AMD have begun shipping Polaris GPUs - 2 different Polaris chips and 4 different GPUs spotted

[zMeul]

as I said in the other thread, hold your horses; if these are indeed Polaris based video cards they're only pre-production samples

 

looking at Fury X history: https://www.zauba.com/importanalysis-printed+circuit+board+assembly+c880-report.html

 

 

1st units were spotted in Nov 2014 -> paper launch in June 2015 -> retail in July 2015

 

so, AMD is still 1/2 a year away from retail, again .. if these are Polaris based video cards

[VagabondWraith]

Just a classic fan boy is all.

At least he asks for proof, but still.

Classic fanboy. Says the guy with a Radeon card avatar. lmao what a hoot.

And I'm still waiting on proof. Not a bunch of conjecture and hypotheticals. Just pure, solid proof.

[kelvindeschutter]

To stop this fan boy nonsense. Just wait until they will announce more details and we can see some benchmarks

[ivan134]

These are probably laptop and OEM parts. I honestly don't see any of the juicy stuff coming out before Q3/4.

[lkarej]

AMD had the Crimson drivers mess with fan speeds and gpu's were overheating. That's not good either.  That was recent.

 

AFAIK they fixed that quickly.

But still yeah it was a problem, but people still bang the "AMD HAS BAD DRIVERS" train as @don_svetlio said.

It was a bad instance yes, but rather isolated among a myriad of good releases. In my experience Nvidia just has bad drivers.

[byalexandr]

Classic fanboy. Says the guy with a Radeon card avatar. lmao what a hoot.

And I'm still waiting on proof. Not a bunch of conjecture and hypotheticals. Just pure, solid proof.

Yes I'm a fanboy, but I am willing to admit defeat if Nvidia makes a better card, if you read (at all) my post about the Fury X vs. 980 Ti.

 

Here's your proof:

 

This is an example of the raw hardware performance I was talking about, clearly AMD cards pass Nvidia:

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-radeon-fury-x-beats-titan-x-in-opencl.html

 

This is the resolution scaling performance of the Fury X vs. the 980 Ti. Clearly the Fury X handles 4K much better than a 980 Ti. Also keep in mind this was released in June, the Fury X is now about 10% faster which I will also link:

http://www.techpowerup.com/213615/radeon-r9-fury-x-faster-than-geforce-gtx-980-ti-at-4k-amd.html

 

This is the performance increase AMD cards have been getting. Not only the Fury X but also most AMD cards, this shows the hardware performance has been inefficient due to software until recently, and there is still performance to unlock because if you look at the OpenCL performance, the drivers still aren't 100%:

http://wccftech.com/amd-r9-fury-x-performance-ahead-nvidia-980-ti-latest-drivers/

 

And here is more proof from Reddit, along with other AMD chips being pulled into the mix. You can see we have been getting performance improvements (a notable one is the 380, which is now around 20%-25% faster than a 960 while generally being cheaper) :

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/3r2m51/fury_x_are_now_as_fast_as_gtx_980ti_in_1080p1440p/

 

I can post more if you'd like, hopefully you get the point. Nvidia makes good cards, don't get me wrong, but AMD is improving and Polaris should be very nice. Please don't hate me for that.

[don_svetlio]

AFAIK they fixed that quickly.

But still yeah it was a problem, but people still bang the "AMD HAS BAD DRIVERS" train as @don_svetlio said.

It was a bad instance yes, but rather isolated among a myriad of good releases. In my experience Nvidia just has bad drivers.

IT was reported on Thanks Giving. Fixed the day after

[Sakkura]

Question is, will polaris be a flagship gpu or not?

Polaris isn't a GPU, it's the architecture or the family.

[Sakkura]

These are probably laptop and OEM parts. I honestly don't see any of the juicy stuff coming out before Q3/4.

I suspect they will launch a budget card this summer, like a 2016 GTX 750 ti, then add the rest a little later.

[shawno]

Polaris isn't a GPU, it's the architecture or the family.

Agreed but what i was saying was will they release a flagship with this architecture?

Or will it be limited to low end initially. Kinda like how maxwell used the 750ti for its debut before the 900 series was released.

[zMeul]

Polaris isn't a GPU, it's the architecture or the family.

neither

GCN is the architecture, Arctic Islands is the family of Polaris GPUs in that GCN revision

 

 

take Fiji as example

family: Volcanic Islands

architecture: GCN 1.2

codenames: Fij PRO (Fury) and Fiji XT (Fury Nano, Fury X)

 

 

knowing that, for Arctic Islands it will be

family: Arctic Islands

architecture: GCN 1.3 or GCN 2.0 (unknown)

codenames: Polaris PRO and Polaris XT (unknown)

[Sakkura]

neither

GCN is the architecture, Arctic Islands is the family of Polaris GPUs in that GCN revision

Polaris is the code name for GCN 4.0.

[Fetzie]

neither

GCN is the architecture, Arctic Islands is the family of Polaris GPUs in that GCN revision

 

 

take Fiji as example

family: Volcanic Islands

architecture: GCN 1.2

codenames: Fij PRO (Fury) and Fiji XT (Fury Nano, Fury X)

 

 

knowing that, for Arctic Islands it will be

family: Arctic Islands

architecture: GCN 1.3 or GCN 2.0 (unknown)

codenames: Polaris PRO and Polaris XT (unknown)

Almost:

family: Arctic Islands

architecture: GCN revision 4 (Codename Polaris)

codenames: Greenland Pro / Greenland XT

Polaris is the code-name for the architecture. Arctic Islands is the GPU family (i.e. the group of chipsets built on the Polaris architecture). Greenland, Baffin Island etc are the chipset names. R9 490, R9 490X are the individual graphics cards which are built using the [island name] chipset in the Arctic Islands family of GPUs.

