AMD has unveiled 2 Polaris GPUs and will deliver "The most revolutionary jump in performance so far"

[NuclearPeace]

The BASH shell makes Linux much more user friendly if you take the time to learn BASH scripting. If you like programming

 

But the vast, vast, vast majority of people, including me, don't want to have to learn programming just to use an OS. I get it might be cool for hobbyist programmers, but for me, I see it as an chore that I will avoid if I can help it.

[SteveGrabowski0]

But the vast, vast, vast majority of people, including me, don't want to have to learn programming just to use an OS. I get it might be cool for hobbyist programmers, but for me, I see it as an chore that I will avoid if I can help it.

 

Then Windows is most likely better for you.

[Fire Yoshi]

My guess at the lineup:
 

R9 Fury X2 -> Dual Fiji GPU card (Fiji XT)

R9 490X -> Greenland XT (Polaris 12/11)

R9 490 -> Greenland Pro (Polaris 12/11)

R9 480X -> Baffin XT (Polaris 11/10)

R9 480 -> Baffin Pro (Polaris 11/10)

R7 470X -> Ellesmere XT (Polaris 10) 

R7 470 -> Ellesmere Pro (Polaris 10) (Assuming that was the demoed GPU against the GTX950, would be reasonable)

R7 460 -> R7 370 rebrand with optimizations (Trinidad Pro, maybe)

R5 450 and lower -> rebrands

 

Perhaps Ellesmere is for 460 and lower and notebook chips, and another GPU will take place for the 470(X) (Victoria maybe?).

[Fetzie]

My guess at the lineup:

 

R9 Fury X2 -> Dual Fiji GPU card (Fiji XT)

R9 490X -> Greenland XT (Polaris 12/11)

R9 490 -> Greenland Pro (Polaris 12/11)

R9 480X -> Baffin XT (Polaris 11/10)

R9 480 -> Baffin Pro (Polaris 11/10)

R7 470X -> Ellesmere XT (Polaris 10) 

R7 470 -> Ellesmere Pro (Polaris 10) (Assuming that was the demoed GPU against the GTX950, would be reasonable)

R7 460 -> R7 370 rebrand with optimizations (Trinidad Pro, maybe)

R5 450 and lower -> rebrands

 

Perhaps Ellesmere is for 460 and lower and notebook chips, and another GPU will take place for the 470(X) (Victoria maybe?).

Polaris 11 will be the Fury class card.

[flibberdipper]

With luck they won't go and rebrand cards from the freaking HD 7xxx lineup this time around.

[Valentyn]

With luck they won't go and rebrand cards from the freaking HD 7xxx lineup this time around.

 

At Most, I want the Fury lines as mid range rebrands. Although preferably on the newer process node so they can finally shine on low power.

[Fetzie]

At Most, I want the Fury lines as mid range rebrands. Although preferably on the newer process node so they can finally shine on low power.

Adapting cards to a new process node wouldn't really be a rebrand though, would it

[Valentyn]

Adapting cards to a new process node wouldn't really be a rebrand though, would it

 

Depends on the person I guess. NV's old G92 was rebranded so much, even after a die shrink since it was the same GPU, just on a smaller process.

I would hate is AMD went lazy and had Hawaii and Tonga cards still in their new line up. They really need to get everything as new as possible.

[Trixanity]

Polaris 10 is most likely the chip we saw compared with GTX 950. At the same time AMD is aiming it at thin notebooks.

I'm certain Polaris is very scalable.

So we can expect Polaris 10 to show up in quite a few mobile SKUs as well as some entry level desktop SKUs. So a 450, 460 at least. Maybe even 470.

We'll see Polaris 11 in the top. I'm not sure if they'll continue the Fury branding. To me, it seemed like it was a way of distancing it from the 300 series and I don't think they need to do that again.

Then again, they might do like Nvidia with their GM200 and position it as 490, making it the top card in the 400 series (just like 980 Ti was for Nvidia) and then release a Fury version with massive amounts of memory and higher clock speeds to counter Titan.

So full Polaris 11 as 490X and same chip with all the extras as a single Fury SKU.

