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  • chubbyfatazn - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link

    ugggghhhh

    my upgrade itch is going crazy right now.
  • chizow - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link

    "I would quickly note here that at no point does AMD specifically call this a launch."
    Well, that's certainly a buzzkill.

    "In this case AMD has already committed to a June launch for the card, but at the moment we’re not expecting to see the card go on sale on the 16th."
    Looks like the 980Ti's price and performance sending AMD back to the drawing board weren't exaggerated.

    Does this mean their Rebrandeon 300 series aren't launching, either?
  • D. Lister - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    "Looks like the 980Ti's price and performance sending AMD back to the drawing board weren't exaggerated."

    lol, 1.5-2 months isn't even enough to change the bundled stuff, let alone changing clock speeds through a new bios (maybe price tags though :p). I mean, I have worked in industrial manufacturing, and for a company as big as AMD who's planning to launch hundreds of thousands of individual items all over the world, that time window is pretty small to make any significant changes to the product line.

    My guess is that at this time, most of the work being done is on stable drivers, and (hopefully, for AMD's sake) they're trying to make sure the out-of-the-box user experience is as trouble free as possible.

    I mean seriously, this and Zen is AMD's last chance to avoid a takeover. Screwing this up will certainly put them on a very slippery slope.
  • chizow - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    The bundled stuff is mostly the same honestly, and just in a bunch of bins that any assembly line can take care of in minutes. Printed material certainly needs more of a lead time but that's only 2-3 weeks max but is also a solid indicator as a point of no return. Plus, boxes haven't had clockspeeds printed on them in a long time, so that's certainly fluid. That's why a lot of companies use the same generic box and tag a sticker to signify different SKUs.

    BIOS we've also seen is highly adjustable up until launch. The board partners can flash BIOSes en masse dozens at a time. There was a tour of EVGA a few years ago that showed this. But in any case, as recently as the R9 290 launch, there was AMD scrambling at the last second to change the performance profile of the R9 290, leading to the whole reference cooler driver profile debacle where the R9 290 was actually faster than the 290X due to more aggressive fan/boost profiles.

    I guess we will see, it is hard to imagine AMD remaining silent if they had a winner on their hands, while Nvidia takes the stage and steals the show, over, and over, and over again, without even a quip in response.
  • D. Lister - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    If they are going to launch in 2 months or less, it means the finished product probably started shipping to retailers a few days ago, if not longer. Companies, especially companies that launch their products on a global scale, have to factor in a whole bunch of variables of international trade.

    Of course there is a possibility that they may end up delaying the launch longer than a couple of months, at the cost of another couple of percents of market share, but under the circumstances, that is highly unlikely.

    "I guess we will see, it is hard to imagine AMD remaining silent if they had a winner on their hands, while Nvidia takes the stage and steals the show, over, and over, and over again, without even a quip in response."

    They have been quipping a fair bit actually. About the unprecedented performance and efficiency of the new flagship ("Fury"?), the deus ex machina that is HBM 1.0, about DX12 performance, etc. It is, after all, the geniuses (I mean it literally, that's no sarcasm) of their marketing that have kept their stocks afloat for the past few of years with clever buzz words and fantastic claims of "me too" features that rarely, if ever, come to pass in a finished state. You think THOSE guys would keep silent now?
  • chizow - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    Well I would certainly hope AMD has started stockpiling these chips and getting them ready for launch and distribution before today, because 2 months from now is going to further compound the concerns about their "lateness" to market. I personally think they are just waiting for final BIOS settings, so that should hopefully set them to launch in a month or so. So announcement 6.16.16, then availability 2-3 weeks later in a best-case.

