AMD Cayman info (or rumor)

[flippin_waffles]

I guess it's time for a thread for the upcoming Cayman and Antilles GPU. Saw this over at S|A by 265......... He/she has been pretty accurate in his info over the last couple years, and this looked pretty interesting.

Rumor time:
AIBs have got most of the information for Cayman cards.
According to a graphics card vendor (who does both AMD and NVIDIA cards), the current volume for Cayman cards is more than 10 times as the GeForce GTX 580 cards.

If all goes well, there will be more than 50,000 Cayman XT cards and more than 100,000 Cayman PRO cards available before Christmas.

In related news:
http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/s...&postcount=125

http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/s...&postcount=116

As a side note, I don't see a a chance in h3ll that intel will be able to keep up with AMD and Nv.

[zerazax]

I posted this earlier elsewhere:

Hints about what Cayman has coming up next:

HardwareCanucks

November will see the release of the Cayman XT-based HD 6970 and Cayman Pro-based HD 6950 which have all of the features seen in Barts plus enhanced rendering scalability and off-chip buffering for DX11 applications. These will be the spiritual successors to the HD 5870 and HD 5850 and should go head to head with the higher end Fermi cards.

December will see the introduction of Antilles which is meant to be the lynchpin of AMD’s renewed assault on the DX11 market. The HD 6990 will bring untold performance to the table through the use of a pair of Cayman GPU cores and additional features we can’t divulge at this time.

[H]ardOCP:

The 6900 series will have a superset of features compared o the 6800 series. This means that there will be features and architecture differences between 6900 and 6800 series. This allows AMD to take more chances on the high-end enthusiast class GPUs and architecture things different, to really step up performance that enthusiasts demand. So, just to restate, the new 6800 series will offer performance of the 5800 series, at a lower price, with lower power, and a smaller chip.

PC Perspective

Later in the year we will see the release of future architectures that much more unique in the Cayman and Antilles product lines. We'll have to leave you with that tease for now and touch again on both of those items later.

Hexus

These arrive armed with improvements in the two metrics discussed above, soon to be followed by a genuine performance GPU in the form of the Radeon HD 6950 and HD 6970 'Cayman' parts and, a little while later, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 6990, code-named Antilles. Phew!

Looks like AMD might be back to playing the high-end GPU game

[Lightman]

I'm most intrigued by the 'off chip buffer' hint. Is it sort of EDRAM buffer found on XBOX360 but for compute purpose instead of frame buffer?
Also I think SidePort will make a comeback, curious if this off chip buffer sits connected by the SidePort ...

New speculation time has come

[Xope_Poquar]

Looks like AMD might be back to playing the high-end GPU game

I didn't know they left.

[ripken204]

even being able to use the large amounts of system ram would be nice.
i am sure that the people buying these cards have 4gb and even while gaming there is plenty of ram left over.
even if the ram is not as fast as what is on the video card, it is better than the hdd.

[ripken204]

I didn't know they left.

he probably meant the high-end single-gpu game

[Xope_Poquar]

Oh I know, just teasing.

[Glow9]

So the 6870 seems maxed around 950ish same with the 6850 clocks high to 900ish, so what are they doing to this chip is it going to be the same size or are they adding things to it? I'm curious

[Sn0wm@n]

2 caymen + off die chip to help scalibity ???? + other stuff .... wow ... amd wow ...

[ColonelCain]

Hmm... maybe it was a good thing that I skipped 5870 because it didn't impress me much.

[god_43]

what does intel have to do with gpus? they have never been a player in that market?

[Etihtsarom]

As a side note, I don't see a a chance in h3ll that intel will be able to keep up with AMD and Nv.

Um what?

[Lightman]

So the 6870 seems maxed around 950ish same with the 6850 clocks high to 900ish, so what are they doing to this chip is it going to be the same size or are they adding things to it? I'm curious

There was a rumor Caymann is the biggest GPU AMD has ever made. If you include 420mm2 R600 then it will be close to 2xBarts size.
On top of that it seems like Cayman has a lot more architectural changes compared to Cypress than Barts! Most people are expecting new shader organization + number of other novelties.

[Sn0wm@n]

There was a rumor Caymann is the biggest GPU AMD has ever made. If you include 420mm2 R600 then it will be close to 2xBarts size.
On top of that it seems like Cayman has a lot more architectural changes compared to Cypress than Barts! Most people are expecting new shader organization + number of other novelties.

cant wait to see those other novelty's

[god_43]

..maybe i missed something? but the new cards from ati....well they suck? except for 2 benchmarks, they are slower than the 5800 series by like 10-15%? i don't see why everyone is praising them so much?

[Bobsama]

There was a rumor Caymann is the biggest GPU AMD has ever made. If you include 420mm2 R600 then it will be close to 2xBarts size.
On top of that it seems like Cayman has a lot more architectural changes compared to Cypress than Barts! Most people are expecting new shader organization + number of other novelties.

I don't think the larger size will be a real concern; 40nm has pretty much been mastered now. As for uArch, I don't think it'll be majorly different from Barts. Upgrading the uArch for Barts was enough of an investment, which means that Cayman will probably feature (on-chip) high-end/professional features (double-precise float-point, for example) and perhaps a new memory controller as well.