[zMeul]

Polaris is the code name for GCN 4.0.

+ @Fetzie

there's no such thing as GCN 4.0, you might want to mean revision 4 of GCN1

 

look here as an example: http://anandtech.com/show/9784/the-amd-radeon-r9-380x-review

Last week AMD launched the Radeon R9 380X, the company’s latest mid-range video card. Based on a fully enabled GCN 1.2 Tonga GPU

---

GCN 1.0 - Southern Islands

GCN 1.1 - Sea Islands

GCN 1.2 - Volcanic Islands

GCN 1.3/2.0 - Arctic Islands

[ivan134]

I suspect they will launch a budget card this summer, like a 2016 GTX 750 ti, then add the rest a little later.

Yup. I'm more interested in the mid to high range stuff. The enthusiast and low end don't excite me as much.

[Fetzie]

+ @Fetzie

there's no such thing as GCN 4.0, you might want to mean revision 4 of GCN

 

look here as an example: http://anandtech.com/show/9784/the-amd-radeon-r9-380x-review

Yes, I wrote "GCN revision 4".

AMD talks about GCN 4.0

Tech writers talk about GCN 1.0-1.4

I'm going to just say its the 4th revision of GCN. "1.4" isn't, however, what you'll read in an AMD press release.

[Sakkura]

+ @Fetzie

there's no such thing as GCN 4.0, you might want to mean revision 4 of GCN1

look here as an example: http://anandtech.com/show/9784/the-amd-radeon-r9-380x-review

AMD calls it GCN 4th Gen. Same thing. You're the one that doesn't have the facts straight, talking about "GCN 1.2" and so on.

[afyeung]

What res are you playing at? 390x and anything higher have diminishing returns at 1080p and only stetch their legs at 1440p.

1440p. "resolution of 2015 for PC gamers"

[zMeul]

AMD calls it GCN 4th Gen. Same thing. You're the one that doesn't have the facts straight, talking about "GCN 1.2" and so on.

yes, i have my facts quite straight

the fact that AMD never moved from major version of GCN1; and it's quite possible the 4th revision is actually GCN1 too - GCN 1.3

AnandTech and other major outlets reporting on AMD Radeon lineup didn't pull the GCN nomenclature our of their collective arses

http://anandtech.com/show/7457/the-radeon-r9-290x-review

[Sakkura]

GCN 1.0 - Southern Islands

GCN 1.1 - Sea Islands

GCN 1.2 - Volcanic Islands

GCN 1.3/2.0 - Arctic Islands

 

Wrong. Those are GCN 1, 2, 3, and 4. And you still haven't admitted you were wrong about Polaris being a GPU. It's the codename for the 4th version of GCN - call it 4.0 or 4th gen or whatever.

 

Instead of your outdated Anandtech link, how about this one with up to date info.

[VagabondWraith]

Yes I'm a fanboy, but I am willing to admit defeat if Nvidia makes a better card, if you read (at all) my post about the Fury X vs. 980 Ti.

Here's your proof:

This is an example of the raw hardware performance I was talking about, clearly AMD cards pass Nvidia:

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-radeon-fury-x-beats-titan-x-in-opencl.html

This is the resolution scaling performance of the Fury X vs. the 980 Ti. Clearly the Fury X handles 4K much better than a 980 Ti. Also keep in mind this was released in June, the Fury X is now about 10% faster which I will also link:

http://www.techpowerup.com/213615/radeon-r9-fury-x-faster-than-geforce-gtx-980-ti-at-4k-amd.html

This is the performance increase AMD cards have been getting. Not only the Fury X but also most AMD cards, this shows the hardware performance has been inefficient due to software until recently, and there is still performance to unlock because if you look at the OpenCL performance, the drivers still aren't 100%:

http://wccftech.com/amd-r9-fury-x-performance-ahead-nvidia-980-ti-latest-drivers/

And here is more proof from Reddit, along with other AMD chips being pulled into the mix. You can see we have been getting performance improvements (a notable one is the 380, which is now around 20%-25% faster than a 960 while generally being cheaper) :

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/3r2m51/fury_x_are_now_as_fast_as_gtx_980ti_in_1080p1440p/

I can post more if you'd like, hopefully you get the point. Nvidia makes good cards, don't get me wrong, but AMD is improving and Polaris should be very nice. Please don't hate me for that.

Everybody knows AMD has better compute. That had nothing to do with gaming.

The second link benchmarks were provided by AMD. They have been debunked. Never take a company's benchmarks seriously.

WCCF. lol

Reddit posters point out comparing a Fury X to a throttling 980 Ti at 4K. Go down a bit and people point that out in the comments. Put a little overclock on the Ti and it leaves the Fury behind. The Fury X is simply not a competitor at 1440, much less 1080.

[Sakkura]

yes, i have my facts quite straight

 

Right, that's why you said Polaris was a GPU when tons of official AMD slides say it's an architecture.

[afyeung]

 

I wouldn't accuse Nvidia of gimping kepler per se. It's just that the highest end Kepler cards just can't compete in AAA titles anymore. In newer games they're far behind Maxwell, Hawaii, and the new AMD stuff. That's why people don't bench them anymore even though they're the same age as the 290x. 

[zMeul]

Instead of your outdated Anandtech link, how about this one with up to date info.

outdated!?!?

the link you posted is nothing more than AMD PR, and it refers to Polaris as 4th gen

---

the fact that AMD's PR confuses (intentionally or not) generation with revision, should scare the shit out of AMD's fanboys

[afyeung]

You're right. I've seen many performance vids from Digital Foundry at 1440p where the Fury X struggles to get marginally higher performance than even the 390x. It makes sense because the DX11 API can't take advantage of what the fury X has to offer so it ends up being a cripple and not an advantage.