I'm mostly worrying about the 480 cards. I can't think of how they'll fill that spot without an extra chip. Polaris 11 is aimed at the very top and 10 at notebooks as well as the bottom half of desktop cards.

Unless of course they'll take all the bad Polaris 11 chips that can't make it as either 490 or 490X and slap GDDR5 onto it instead of HBM to differentiate and call it 480(X).

Of course until we see some actual card configurations leak, this will all be pure speculation.

I'm expecting at least 5 SKUs using Polaris 10 and at least 2 SKUs using Polaris 11. Unless AMD has something up their sleeves that we don't know about.

It's guaranteed that we won't see any GCN 1 (7000 series). I mean I still doubt we'll see Fiji or Tonga again. Fiji is most likely to get a die shrink if it makes sense for AMD but I just don't see it. Polaris 11 is taking its place. So that would mean moving it down in the product stack but can it still be relevant with the advancements AMD has made? It would be awkward for AMD considering how much has been changed from Fiji to Polaris 11.

Edit: just struck me that Polaris 10 is hard to place since it's presented as a thin notebook chip while seemingly being beefy enough to probably (with the right configuration) be put into at least a mid range desktop chip like a 470X. Seems like it will be the bread and butter of RTG. So I can only imagine how many SKUs they will use it in across mobile and desktop.

[kokobash13]

Im ok with hawaii rebrand as long as it is under 200 usd. (excluding discounts amd rebates)

[dalekphalm]

I'm not sure why people are assuming that Polaris 10 and Polaris 11 are the only new GPU cores we're getting. There could very well be one or two more, that just aren't ready to be announced yet.

 

We just simply don't know one way or the other, whether there are only the two new cores, or whether there will be more coming soon.

 

Of course, each core is likely to see a full fat + a cut down variant, so a minimum of two SKU's per core. They could go even farther, and have multiple cut down variants, where there are even more CU's disabled on the 3rd SKU, but that's purely speculation on my part.

 

I'm expecting:

 

Polaris 10:

- Fury 2 X (Full)

- Fury 2 (Cut down)

 

Polaris (unnamed):

- 490x (full)

- 490 (cut down)

 

- Polaris (unnamed):

- 480x (full)

- 480 (cut down)

 

Polaris 11:

- 470x (full)

- 470 (cut down)

 

Possibly might see an addition of:

Fiji and Tonga, scaled down to 14/16 nm, and cut down, for the low end stuff (460 and under) - but that's speculation, and I don't see a huge demand for cards this cheap, since honestly Intel Iris graphics would do just as well as anything under a "470" class card.

 

Note: I may have mixed up which one is 10 vs 11 - I don't recall seeing anywhere that specified

[Fetzie]

I'm not sure why people are assuming that Polaris 10 and Polaris 11 are the only new GPU cores we're getting. There could very well be one or two more, that just aren't ready to be announced yet.

We just simply don't know one way or the other, whether there are only the two new cores, or whether there will be more coming soon.

Of course, each core is likely to see a full fat + a cut down variant, so a minimum of two SKU's per core. They could go even farther, and have multiple cut down variants, where there are even more CU's disabled on the 3rd SKU, but that's purely speculation on my part.

I'm expecting:

Polaris 10:

- Fury 2 X (Full)

- Fury 2 (Cut down)

Polaris (unnamed):

- 490x (full)

- 490 (cut down)

- Polaris (unnamed):

- 480x (full)

- 480 (cut down)

Polaris 11:

- 470x (full)

- 470 (cut down)

Possibly might see an addition of:

Fiji and Tonga, scaled down to 14/16 nm, and cut down, for the low end stuff (460 and under) - but that's speculation, and I don't see a huge demand for cards this cheap, since honestly Intel Iris graphics would do just as well as anything under a "470" class card.

Note: I may have mixed up which one is 10 vs 11 - I don't recall seeing anywhere that specified

Polaris 11 is the expensive one

[dalekphalm]

Polaris 11 is the expensive one

Do you have a link that states as much? I'm looking through the source link from this topic, and so far, it isn't clearly stated which is which.

[The Benjamins]

Then Windows is most likely better for you.

