AMD Readies Three New GPUs: 'Greenland', 'Baffin' and 'Ellesmere'

[HKZeroFive]

AMD’s code-named “Arctic Islands” family of products will include three brand-new chips – “Greenland”, “Baffin” and “Ellesmere” – a source with knowledge of AMD plans said. The “Greenland” will be the new flagship offering for performance enthusiasts, whereas the “Baffin” and “Ellesmere” will target other market segments, such as high-end and mainstream. It is unclear whether the “Arctic Islands” family will take in any existing products, but it is possible that AMD may address certain markets with previous-gen products.

“Greenland” will be AMD’s first graphics processing unit based on the all-new micro-architecture, which development began a little more than two years ago. While the architecture is currently known as another iteration of GCN, the new ISA [instruction set architecture] will be so considerably different compared to the existing GCN that it has every right to be called “post-GCN”, the source said. It is likely that the “Greenland” will retain layout of the contemporary AMD Radeon graphics processing units, but there will be significant changes in on the deeper level.

The only official thing currently known about the new architecture, which Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer of AMD, calls the next iteration of GCN, is that it is projected to be two times more energy efficient compared to the current GCN. Essentially, this means means major performance enhancements on the ISA level. Thanks to the fact that the “Greenland” graphics processing unit will be made using either 14nm or 16nm FinFET process technology, expect it to feature considerably larger number of stream processors than “Fiji”.

The “Greenland” graphics processor will rely on the second-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM), so expect ultra-high-end graphics cards and professional solutions with up to 32GB of DRAM onboard with bandwidth of up to 1TB/s. Consumer-class “Greenland”-based products will likely come with 8GB – 16GB of memory. Due to usage of HBM, expect the “Greenland” chip and upcoming graphics cards on its base to resemble the currently available AMD Radeon R9 Fury-series adapters.

The number of transistors inside the “Greenland” as well as its die size are unknown. Since 14nm/16nm FinFET manufacturing technologies have considerably (up to 90 per cent) higher transistor density than contemporary TSMC’s 28nm fabrication process, it is logical to expect that the new flagship product will feature 15 – 18 billion of elements if it retains around 600mm² die size from the “Fiji”.

Not a lot of information is known about the “Baffin” and the “Ellesmere”. The source stressed that both GPUs are brand-new and will be designed from scratch. Since the “Baffin” and the “Ellesmere” are named after bigger and smaller islands in Canada, it is likely that the former is a mainstream graphics chip with moderate die size, whereas the former is a small entry-level GPU. AMD began to work on “Ellesmere” about a year ago.

Expect AMD to begin talking about its next-generation graphics architecture in the coming months.

It's all speculation at this point, but I'm really hoping that this lineup won't be 'disappointing' like the Fury X (overhyped and failed to deliver against the 980Ti). If Greenland is as good as it sounds, I'm really, really excited.

Sauce: http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-readies-three-new-gpus-for-2016-greenland-baffin-and-ellesmere/

[Aytex]

as long as they compete with nvidia then im fine with whoever and whatever they beat/make

[Dabombinable]

It had better not be another Grenada (Hawaii).

[Jerakl]

Well greenland is icy. So I'm guessing that's a metaphor to tell us the GPU will run cool????

[Fetzie]

16GB VRAM and up to 18 billion transistors?!

[Notional]

Well greenland is icy. So I'm guessing that's a metaphor to tell us the GPU will run cool????

 

2x performance per watt compared to Fiji. But really who cares about 5c instead of an extra 10 fps.

 

Greenland versus Pascal will be very interesting next year. If Ashes of the Singularity is anything to go by, AMD will rock the DX12 scenario.

[Potato Salad]

Greenland will run cool because its green.

Nvidia GPUs only run cool because of that stupid logo being green.

AMD needs to stop being dumb and change its color to green so we can stop bitching about it running at 3000 degrees.

[TheUzu]

I hope AMD manages to destroy nVidia in DX12, it would wake nVidia up.

[arvark]

AMD's logo IS green, only thing, they don't use it on their GPU division.

[Briggsy]

Greenland will run cool because its green.

Nvidia GPUs only run cool because of that stupid logo being green.

AMD needs to stop being dumb and change its color to green so we can stop bitching about it running at 3000 degrees.

 

well...

 

 

 

As long as AMD's next cards aren't like the 980/980ti which failed to deliver in dx12, everything should be ok. (Just Mirroring OP's statement to show them how dumb it sounds)

[Aytex]

Greenland will run cool because its green.

Nvidia GPUs only run cool because of that stupid logo being green.

AMD needs to stop being dumb and change its color to green so we can stop bitching about it running at 3000 degrees.

