AMD Readies Radeon R9 380X

[Curufinwe_wins]

If they make a proper desktop "GTX970M" with better power delivery, cooling and higher board limit, it will be faster than GTX960 and probably on par in term of performance as full Tonga.

Having overclocked both the 970m (before they locked it down twice) and the 960, I don't honestly believe so, at least not to any margin that justifies a new chip.

 

Also I kinda doubt they could get away with 3GB vram like they do on mobile (although the 6GB version has been much more popular). 

 

I mean if they did, that is LITERALLY the only chip they could release. (as there is no way in hell they would grab a Kepler clone.)

 

Here is an example of two of the best overclocks of each I could find:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3684105

Just looking at the graphics scores 10140 for the 970m (note that core clock is often not accurate, as it can be forced to display boosted core clock or non-boosted core clock) @15105511 Mhz

 

and

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/4740806

10259 for the 960 @1690 Mhz (although probably a custom bios, this isn't LN2 or anything).

 

I just don't see how nvidia could squeeze it in between.

[bobhays]

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-gtx-970m/specifications

 

The 970m is indeed 1280 cuda cores (and it would be the next cut-down available), but it doesn't out-preform the 960 (even at the same clocks), likely due to the SSM/ROP cutdown setup (whereas the 960 is a fully optimized full core.)

But if they cut it at the same ratio the core count one the 970m should be 1280:80:48 and the core count on the 960 is 1024:64:32. Assuming the same clocks (which should be feasible on the desktop) It looks like the 970m should outperform the 960.

 

I think there are 2 possible explanations.

1. The 970m is cut down more in terms of other units (texture and rops), power limited, or for some other reason the performance is hampered. Things that could be changed if they released a 960ti for the desktop.

 

2. Like you said for an odd reason the cut down 204 is really bad or the full 206 is well optimized.

[Curufinwe_wins]

But if they cut it at the same ratio the core count one the 970m should be 1280:80:48 and the core count on the 960 is 1024:64:32. Assuming the same clocks (which should be feasible on the desktop) It looks like the 970m should outperform the 960.

 

I think there are 2 possible explanations.

1. The 970m is cut down more in terms of other units (texture and rops), power limited, or for some other reason the performance is hampered. Things that could be changed if they released a 960ti for the desktop.

 

2. Like you said for an odd reason the cut down 204 is really bad or the full 206 is well optimized.

Well lets put it this way, a 11/12 (9%) cutdown that is the 980 ti preforms within 2-5% (steady percentage across resolutions) of the Titan X.

 

The 10/11 (10% , btw wtf AMD 10/11?!?!?) cutdown that is the 290/390 preforms at the same clocks within 4-6% (with max differences of around 4 fps at 1080p, 2-3 FPS at 4k) of the 290x/390x.

 

Yet the 13/16th (19%, with 7/8 memory modules in full activation status) cut-down that is the 970 preforms 17-24% worse even at 1440p (with the differences obviously becoming even harsher at 4k).

 

So clearly whatever methodology for cutting down the gm204 core (which we actually know a massive amount about thanks to the 3.5GB scandal) Nvidia did (which it should be notable to everyone they HAVE NOT repeated in any way shape or form on either the cutdowns of the gm206 (960) or gm200 (titan x) cores) it seems to have scaled notably poorer than other cut-downs that preceded and followed it.

 

 

Obviously no gpu core is designed specifically for a 9/16 cut-down (which is what the 970m is), and it shouldn't be super surprising to see that a full core (even if smaller, but by definition better optimized) can pull more than it's weight against it.

 

For the record, I accede that likely a desktop version of the 970m would preform a little bit better clock for clock than the 960, I just don't think they could make it a large enough difference to justify a new product (considering of all the distance between the 960 and 970, the 970m sits uncomfortably close to the 960.)

[bobhays]

snip

 

thanks for the explanation, it helped a lot. Cheers.