 

But that is the reason why linux will not be a mainstream OS. if you want mass appeal you need to make the device so a monkey can use it, a good example is apple products. as much as i don't like them, they are simple to use and hard to mess up. so if linux/linux gaming wants to be mainstream then need to make it so any old monkey can use it and not get confused. (not saying it cant have advanced features). It would be nice to see a consumer oriented linux distro. as far as i know ubuntu is the closest.

[SteveGrabowski0]

But that is the reason why linux will not be a mainstream OS. if you want mass appeal you need to make the device so a monkey can use it, a good example is apple products. as much as i don't like them, they are simple to use and hard to mess up. so if linux/linux gaming wants to be mainstream then need to make it so any old monkey can use it and not get confused. (not saying it cant have advanced features). It would be nice to see a consumer oriented linux distro. as far as i know ubuntu is the closest.

 

With SteamOS being such a flop I doubt mainstream linux is going to happen. The one thing that makes linux not user friendly out of the box is the GPL, e.g., most Linux distros don't ship with nonfree software setup. Not free as in free beer but free as in freedom. So nonfree (in the sense of freedom, eg being open) video codecs, audio codecs, flash, and such aren't included by default, which makes a new Linux installation not something your grandmother could use. Now if IT-savvy grandson goes and sets up all the nonfree multimedia stuff at the beginning, something like Ubuntu becomes very simple to use. For instance, package management is easier in Ubuntu than Windows thanks to the better update software in Ubuntu.

[LAwLz]

But that is the reason why linux will not be a mainstream OS. if you want mass appeal you need to make the device so a monkey can use it, a good example is apple products. as much as i don't like them, they are simple to use and hard to mess up. so if linux/linux gaming wants to be mainstream then need to make it so any old monkey can use it and not get confused. (not saying it cant have advanced features). It would be nice to see a consumer oriented linux distro. as far as i know ubuntu is the closest.

I still don't understand how people can say something like Ubuntu is confusing. You can do 99.9% of things your average Joe does on his/her computer without having to use a CLI once.

This whole idea that you need to know programming to use GNU/Linux is something people who has never used Ubuntu keep hearing and then parroting.

 

The real reason why it won't become a mainstream desktop OS (because Linux is certainly a mainstream OS in other forms, such as on smartphones and laptops) is because Windows has a monopoly, and people suffer from Baby Duck Syndrome.

When you buy a computer at BestBuy it will have Windows. So users will learn how to use Windows first, and people hate having to relearn things. It is probably the biggest reason why Windows 8 was so poorly received as well. For the average Joe it would probably not have mattered much if you swapped their familiar Windows 7 install for Windows 8 or Ubuntu. They would be equally confused and frustrated.

In order words, Windows is popular because it is familiar. GNU/Linux on the desktop is not popular because it is different.

 

What's funny is that the roles are reversed on phones.

 

 

 

 

With SteamOS being such a flop I doubt mainstream linux is going to happen. The one thing that makes linux not user friendly out of the box is the GPL, e.g., most Linux distros don't ship with nonfree software setup. Not free as in free beer but free as in freedom. So nonfree (in the sense of freedom, eg being open) video codecs, audio codecs, flash, and such aren't included by default, which makes a new Linux installation not something your grandmother could use. Now if IT-savvy grandson goes and sets up all the nonfree multimedia stuff at the beginning, something like Ubuntu becomes very simple to use. For instance, package management is easier in Ubuntu than Windows thanks to the better update software in Ubuntu.

There are distros that ship with non-free codecs. During the Ubuntu install you just need to check the box and they will be installed.

So I don't really think media formats supported by default is what's holding GNU/Linux back. Besides, codec support is awful out of the box on Windows as well.

Most things that needs to decode different formats relies on their own decoders. Pretty much all programs that need to decode a wide variety of formats just include libavcodec for it (part of FFmpeg). It is open source under GPL, supports a ton of formats and is used in for example Chrome, VLC, MPC-HC, Plex, Audacity and many more.

