Radeon HD 8000 Sea Islands first details

[Ket]

1. Even next gen consoles won't be able to touch the horsepower of a 7950/7970 or a GTX670/680
2. Next gen consoles will still lag behind current top tier GPUs in the amount of memory available by at least 1GB
3. 20 pounds says my OC'd system will run Crysis 3 perfectly fine

Think people. The next gen consoles will at best have half the GPU power of current top tier GPUs and a maximum of about 2GB vRAM, a combined memory pool may allow developers to stretch that though so next gen consoles could have up to 2.5-3GB memory available for games. Eitherway no matter which way you slice the pie no angle gives AMD or nVidia incentive to release a GPU with more ROPs / stream processors / CUDA cores at this time.

[kromosto]

1. Even next gen consoles won't be able to touch the horsepower of a 7950/7970 or a GTX670/680
2. Next gen consoles will still lag behind current top tier GPUs in the amount of memory available by at least 1GB
3. 20 pounds says my OC'd system will run Crysis 3 perfectly fine

Think people. The next gen consoles will at best have half the GPU power of current top tier GPUs and a maximum of about 2GB vRAM, a combined memory pool may allow developers to stretch that though so next gen consoles could have up to 2.5-3GB memory available for games. Eitherway no matter which way you slice the pie no angle gives AMD or nVidia incentive to release a GPU with more ROPs / stream processors / CUDA cores at this time.

1. BF3 is a current gen console game but most of the cards can't a constant > 60 on ultra. also old tech consoles didn't stopped game developers to put new technologies in games like tesselation.
2. Memory is not important. It just gives us high quality textures. For developers putting low quality ones to console disc and high quality ones to the pc disc is not a problem.
3. I agree with you on this.

Nvidia may not have reason for increasing rops cores or etc because of their profits and market share but amd has to do something special to reverse this.

[Lanek]

Nvidia may not have reason for increasing rops cores or etc because of their profits and market share but amd has to do something special to reverse this.

Dont forget both AMD and Nvidia are restricted by the fact they use both 28nm, and tdp.. Nvidia will increase too SP count, the question is more for the 780 if they take the GK110 and play on core speed and resolve computing parts ( the GK110 is at 225W with low core speed/no turbo ( K20x = 235W@730mhz and the K20 = 225w@706mhz ) and we can see the TFLOPS in single precision is not really high for a card with so much more stream processors of the GK104 ..
They could choose something with core count between the GK110 and the GK104, and goes for higher clock speed ( with the turbo mode, it have really well paid on the GK104 ) ..
I ask me performance/cost/TDP wise, if they really want to use the K20 (GK110), for push it at 1000mhz+ ( ~ 40% clock increase )

[safan80]

hopefully AMD will fix the dx9 flickering problem on the current 79xx cards first... wait there's a new 12.11 beta 11 driver

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles...etadriver.aspx

I have not tested it yet.. but the witcher 2 and World of tanks was bad for me yet had reduced flickers with beta8 for me.

[boxleitnerb]

Dont forget both AMD and Nvidia are restricted by the fact they use both 28nm, and tdp.. Nvidia will increase too SP count, the question is more for the 780 if they take the GK110 and play on core speed and resolve computing parts ( the GK110 is at 225W with low core speed/no turbo ( K20x = 235W@730mhz and the K20 = 225w@706mhz ) and we can see the TFLOPS in single precision is not really high for a card with so much more stream processors of the GK104 ..
They could choose something with core count between the GK110 and the GK104, and goes for higher clock speed ( with the turbo mode, it have really well paid on the GK104 ) ..
I ask me performance/cost/TDP wise, if they really want to use the K20 (GK110), for push it at 1000mhz+ ( ~ 40% clock increase )

GK110@1000 MHz? Dream on
At 850 MHz base clock with only 3 GB VRAM it should come in at 4800 GFLOPs SP, that is about 50% more than GK104 has. More Cuda cores at lower frequencies is more energy efficient than fewer cores at higher frequencies.