    I guess the concern was the overall silence after all of Nvidia's successful launches (970/980, Titan X, 980Ti) without much firing back. Skynner finally stepped up to the plate with his "Fastest GPU in the World" claim, so that certainly bodes well for anyone still holding out for Fiji.
  • haukionkannel - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    Well Zen may the last change, but this new GPU is not...
    This Fury or how ever they will name it is limited edition prototype product to introduce and try out new HBM memory. They don'e sell too many of these, like there is not too many TitanX owners. This is just too expensive to most customers.
    The really interesting part is the next year. 2016 we wil hopefully get Zen and 2nd edition HBM, and also new GPU made in 1xnm production node. Some of them may use HBM and some old and sturdy (most propably cheaper GDDR5). Those products will dictate AMDs future as a company. This is just a working consept prototype, with very interesting features! This is like Ferrari, fast and expensive... We need those normal Fiat versions to mass market, and that will happen next year.
  • chizow - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    Idk, while Zen certainly will have a more profound impact on AMD's long-term outlook and competitiveness, I think any missteps on their GPU front will be much more devastating in their near-term outlook, given their GPU unit has really been the only area they have been competitive in the last 9 years since they acquired ATI.

    Basically, I don't think a strong Zen will save AMD, it will take time for them to make a dent in the Intel dominated x86 market, but a failure to launch or be competitive in the GPU market can greatly expedite the end of AMD as a going concern.
  • medi03 - Friday, June 5, 2015 - link

    Reasoning with a troll you are.
    I wouldn't be surprised if he actually paid by nYouknowhat to do that.
    After all, paid trolling is in no way exclusive to Russia.
  • Michael Bay - Friday, June 12, 2015 - link

    So much pain in you.
    Delicious.
  • Ryan Smith - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    "Looks like the 980Ti's price and performance sending AMD back to the drawing board weren't exaggerated."

    More likely it means that AMD is launching it exactly as they planned, and they want to announce certain details in advance like they did Hawaii. There are certain legal reasons as well, where AMD needs to reveal things to investors (i.e. the public) at the same time as they reveal those details to others.
  • chizow - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    Certainly possible Ryan, it is just interesting contrast to the way Nvidia has been handling their launches, I guess. They've been pretty consistent about having some kind of launch event coupled with benchmarks/reviews and product availability almost immediately.
  • Ryan Smith - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    All indications from AMD have been that they consider the Hawaii event to have worked well for them, YouTube streaming issues aside. So I'm not surprised they want to do it again.
  • at80eighty - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    Ryan. if you take a good look at his posts; you'll observe it's not worth your rather busy schedule to take his posts seriously.
  • mrdude - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    If only they worked as hard on providing adequate cooling for the original stock Hawaii as they did marketing it by flying the press over for another AMD paper launch.
  • chizow - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    Yep, I always like tech presentations/events, I'll be looking forward to it and tuning in as well, I am certainly interested in more info on possible HBM benefits, its just always nicer when these launches are accompanied by actual product/benches too.
  • Ranger101 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    A pleasant surpise to see Ryan stepping in to silence the Nvidia shills.
  • Klimax - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link

    Nice ad hominem. Somebody critical of AMD must be shill. By that logic, how much are you paid by AMD? Can't be much given quality of posts...
  • HunterKlynn - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link

    To be fair, Chizow has gone far beyond being critical of AMD.
  • Alexvrb - Friday, June 5, 2015 - link

    It's not the first time, Ryan sometimes steps in to put things in perspective, so to speak.

    Yeeeaaah, about that. You clearly haven't seen him at his finest. He gives Nvidia shills a bad name, he'd like nothing more than for AMD to die off and have everyone buying Titans like him. He attacks anyone who disagrees with him and labels them as being AMD fanboys (even if they're currently typing an a system with Intel and Nvidia inside, doesn't matter). Other than that and being vicious at times (particularly if you make any kind of statement that could be construed as pro-AMD or anti-Nvidia in any way), he's a really swell chap.
  • Alexvrb - Friday, June 5, 2015 - link

    Err, in that second statement I wasn't referring to Ryan. Ryan is solid and very neutral.
  • eanazag - Friday, June 5, 2015 - link

    I think the circulating leaked performance numbers of the new 300 series card are legit. And being legit make it faster than a Titan. I fully expect AMD to price under the 980 TI. How much under? I don't know. They are always slow to launch, which is bad. I do suspect it may only pack 4GB of ram, but I'm hoping for 8GB. I won't buy it at 4GB as I have a R9 290 with 4GB.
    AMD's GPU division is the only thing holding the company together. It is the only reason the APUs sell at all. I do finally like what they're saying about Carrizo; still I'd like to see it desktop side. Zen is way out there in time and there is ample reason to doubt AMD's execution on delivering this on time.