[Potato Salad]

Green = Economical

I'm expecting the card to run at 2 watts.

Because Greenland is cold this should have the next generation "super amazing automatic cooling device" to keep the card at -20 degrees with ICEnhancer 6.9

[amdart11]

Yay Baffin Island, Canada represent! 

[Deletive]

Green = Economical

I'm expecting the card to run at 2 watts.

Because Greenland is cold this should have the next generation "super amazing automatic cooling device" to keep the card at -20 degrees with ICEnhancer 6.9

Sorry to inform you it will be running at 250-300watts just like pascal and volta.

[VagabondWraith]

Green = Economical

I'm expecting the card to run at 2 watts.

Because Greenland is cold this should have the next generation "super amazing automatic cooling device" to keep the card at -20 degrees with ICEnhancer 6.9

It'll come with an AIO LN2 cooler.

[Briggsy]

It'll come with an AIO LN2 cooler.

 

given that the chips will be 14nm and probably as dense as a Nibblonian's turd, I would hope so.

[dalekphalm]

This is quite exciting news. Fiji was a minor revision of the GCN architecture - it was a Hawaii Tonga tweak with more cores, essentially.

 

This is a brand new GPU architecture, so this should be very exciting. Plans to buy a Fiji GPU have been thrown straight out the window My HD 7950 can last until Greenland/Pascal.

 

I sincerely hope that they call it "GCN 2.0" though, rather than GCN 1.3. It would definitely help their marketing. And it is a brand new architecture after all.

 

EDIT: I meant Tonga, not hawaii - also turns on that Fiji was GCN 1.2, just like Tonga, not 1.3 like I had assumed.

[Dabombinable]

This is quite exciting news. Fiji was a minor revision of the GCN architecture - it was a Tonga tweak with more cores, essentially.

 

This is a brand new GPU architecture, so this should be very exciting. Plans to buy a Fiji GPU have been thrown straight out the window My HD 7950 can last until Greenland/Pascal.

 

I sincerely hope that they call it "GCN 2.0" though, rather than GCN 1.4. It would definitely help their marketing. And it is a brand new architecture after all.

[Paranoid Kami]

2x performance per watt compared to Fiji. But really who cares about 5c instead of an extra 10 fps.

 

Greenland versus Pascal will be very interesting next year. If Ashes of the Singularity is anything to go by, AMD will rock the DX12 scenario.

 

In all honesty, temps and power usage are things you want to advertise with for laptops and doesn't really matter for the desktop. The thing is, Nvidia hyped up their latest gen of cards for their temps and power efficiency and they sold well despite those being things that shouldn't matter for desktop users. AMD's latest cards perform better than Nvidia's offerings except for the 980 Ti, but Nvidia is still outdoing AMD in sales.

[dalekphalm]

In all honesty, temps and power usage are things you want to advertise with for laptops and doesn't really matter for the desktop. The thing is, Nvidia hyped up their latest gen of cards for their temps and power efficiency and they sold well despite those being things that shouldn't matter for desktop users. AMD's latest cards perform better than Nvidia's offerings except for the 980 Ti, but Nvidia is still outdoing AMD in sales.

You're right, they shouldn't matter - but for some weird reason, people got up in arms about 10-50 watts difference in power consumption when Maxwell was released. All of the sudden, temps and power efficiency are now the most important damn thing in enthusiast GPU builds.

[soaringchicken]

Well, if they market well, and the cards are decent, I'm all for it. 

[bcredeur97]

You're right, they shouldn't matter - but for some weird reason, people got up in arms about 10-50 watts difference in power consumption when Maxwell was released. All of the sudden, temps and power efficiency are now the most important damn thing in enthusiast GPU builds.

im al lfor efficiency in terms of:

 

"Ok our top tier GPU is 300 Watts, so make the next one 300 watts but 30% more powerful" and so on and so forth. Like we have pretty much estabilished already that a 300 watt TDP is about the limit for both heat and power that anyone wants for a single chip, so lets just hold it there and increase efficiency so we can cram more into the chips at that power level. 

[Dabombinable]

You're right, they shouldn't matter - but for some weird reason, people got up in arms about 10-50 watts difference in power consumption when Maxwell was released. All of the sudden, temps and power efficiency are now the most important damn thing in enthusiast GPU builds.

Electricity costs money that could be spent on other things, such as parts for your rig.

[ivan134]

Electricity costs money that could be spent on other things, such as parts for your rig.

LOL. Care to show us some of your math?

[Briggsy]

Electricity costs money that could be spent on other things, such as parts for your rig.

 

lol. if a couple dollars per month is enough to sway you, then a gaming PC is probably not in your budget to begin with. (I'm exaggerating. its more like pennies per month difference)