Computex 2009: AMD Demonstrates working 40nm DirectX 11 Silicon

[onethreehill]

Today at Computex, AMD has unveiled its first DirectX 11 compliant part, but the announcement is more about the overall features that DX11 introduces rather than the specific part that AMD has already fabricated in conjunction with TSMC on their fledgling 40 nm process.

Windows 7 will be the enabler of DX11 and Stream Compute for the desktop, and AMD is hoping (and is likely to be) the only launch partner with DX11 products for sale when Windows 7 launches.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=724

[eleeter]

Who the heck rated this thread 1 star? It's not that bad is it?

Thanks for the link onethree, interesting stuff. This caught my eye:

At the very least, we can expect the upcoming chip to be slightly faster than the current HD 4890, but with the added bonus of full DX11 support.

Perhaps the rumours were true that that the first DX11 parts from AMD will be mildly updated silicon, and their true next gen part will be releases some months later.

[GAR]

Whats the point in all this new PC technology when no PC exclusive titles is ever going to come out, everything is ported from consoles, sad thing is consoles get first priority when a multi platform game is being made. Valve is the last real PC developer left.

[Speederlander]

Whats the point in all this new PC technology when no PC exclusive titles is ever going to come out, everything is ported from consoles, sad thing is consoles get first priority when a multi platform game is being made. Valve is the last real PC developer left.

Not much incentive for exclusive PC game development anymore.

[metro.cl]

Compliant = Real DX11? just asking.

Nice to see "compliant" DX11 hardware seems like AMD has been doing their homework.

[onethreehill]

AMD Evergreen: 40nm DirectX 11 GPU Silicon Arrives
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3573

AMD Presents First DX11 Demos @ Computex
http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-pres....html?doc=7136

[tajoh111]

The thing that caught my eye is that the chip size estimate is just a bit a bit over 180mm. This could be AMD playing possum, but that seems bit too small to have a 2x chip that can compete with NV(even if we don't know NV specs at this point, I don't think they are going to release a bomb this time around considering it has to compete with larrabee) gtx 385. It could mean that we have 1000 shaders, which seems to make the most sense, if we consider the size of rv740.

Of course AMD could be playing around like they did with the specs of rv780, just to catch NV off guard. Heck at that size of a chip, they could also release this as a 200 dollar chip and even at that price it will make money.

[LordEC911]

The thing that caught my eye is that the chip size estimate is just a bit a bit over 180mm. This could be AMD playing possum, but that seems bit too small to have a 2x chip that can compete with NV(even if we don't know NV specs at this point, I don't think they are going to release a bomb this time around considering it has to compete with larrabee) gtx 385. It could mean that we have 1000 shaders, which seems to make the most sense, if we consider the size of rv740.

Of course AMD could be playing around like they did with the specs of rv780, just to catch NV off guard. Heck at that size of a chip, they could also release this as a 200 dollar chip and even at that price it will make money.

With ~1.2b trannies, I'm thinking at least a 1200SP chip, if still v5.

[Dante80]

So, from the looks of it (I assume we are seeing RV870 and not RV840 there), RV870 would be a tweaked for DX11 RV790 @40nm, without a major increase in shader count (AT suggests something more than 1B trans).

If AMD goes again for best value/cost for the performance segment (employing the same binning scalability that the RV770 strategy used), they will have the same competitive products in the 200-300$ range, with better margins per chip (but less yields are implied, at least atm due to TSMC difficulties with the process).

Can that be enough to counter the Nvidia loch ness monster?...also, will it even matter for most users, since nVidia will target the 500$+ range?

[Smartidiot89]

So, from the looks of it (I assume we are seeing RV870 and not RV840 there), RV870 would be a tweaked for DX11 RV790 @40nm, without a major increase in shader count (AT suggests something more than 1B trans).

If AMD goes again for best value/cost for the performance segment (employing the same binning scalability that the RV770 strategy used), they will have the same competitive products in the 200-300$ range, with better margins per chip (but less yields are implied, at least atm due to TSMC difficulties with the process).

Can that be enough to counter the Nvidia loch ness monster?...also, will it even matter for most users, since nVidia will target the 500$+ range?

So Nvidia wins Xtremesystems while ATI wins the real market?

[Rattle]

Whats the point in all this new PC technology when no PC exclusive titles is ever going to come out, everything is ported from consoles, sad thing is consoles get first priority when a multi platform game is being made. Valve is the last real PC developer left.

+1million

I think i am done getting hardware for a while for once.

[Dante80]

So Nvidia wins Xtremesystems while ATI wins the real market?

Hehe, that would be fairly accurate, if the R800 solutions have a worse price/performance ratio this time.

[onethreehill]

AMD Does DX11

AMD has just finished off showing the world working DX11 hardware. There are some old things that are new again, such as tessalation again coming to the forefront, hopefully this time with the needed nativity it has lacked somewhat in the past. Much time was spent on non-3D as well in terms of Windows 7 acceleration and what the GPU can do for your video encoding. Overall little was said about the hardware itself, but we know one thing for sure...NVIDIA ain't got it yet.

Here is the full slide deck that was just shown to the press in Taipei.........

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/news.h...VzaWFzdCwsLDE=

[Star_Hunter]

At that small of a size I wonder if its going to be a 5870 X4 lol!