    There's distinct possibility that engineering samples are already in the hands of the media for benching, but are not talked about due to no speaky agreements. I would not be surprised if there are driver issues delaying launch.
  • Wreckage - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link

    It's not like they have cards ready for sale anyways, why wait another 2 weeks? Is the 980ti really that much better than whatever it is they have? Something's wrong.
  • SonyJim - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link

    I suspect AMD is in serious trouble and has nothing to offer that's better than the 980 Ti in terms of performance and price. AMD is going to get stuck competing in the mid-range and low end. This is sad because consumers need healthy competition to keep the big vendors honest.

    The whole way AMD has dragged the chain for way too long damaged their reputation and now that Nvidia has kind of stepped in early and thrown down an ace with the Ti's performance all we see is AMD running away at Computex. They have not offered up any sign that they hold anything of value - this is leading a lot of people to buy the 980 Ti now and not bothering to wait anymore.

    In Australia all the Gigabyte & Asus stock for the 980 Ti' (at Mwave, PC Case Gear, MSY and ARC etc...) have all sold out in a day and there is a fast growing list of pre-orders for the next shipment. After waiting and waiting to replace my AMD card I'm abandoning them. I'm going to hop on to that list too because I don't have much faith in AMD after this past week of total silence... Something is wrong with them.
  • nunya112 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    I must say its really nice to see such intelectual capacity being displayed here.
    back at CES I started getting really worried. because
    Ryan Shrout was denied access to the next gen amd hardware that was in a $35 case on the floor. Do we remember that?
    What happened then was very alarming. Because Titan got released. and then AMD announced that no GFX would be coming until late Q or Q3. I started getting worried. ANd we know know. that AMD went back to the drawing board. I would say they even had to do a new Silicone revision
    which is what prompted the delay.
    We have now heard AIB partners that Fiji still doesnt even have final Bios. core clocks nothing nailed down what 13 days before release?
    Lisa said that cards would be available. But there is no way Fiji will. maybe the 290X rebrands etc.
    But Fiji has taped out poorly even its revision B silicone has got it running slower than a 980Ti and NVIDIA has done a solid and offered the ti at a reasonable price. if you think about it. They dont have to. they are dominating.
    AMD's market share is 18-20 % currently. and its going lower.

    I also want to add that broadwell just smoked AMD's APU's that AMD and I thought were unbeatable.

    And AMD is not even public at computex. the biggest Event In their year I would think
    they are hiding and in full damage control
  • D. Lister - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    "But there is no way Fiji will. maybe the 290X rebrands etc."

    They could still announce it now, then delay the launch a month maybe, and fill the gap with the 290/X rebrands a.k.a the 390/X.

    "I also want to add that broadwell just smoked AMD's APU's that AMD and I thought were unbeatable."

    At twice the price, the APUs still have the price advantage. Although who would actually WANT an APU for its iGPU, besides companies selling cheap-ish laptops, is another story altogether.
  • nunya112 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    you say at twice the price. but dont forget its offering the performance of a current I5 and a 750ti from Nvidia. and at much less power. That is making it A SWEET DEAL
  • silverblue - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link

    Broadwell does not offer the GPU power of a 750ti. As far as I can see, it's between the R7 250 and the GTX 750, albeit both running on an Athlon 860K...

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-...

    It's about 25 to 30% off, and the gap will only increase at details go up and Broadwell gets choked by bandwidth requirements.
  • Impulses - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    Not in a hurry to trade in my CF 290s, tho 980 Ti made a strong case for swapping two cards with one...
  • JDG1980 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    AMD's long silence is worrying, as are the rumors. Back before the Bulldozer release, I didn't believe the benchmark leaks from Coolaler - surely they wouldn't drop the ball that badly? But they did.

    If Fiji falls short of the 980 Ti/Titan X *and* all the rest of the 300 series consists of rebrands, then that's a Bulldozer-level fail. If they dumped all their GPU R&D $$$ into the top end, then nothing short of a ~10%+ win over Titan X will cut the mustard. Their only hope would be for the "halo effect" of Fiji to spill over onto the rebrands, and that can only happen if it's a real home run.