[Stevethegreat]

1. Even next gen consoles won't be able to touch the horsepower of a 7950/7970 or a GTX670/680
2. Next gen consoles will still lag behind current top tier GPUs in the amount of memory available by at least 1GB
3. 20 pounds says my OC'd system will run Crysis 3 perfectly fine

Think people. The next gen consoles will at best have half the GPU power of current top tier GPUs and a maximum of about 2GB vRAM, a combined memory pool may allow developers to stretch that though so next gen consoles could have up to 2.5-3GB memory available for games. Eitherway no matter which way you slice the pie no angle gives AMD or nVidia incentive to release a GPU with more ROPs / stream processors / CUDA cores at this time.

...and this is how you kill innovation, you remove the incentive for it. F*ck how i hate consoles. I mean I don't game much and its probably right to say that the console form factor is the ideal for gaming, but their insistence in low grade technology hurt us enthusiasts firstly but mostly the wider public that will never benefit from the new possibilities that computer power would bring to the households of the future.... Low grade morons without vision seling out a better future so that to sell the 10th cod title in a row...

[DilTech]

hopefully AMD will fix the dx9 flickering problem on the current 79xx cards first... wait there's a new 12.11 beta 11 driver

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles...etadriver.aspx

I have not tested it yet.. but the witcher 2 and World of tanks was bad for me yet had reduced flickers with beta8 for me.

It helped a LOT, but the problem still exists with the witcher 2. It's just nowhere near as prominent as it was with beta 8.

[naokaji]

if they was looking only at this case, they will both have stop do gpu's 6 years ago ..

The situation isn't the same as a couple years ago, back then high end gpus struggled with the prettiest games at commonly used resolutions, now they don't.

5 years ago:

Best looking game available to buy: Crysis
Top end gpu back then: 8800 Ultra

http://www.overclock.net/t/310856/98...s#post_3602920

Less than 60FPs (in other words, too slow)

now:

Best looking game available to buy: BF3
Top end gpu: GTX 680

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5699/n...-680-review/13

More than 60 FPS (in other words, fast enough)

And for the niche of the niche (people with 30 inch screens / people with screens capable of putting out more than 60 FPS) there are always multi gpu solutions.

Before we get significant improved console performance and or higher res screens there just isn't any reason to go beyond what exists now.

[paulbagz]

I bought a comp with 2x 8800 Ultras solely to play Crysis.

Those were the days :')

-PB

[LightSpeed]

I bought a comp with 2x 8800 Ultras solely to play Crysis.

Those were the days :')

-PB

Hopefully Crysis 3 will need two 8800's too to max out. HD 88xx i mean heh

[s1nykuL]

Expect to see games that will need the HD8000 in around 2014.
With few exceptions consoles drive game development.
It usually takes at least a year or more for games that fully take advantage of new console hardware to emerge.
Until these games do emerge the 7970 and 680 will likely play all future console ports up until then at over 60fps.

From a purely gaming perspective until we do get games that will tax the next gen of console there is little point in getting a GPU > 680 or 7970.

There are a whole mountain of other reasons though!

[Particle]

1. BF3 is a current gen console game but most of the cards can't a constant > 60 on ultra.

Your conclusion doesn't logically follow since the renderer is different on the PC as opposed to the console. Ket is talking about hardware performance potential. The software that runs on top of it is another matter.

[kromosto]

Your conclusion doesn't logically follow since the renderer is different on the PC as opposed to the console. Ket is talking about hardware performance potential. The software that runs on top of it is another matter.

no i think that exactly proves my point. so as you said consoles may have lesser hardware performance, also game maybe a console port but this doesn't stop developers to use PC performance potential. So games being console ports shouldn't stop gpu manufacturers .

[DeathReborn]

The situation isn't the same as a couple years ago, back then high end gpus struggled with the prettiest games at commonly used resolutions, now they don't.

5 years ago:

Best looking game available to buy: Crysis
Top end gpu back then: 8800 Ultra

http://www.overclock.net/t/310856/98...s#post_3602920

Less than 60FPs (in other words, too slow)

now:

Best looking game available to buy: BF3
Top end gpu: GTX 680

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5699/n...-680-review/13

More than 60 FPS (in other words, fast enough)

And for the niche of the niche (people with 30 inch screens / people with screens capable of putting out more than 60 FPS) there are always multi gpu solutions.

