwidth help with 4k? Additionally, does this mean we can get away with lower amount of vram?

 

2. Is it possible that the stream processer to performance ratio will increase to near to, par to, or over par to Kelper CUDA ratios? I'm not really banking on Maxwell level efficiency.

 

3. Will the new AMD cards actually bring them back into the competition, lowering the GTX 900 series prices?

 

I know that you can not accurately answer these questions, or at least the last two, but I value the forum's thoughts and opinions. I'd like to see any (constructive) replies. Thanks for reading this post I'll probably get shit for.

[Recon97]

I wonder what will be the price and how much heat would it generate?

[Enderman]

1) No, because memory bandwidth is not bottlenecking 4k. Its the raw GPU performance that is. And no, badwidth does not replace the vram. You still need at least 4GB of vram for no bottleneck on ultra textures, no matter how much bandwidth you have.

 

2) Probably not. You know AMD..."just add more cores!" instead of improving architectural efficiency.

 

3) Yeah, its a cycle, and they will be back with something faster, stronger, better thant he 290x for sure.

[Deletive]

I don't think HBM would reach Consumer atleast H2 in 2015.

 

1) No, because memory bandwidth is not bottlenecking 4k. Its the raw GPU performance that is.

 

2) Probably not. You know AMD..."just add more cores!" instead of improving architectural efficiency.

 

3) Yeah, its a cycle, and they will be back with something faster, stronger, better thant he 290x for sure.

^ this, Unless AMD completely redesigned their architecture I doubt we'll see 4092 cores, maybe like 3072 on like a Improved GCN architecture.

 

Hopefully they can really keep the heat under control

[maizenblue]

One thing to keep in mind is that even if the TDP and heat of the 390x is high, the performance increase could be enough that it could nearly match TWO 970s in SLI. That means youd have 970 SLI performance in a single card which would wind up being more power efficient and have lower temps than a dual card set up, especially with the rumored liquid reference cooler AMD will offer that will greatly reduce GPU temps AND expel all the heat out of your case. It would also bypass the problems associated with dual cards, like micro stutter.

 

Then there's the possibility that the 20nm process and increased efforts by AMD to make this card more power efficient after getting crucified for the 290/x's power consumption could result in a card that does a decent job of keeping power draw and temps low given its performance. If AMD puts all this together and prices it right, it could render the 900 series obsolete overnight. Im hoping so, id love to see Nvidia get owned.

[Enderman]

id love to see Nvidia get owned.

I dont think you understand how far ahead of AMD nvidia is...

They work about 3-5 years in advance. That means what they are doing right now in their secret labs is technology you will see in over 3 years into the future.

AMD is busy trying to get thermals under control, the most I would expect from a 390x would be a couple more fps than a 980 (stock)

[rockmassif]

 the most I would expect from a 390x would be a couple more fps than a 980 (stock)

 

SS taken. Will use it in the future.

[Antistatic12]

I'm hoping to hear something before end of year.
Same goes for Nvidia. Less consumer/mainstream, more Enthusiasts.

[maizenblue]

Nvidia has its fanboys so brainwashed they think they can walk on water, with "secret labs" and such, despite them putting out products that are either overpriced garbage(titanz anyone?) or offer marginally better performance for a big price premium.

 

As for AMD "working to get thermals under control", I guess you missed the gtx 780 series which had TDP that was like 30 or 40 watts less than the 290/series, with non reference designs that ran hotter than the better non reference 290/x cards, and cost a few hundred more. Funny how power consumption didn't matter with the 780ti.

 

Even if the 390x totally destroys anything Nvidia has, the fanboys will find something to complain about it.....because that's what fanboys do.

[UnknownResident]

Honestly, I think the 20nm processing node and the stacked memory die is almost confirmed now. It makes sense, and complies with what AMD has been telling us all along.