    I hope that the pure rebrand rumors for the retail 300 series are untrue and that we at least get a port to GloFo 28nm SHP (lower leakage, better perf/watt) and updated UVD/VCE blocks for HEVC. If they're just bringing out the same old TSMC chips with different names, then they're basically surrendering on 99% of the GPU market until late 2016 (at least).
  • haukionkannel - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    You have to remember that AMD R&D budget is very tight at this moment. HBM memory is new and expensive at this moment, so that is a good reason to make only high margin niche high end product this time. So that they can test that HBM memory in practice.
    We also know that 2016 we will at last get 1xnm products from Nvidia and AMD. If AMD would use its development budget this year to make new 28nm GPU, there would not be money next year for 14nm GPU development... So AMD has to make hard choices. New card now with 28nm, or new card next year with 14nm production node. When you consider that, it is no brainier decision for AMD to make re brands this year and leave new cards to next year.
    So why Nvidia make new GPUs then? Well because they can. The have much bigger development budget than AMD has at this moment, so they can make new chips every year, much like Intel can do in CPU part. If AMD would have had money, we would have got to Zen a long time ago in CPU part. Also we would have seen full HBM upgrade tour even in this year. But when the money is tight, you have to make good decisions and leaving more money to 14nm products is the smart move at this moment!
  • nunya112 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    well we already know that around CES. AMD revised the silicon. that is fact! as Titan was released, and AMD announced the first delay essentially. Went radio silent.
    and then Lisa Su announced that Computex was the release for the new chip. We know this didnt happen. and a few things really got under my skin here.

    The EA/DICE employee the posted that picture. was obviously a media ploy by AMD. AMD confirmed at computex that they dont even have bioses or clocks etc nailed down. and AMD didnt have a full unit for display even!! So that was a fake!! I'm very upset at this.

    2nd. They missed another deadline here. and at E3 they will miss another. you cant have a card that far behind be ready in what 13 days! That's impossible! Remember they said they would be FOR SALE! There is NO WAY! Again another deadline. and really under my skin.

    leaks coming out of Computex are. the AIB's were given a demo of an unfinished Fiji/ FURY whatever. and it performed worse than a Ti 980. So I would have hated to see the A revision. cause not beating a 980 vanilla. that wld have been really bad.

    Instead realistically at the most we will see Fiji run as well as a 295 X2. and thats if they get every single thing 100% right! drivers, bios, water cooling. everything.

    So realistically we may even see 85% of a 295X2 speed.

    For perspective a Titan X is about 20-30% slower then 2 780Ti's in SLI.
    And we all know they all use the same node at TSMC. or maybe AMD have global foundries making it. who knows then that makes things a bit harder to judge!
  • Kinglock - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    Wait a minute! Are they going to launch only the high end gpu that will cost around $600?? Cause if thats the case i go for a gtx 970 since my budget doesnt go that high!!
  • Kinglock - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    And another thing, if they relalease mid range gpus but having them rebranded i still wont buy them since AMD previous architecture is crap(power hungry and gets hot)
  • milkod2001 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    it's less then 2 weeks to find out :) Whatever comes from AMD,there's good chance existing prices will drop slightly so you will be able to get 970 for less.

    i do not expect any breathtaking changes in mid range GPUs until 14/16nm maybe next year
  • ES_Revenge - Saturday, June 6, 2015 - link

    This is and always will be the problem with "duking it out in the high end" you get bragging rights and cool halo products but I can't imagine you're raking in money hand over fist in sales, unless these things also have huge profit margins (which they don't given all the R&D).

    Because iGPUs/APUs have removed a lot of the low-end from the graphics card market, that leaves the main market being the mid-range cards. From $150-250. What I never understood was why the cards in this segment have been absolutely stagnant in terms of pricing and have only gotten worse over time.

    You had the HD 7950 and 7970 which became the upper mid-range when Hawaii dropped as the 290 and 290X. At that time you could get 7950s at ~$200 and 7970s at ~$270 (and really for most the additional money for the XT was still not worth it). But the re-brands, the 280 and 280X sold for much more and continue to sell for more today...even now, years later.