Before we get significant improved console performance and or higher res screens there just isn't any reason to go beyond what exists now.

While out of the box BF3 does look good, Skyrim with some mods to make it look like we all expected it to (console neutering) so I think that would be a better gauge of PC Technology and it's current limitations.

[tajoh111]

GK110@1000 MHz? Dream on
At 850 MHz base clock with only 3 GB VRAM it should come in at 4800 GFLOPs SP, that is about 50% more than GK104 has. More Cuda cores at lower frequencies is more energy efficient than fewer cores at higher frequencies.

Just hope they put the proper voltage components and make it a heavy duty so they thing can be overclocked afterwards. Don't want to see a gk104 like PCB. These monoliths are just asking to be water cooled.

[t800]

The situation isn't the same as a couple years ago, back then high end gpus struggled with the prettiest games at commonly used resolutions, now they don't.
5 years ago:

Best looking game available to buy: Crysis
Top end gpu back then: 8800 Ultra

now:
Best looking game available to buy: Crysis
Top end gpu: GTX 680

Corrected

[Zloyd]

All you guys complaining that GPU's are too powerful need to score yourselves a 25xx rez screen.

GTX780/8970 will be looking to have 85% of the performance a 690 has. That would be very very welcome at 500-550$. Last couple of generations have been great competition i hope it continues.

[tajoh111]

A gtx 780 @ 85 percent performance of a 690 at 500-550 dollars is a bargain. The card would sell out fast. At that performance, $650 would be completely fair even $699. But I doubt we will get that type of jump.

[Lanek]

I really doubt we will see a 65-75% jump over the 680-7970 .. 30-40% look more accurate.

[kromosto]

I really doubt we will see a 65-75% jump over the 680-7970 .. 30-40% look more accurate.

i will be very happy if i see %40

[teurorist]

I will be happy about everything else than a 680gtx xd still in love with the 580 gtx

[informal]

i will be very happy if i see %40

I think that even a 40% is a pipe dream. IMO , 25-30% maximum perf. increase over 680/7970.

[tajoh111]

I think that even a 40% is a pipe dream. IMO , 25-30% maximum perf. increase over 680/7970.

25% percent would be a fail.

At higher resolutions and AA, the gtx 780, if it has a 384bit bus, should get it 10 percent performance gain at the very least from the bus alone. If nearly doubling shaders and TMU yields 15% that would be a poor effort.

The difference in number of components and die size between a gtx 560 and 580 was significantly less than what is going to be the difference between a 680 and gtx 780, and the difference between the formers was 47% according to techpowerup.

So I think at the very least we should get 35% and this is purely because of drivers, with everything optimized I could see a 50% maybe 60% in bandwidth constrained scenarios. The 88 percent increase in shaders, TMU's and 50% increase in bandwidth should make this card a monster. Significantly slower than a gtx 690, I would say by 30%, but the 730 mhz speed on pro parts is actually a good sign. Parts in the mid 800's should be possible for gaming parts as procards have always been clocked significantly slower than their gaming counterparts.

But anyways, unless sea islands goes past 400mm2 perhaps even getting close to 500, I don't see how they can match up. If AMD is serious about GPU compute, sea Islands is likely to be more specialized for professional applications. I hope AMD has the balls to make another big chip.. Especially if they are going to try to sell it for 550 again.

[Zloyd]

Hmm sorry that sorta gain might be too much ...... but 680 and 580 have been pretty slow increases over 480 .... no reasons to think it could be different ? With the 384 bit bus and if nvidia build a BIG chip i guess it will be a 650-700 dollar card(with a 40% increase).

Sadly they might not want to do that and will go with a cooler smaller more profitable and tree hugger friendly chip like the 680(20% increase) . Good oppurtunity for AMD to take a shot at making something huge and beastly ... 1 of them should or its gonna be boring.

[informal]

@ tajoh

I was referring to perf. jump from 7970-> 8970 or whatever AMD calls it. Not the GTX680->GTX780.