[marldorthegreat]

My guess at the lineup:

 

R9 Fury X2 -> Dual Fiji GPU card (Fiji XT)

R9 490X -> Greenland XT (Polaris 12/11)

R9 490 -> Greenland Pro (Polaris 12/11)

R9 480X -> Baffin XT (Polaris 11/10)

R9 480 -> Baffin Pro (Polaris 11/10)

R7 470X -> Ellesmere XT (Polaris 10) 

R7 470 -> Ellesmere Pro (Polaris 10) (Assuming that was the demoed GPU against the GTX950, would be reasonable)

R7 460 -> R7 370 rebrand with optimizations (Trinidad Pro, maybe)

R5 450 and lower -> rebrands

 

Perhaps Ellesmere is for 460 and lower and notebook chips, and another GPU will take place for the 470(X) (Victoria maybe?).

 

R9 495X2 -> Dual 490x (probably not until next year, or late 2016

R9 490X -> Greenland XT (Polaris 11) (Hopefully > Dual fiji)

R9 490 -> Greenland Pro (Polaris 111)

R9 Fury X2 -> Dual Fiji GPU card (Fiji XT) 

R9 480X -> Baffin XT (Fiji refresh on 14nm)

R9 480 -> Baffin Pro (Fiji refresh on 14nm)

R7 470X -> Ellesmere XT (380x refresh 14nm 384 bit mem. bus) This would explain why the 380x only had 256 bit mem bus.

R7 470 -> Ellesmere Pro (380 refresh 14nm 384 bit mem. bus ) 

R7 460 -> That new polaris thing

R5 450 and lower -> rebrands probably still on 28nm cos 14nm is too expensive in that price.

[420istoday]

Honestly, AMD creating Radeon Technologies Group (aka ATI 2.0) was a great decision. Especially when it's lead by Raja Kodur.

 

Can't wait for Polaris.

Well most of the work on Polaris was done under AMD before RTG was a thing, but I'm really excited to see what they can do now that they are independently managed.

[Marziman]

 

Nice but AMD, you're assignment on CPU's is wayyyy over due.

[420istoday]

I still don't understand how people can say something like Ubuntu is confusing. You can do 99.9% of things your average Joe does on his/her computer without having to use a CLI once.

This whole idea that you need to know programming to use GNU/Linux is something people who has never used Ubuntu keep hearing and then parroting.

 

The real reason why it won't become a mainstream desktop OS (because Linux is certainly a mainstream OS in other forms, such as on smartphones and laptops) is because Windows has a monopoly, and people suffer from Baby Duck Syndrome.

When you buy a computer at BestBuy it will have Windows. So users will learn how to use Windows first, and people hate having to relearn things. It is probably the biggest reason why Windows 8 was so poorly received as well. For the average Joe it would probably not have mattered much if you swapped their familiar Windows 7 install for Windows 8 or Ubuntu. They would be equally confused and frustrated.

In order words, Windows is popular because it is familiar. GNU/Linux on the desktop is not popular because it is different.

 

What's funny is that the roles are reversed on phones.

 

 

 

 

There are distros that ship with non-free codecs. During the Ubuntu install you just need to check the box and they will be installed.

So I don't really think media formats supported by default is what's holding GNU/Linux back. Besides, codec support is awful out of the box on Windows as well.

Most things that needs to decode different formats relies on their own decoders. Pretty much all programs that need to decode a wide variety of formats just include libavcodec for it (part of FFmpeg). It is open source under GPL, supports a ton of formats and is used in for example Chrome, VLC, MPC-HC, Plex, Audacity and many more.

I think it has more to do with lack of software and driver support to be honest, this keeps people from adopting it, and since it's such a small market share it lowers developer interest in fixing that issue. Windows has a monopoly because it is a product, and it has a corporation behind it creating software and drivers, which makes it convenient. Linux is held back because it is open-source, it's primary users are developers, coders, tinkerers, and makers, it's just not conducive to a mass market audience that wants things to just work right out of the box. That's why computers ship with Windows, because it's convenient, have you seen the H3H3 video about the girl who dropped out of school because she couldn't get her Verizon software to install so she could use her network adapter? Verizon's software only works on Windows and Mac, because that's what most people use. While there is probably a workaround to get it working, it's not as simple as popping the disk in and it just working. It's a vicious cycle really, it's why there are hardly any apps for Windows Phone, and why Microsoft had to create their "Continuum". No one wants to develop apps for a niche market, that's why Blackberry started letting users install Android apps, and why they eventually gave up and switched to Android altogether.