    So today you have 280Xs, 285s, and GTX 960s going for $250 US (and like $300 Canadian), for performance that was high-end 3.5 years ago, and at upper mid-range for the past year and a half or so. So while all this nonsense with GTX 970, 980, 960, and 980 Ti (which really should have been called Titan Jr. or something) has been going on, the mainstream has had to sit by and watch prices *increase* and performance go absolutely nowhere.

    Seems we pay for the high-end, even if we're not paying for it directly. And most people on these sites seem to care mainly about these $600-$1500 cards even if they're not buying them, themselves. Obviously you can't have lower end cards based on the same tech without the high-end first--the high end always launches first---BUT this whole time the mid-range has been sitting doing mostly nothing *for a while* and it's pretty stupid IMO. After all, this is where the money is made for these companies, right?

    Even with AMD being a solid choice in the $150-250 range, they still seem to be doing poorly financially and still have the need to chase the high end without even considering changing anything in the mid-range. I'm all for it if the new Fiji cards are $600+, *if* we also get Hawaii-level performance at the $200 mark along with it. However that seems to not be the case here. Instead we just keep on trucking with the same performance and prices higher than before, for no reason at all, other than to finance high-end projects for the minority that buy these cards.

    Nvidia hasn't done anything great either. GTX 960 is swell because of it's relatively low-power envelope, HEVC features, etc. but at the price it sells for? For the same performance we had for less money, nearly 2 years ago? As nice as the GTX 970 is for the price, it's still at $350 or so in absolute terms, when IMO we should have that kind of performance at the $200 mark by now. Similarly I'm all for the 980 Ti, if 970s are selling for a lot less than they are.

    Interestingly the used market doesn't really cater to these ridiculous prices. While Nvidia's 900-series seem to do okay (compared to retail) because of their relative "new-ness", AMD's R9 cards do not. Try getting more than $150 for a 280, or more than $200 for a 280X. Not likely, even if it's brand new won't get you anywhere. 270/270Xs frequently sell in the $100-120 range as well, which is probably where the best bargain is right now (two of these used for $200, in Xfire, are about as fast as a 290, albeit possible FTV issues).
  • D. Lister - Monday, June 8, 2015 - link

    I understand your complain regarding the prices these days. Especially in instances like Nvidia launching, which for all intents and purposes is, a Ti gpu as a $1,000 Titan X.

    <rant> Sorry Nvidia, it is an awesome gaming GPU, but no DP = no Titan, period. What? You say it's because Maxwell arch. doesn't have DP capability? Aww... well, that's YOUR problem. By selling a Ti (with useless ammount of RAM tacked on) as a Titan, you have actually damaged the Titan brand. Remember, the original Titan gpu was named after the Titan Supercomputer, which used the NV GPU for its DP ability. So sell a Ti as Titan and then call a downscaled chip a Ti? That's what we call a "dick move", if anything. </rant>

    Anyway, the abovementioned shenanigans aside, performance per dollar has improved immensely. A modern $300 GPU would destroy a $300 GPU from 10-15 years ago, regardless of their tiers.

    TLDR, the occasional spike notwithstanding (295X2, TZ, TX, etc.), we get a much bigger bang for our buck today, than we did a decade ago. So all is well... I guess. :)
  • wow&wow - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    "... the last time they held a public event like this – the Radeon 200/Hawaii reveal – Hawaii didn’t launch until a month later."

    Then the CEO is a Ken, but now the CEO isn't a Barbie.
  • Shinku_sai - Friday, June 5, 2015 - link

    Evidently "Barbie" has a bigger package than "Ken" as well.... 😀
  • ruano23 - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    The announcement it's not about really about a new GPU, but a new interface implementing HBM memory. The rest is probably a little refinement of the GCN design.
    The main thing is HBM memory. If the new GPU used the GDDR5, it wouldn't be any big step.
  • ppi - Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - link

    I hope this "New era of PC Gaming" won't be on par with nVidia's "revolution", that turned out to be Shield Console ...

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