[Stukov]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3573

[Jamesrt2004]

battleforge + battlefield: bad company 2 are two known DX11 titles,,

ATI where quite lucky... dx11 = dx10 (should have been) until nvidia where like know and it got dummed down.... then dx10.1 gave a lil back

but not ati hardly had to do much to make their cards dx11 where as nvidia does..... this round will be interesting as ati get a lot of time to tinker where as nvidia have had lots of work to do :/

[570091D]

Whats the point in all this new PC technology when no PC exclusive titles is ever going to come out, everything is ported from consoles, sad thing is consoles get first priority when a multi platform game is being made. Valve is the last real PC developer left.

don't forget blizzard.

i think it would be a large mistake for ati if evergreen is just an enhanced rv790. if the improvements are minor/insignificant in terms of performance gains i feel that most users will wait for the nv monster. if however, they release another breakthrough chip before nvidia even has dx11 silicon on the market, they can catch nv with their pants down and take a lot of market share. last time around few people were expecting ati to be competitive (nv least of all), and they used excellent value coupled with the element of surprise to suck the life out of nvidia. nvidia is expecting them to come out punching this time, ati needs to continue to step it up.

by the way, ati has dropped the rvXXX moniker, this chip is called evergreen.

[Nedjo]

don't forget blizzard.

i think it would be a large mistake for ati if evergreen is just an enhanced rv790. if the improvements are minor/insignificant in terms of performance gains i feel that most users will wait for the nv monster. if however, they release another breakthrough chip before nvidia even has dx11 silicon on the market, they can catch nv with their pants down and take a lot of market share. last time around few people were expecting ati to be competitive (nv least of all), and they used excellent value coupled with the element of surprise to suck the life out of nvidia. nvidia is expecting them to come out punching this time, ati needs to continue to step it up.

by the way, ati has dropped the rvXXX moniker, this chip is called evergreen.

most users are customers of HP, DELL, Acer, etc, et... and those guys will want new tech to help them sell in Back-2-School and Xmass season, and they'll go with latest and greatest tech on the market - Evergreen! Not to mention Win7 as a driving force in Xmass season, and if you can get the best Win7 experience with DX11 accelerators for the price of DX10 accelerators what do you think that end users and mentioned big guys will use??

[Dante80]

Hardly possible for a much more efficient arch to have a worse $/perf ratio compared to what nvidia has as transistor/perf

Actually, it is possible. ATIs strategy to compete in the enthusiast market means taking the 300$ core product and putting 2 of those in a single pcb solution, and at a price close to double the core product. If nvidia tops that in performance (price would be around the same), it wins the $/perf for the market segment.

i think it would be a large mistake for ati if evergreen is just an enhanced rv790. if the improvements are minor/insignificant in terms of performance gains i feel that most users will wait for the nv monster.

Actually no, that assessment is wrong. Most users would not wait for nvidia, simply because most users are not in the market for a 500$ video card. The enthusiast market is small, and with the diesizes projected nvidia may have a rough time scaling the GT300 for the performance market segment.

ATI does not need another breakthrough to succeed (not that we wouldn't want one to happen of course). Nvidia does. And we all should hope it does, it is in our interest as consumers...

[LordEC911]

i think it would be a large mistake for ati if evergreen is just an enhanced rv790. if the improvements are minor/insignificant in terms of performance gains i feel that most users will wait for the nv monster.

by the way, ati has dropped the rvXXX moniker, this chip is called evergreen.

Don't worry, it won't be insignificant.

We knew they changed their naming scheme for quite a few months, ~Feb-ish.
Edit- I reiterated that in a recent post a few days ago.

[hurleybird]

On one hand, the anemic die size is a bit disapointing. On the other hand, you want as small a die as possible given TMSC's 40nm bugs. I just hope that there is a larger die in the wings (would make sense given that ATIs changing the way they do codenames), or that they've come up with some new multiGPU tech that allows them to harness multi-chip cards more efficiently. Radeon 5870X3 anyone?

[LordEC911]

On one hand, the anemic die size is a bit disapointing. On the other hand, you want as small a die as possible given TMSC's 40nm bugs. I just hope that there is a larger die in the wings (would make sense given that ATIs changing the way they do codenames), or that they've come up with some new multiGPU tech that allows them to harness multi-chip cards more efficiently. Radeon 5870X3 anyone?

With the codename of Cypress, originally thought to be RV870 but might be the family of chips, R8xx, Redwood might be the R800.
Not enough is known about the different chips right now, we need more info/rumors on the codenames.

[largon]

Or it's just sandbags.

[Lightman]

ATI said they are going to put 4 DX11 GPUs this year.
This means we can't be sure chip showed to public is RV870. It's equally possible that they are showing RV840. Bear in mind that if RV870 would still be planned to be 250mm2+ then TSMC 40nm process might not be up there yet to reliably produce such a die, therefore AMD decided to show off something they are certain they can meet demand for in case of early launch.

Just a speculation

On the other hand 180mm2+ is very close to what we had with RV670

[LordEC911]

ATI said they are going to put 4 DX11 GPUs this year.
This means we can't be sure chip showed to public is RV870. It's equally possible that they are showing RV840. Bear in mind that if RV870 would still be planned to be 250mm2+ then TSMC 40nm process might not be up there yet to reliably produce such a die, therefore AMD decided to show off something they are certain they can meet demand for in case of early launch.

Just a speculation

On the other hand 180mm2+ is very close to what we had with RV670

I agree, it is just that the current word is that Juniper is the codename for RV830/840.