I'm looking forward to proper numbers and a real comparison between Cypress, Barts, & Cayman.

[Xope_Poquar]

..maybe i missed something? but the new cards from ati....well they suck? except for 2 benchmarks, they are slower than the 5800 series by like 10-15%? i don't see why everyone is praising them so much?

They are the successors to the 5700 series. The naming scheme was shifted to make room for more midrange cards. The 6970 will be the successor to the 5870.

[Sn0wm@n]

..maybe i missed something? but the new cards from ati....well they suck? except for 2 benchmarks, they are slower than the 5800 series by like 10-15%? i don't see why everyone is praising them so much?

15% slower ???? and btw those are the mid range product ... so if they can hang with what was considered high performance its a good deal .. + look at the price ... another reason to praise them ...

[zerazax]

..maybe i missed something? but the new cards from ati....well they suck? except for 2 benchmarks, they are slower than the 5800 series by like 10-15%? i don't see why everyone is praising them so much?

Sigh.. that was Barts. This is Cayman aka 6900 series.

Also, it appears Cayman might have actually more tesselation goodies. The early reviewers slide:



But was removed in the final version for Barts...



The mystery continues

[spursindonesia]

There was a rumor Caymann is the biggest GPU AMD has ever made. If you include 420mm2 R600 then it will be close to 2xBarts size.
On top of that it seems like Cayman has a lot more architectural changes compared to Cypress than Barts! Most people are expecting new shader organization + number of other novelties.

I'm not that optimist that AMD will break 400 mm^2 for their graphic chip size anytime in the near future, ESPECIALLY using this buggered 40 nm process by TSMC, but we'll see.

I don't think the larger size will be a real concern; 40nm has pretty much been mastered now. As for uArch, I don't think it'll be majorly different from Barts. Upgrading the uArch for Barts was enough of an investment, which means that Cayman will probably feature (on-chip) high-end/professional features (double-precise float-point, for example) and perhaps a new memory controller as well.

I'm looking forward to proper numbers and a real comparison between Cypress, Barts, & Cayman.

IMHO, you should wait for highend SKUs with completely functioning chip from the green corner before claiming that TSMC 40 nm process has been totally mastered, we got two dominant player in the graphic bussiness, not just AMD graphic division.

I got the impression that AMD might try a more aggressive stance in mArch improvement and modification using the higher end & higher priced yet lower volume Cayman compared to Bart which will be their bread & butter until 28 nm process arrive.

[zerazax]

I'm not that optimist that AMD will break 400 mm^2 for their graphic chip size anytime in the near future, ESPECIALLY using this buggered 40 nm process by TSMC, but we'll see.

Me neither. I think that was just a rumor where someone forgot about R600. IMO, it WILL be larger than Cypress, but not in the 400mm^2 range.

IMHO, you should wait for highend SKUs with completely functioning chip from the green corner before claiming that TSMC 40 nm process has been totally mastered, we got two dominant player in the graphic bussiness, not just AMD graphic division.

I got the impression that AMD might try a more aggressive stance in mArch improvement and modification using the higher end & higher priced yet lower volume Cayman compared to Bart which will be their bread & butter until 28 nm process arrive.

Well, this time AMD knows what Fermi can and cant do, and where Fermi has had problems. Given that this would be AMD's 3rd foray into 40nm (RV740 -> Evergreen -> Northern Islands), they can probably do well with 40nm. Its just a matter of what they've done to Cayman

[Johnny87au]

..maybe i missed something? but the new cards from ati....well they suck? except for 2 benchmarks, they are slower than the 5800 series by like 10-15%? i don't see why everyone is praising them so much?

the 6870s in crossfire are like 8 fps behind SLI 480s, and look at the price difference.. 480s cost wayyyyyy more + heat +power consumption... these 6XXX series cards "cayman XT" are gonna rape!!!

[zalbard]

Very nice availability data. It also means that GTX580 actually exists already, too. Can't wait to see them both in action!

[Jowy Atreides]

So the 6870 seems maxed around 950ish same with the 6850 clocks high to 900ish, so what are they doing to this chip is it going to be the same size or are they adding things to it? I'm curious

Barts was a 5 shader part but tweaked if I'm reading the spec sheet correctly.
It seems Cayman will be the 4D shader reworked chip people were expecting.

Since Cayman has (currently rumoured) 1920 shaders vs Barts 1120 and they are beefed up as well, it would account for a greater performance difference than what you would expect on the same node.

IF the rumoured TDP of 300W is true for cayman and the 6870 is 150W max then it's likely that the clock speed of Cayman will be in the same sort of region.
Best case scenario is that it's almost twice the speed of the 6870.

Cayman also has a different tessellation solution and involves of chip loading of some sort.

I hope the 6970 is fast enough for 1920x1200 crysis at 60fps and it might just be plausible too that finally, a real crysis card exists

[zalbard]

I hope the 6970 is fast enough for 1920x1200 crysis at 60fps and it might just be plausible too that finally, a real crysis card exists

GTX480 can do it with a slight OC.
It really is quite amazing, though, that modern top end cards are barely good enough for a 3 year old game...