AMD Cayman info (or rumor)

[neliz]

I'm trying to figure WHEN to buy a GPU.

When you have the money!

I have to get a new high-end GPU in this round, and I believe AMD's next move will have a big impact on prices in both camps. I'm just trying to listen to some "kind"-guys who have been following AMD more closely. Just trying to figure when I have to buy a GPU.

You should've bought one last year with the 5870 and now you can buy one at the end of the month again.

[Oliverda]

I'm trying to figure WHEN to buy a GPU.

Could you do it in silence? Thanks.

[madcho]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rade...med/10276.html

i think this is true

[andos]

Hello.
Read this carefully.

[Sam_oslo]

When you have the money!



You should've bought one last year with the 5870 and now you can buy one at the end of the month again.

I had the money last year.

You see I was about to buy a 5970 last year, but then I waited for nVidia to release a double-GPU and break the price. That didn't happen, and then 5970-price went up, up, up .. until I gave up.

Competition, a good fight between AMD ans nVidia, has a big impact on prices-development over time. I don't mind spending on HW, I spend too much anyways, but I would like to make educated choices both on price and performance. Therefore timing is important for me.

[Pantsu]

Personally I'm probably waiting until January since I don't game during the holidays. That gives good time for products to become available and prices to set. 6990 won't drag the prices down, it will be the ultimate enthusiast card, and priced with premium like the 5970.

Of course if you're in hurry, go grab a GTX 580, which is a good and powerful card in its own right, but risk the fact that it might lose maybe 100$ of its value overnight like GTX 280. And that's of course just a guesstimate, no need get hung up on the number.

[Oliverda]

i think this is true

bad yields, shortage of a particular component... what will come next? shortage of paper boxes?


"This TI component is an integrated driver-MOSFET (DrMOS) that was first used on AMD's Radeon HD 6800 Series. This DrMOS is so new to the point there is no information on it on the Web, not even from the manufacturer itself.

Supply of this DrMOS is limited, and since the Radeon HD 6800 Series and upcoming HD 6900 Series share the same VRM design, any (tight) supply from TI is shared between all the cards. This leads to a delay in HD 6970 card manufacturing, with partners receiving their final boards late as well."


I can't believe that they can't rearrange some supplies of this "particular component" from 6800 Series to 6900 Series. So it sounds unbelievable to me...again.

[kuroikenshi]

bad yields, shortage of a particular component... what will come next? shortage of paper boxes?

they ran out of instant coffee, so all of their products will be pushed back 2 decades...

I really dislike that even after a formal presentation, websites are still spinning more crap than a washing machine, rather discrediting on their behalf

[generics_user]

bad yields, shortage of a particular component... what will come next? shortage of paper boxes?


"This TI component is an integrated driver-MOSFET (DrMOS) that was first used on AMD's Radeon HD 6800 Series. This DrMOS is so new to the point there is no information on it on the Web, not even from the manufacturer itself.

Supply of this DrMOS is limited, and since the Radeon HD 6800 Series and upcoming HD 6900 Series share the same VRM design, any (tight) supply from TI is shared between all the cards. This leads to a delay in HD 6970 card manufacturing, with partners receiving their final boards late as well."


I can't believe that they can't rearrange some supplies of this "particular component" from 6800 Series to 6900 Series. So it sounds unbelievable to me...again.

LOL msi has been using this design for years on their motherboards, almost every custom designed 6xxx card has DrMos (which performs great BTW); and if there was a shortage amd would've switched 6xxx to the old 5830 series value pcbs before launch which should provide more than enough power

[eXceeded]

For the UK VAT goes up next year so trying to get as much bought before that happens is key for us. Would be nice if they would allow us to preorder these things. Again going to have to use the example of the car industry. Constantly get updates of up and coming products and people put deposits down and wait. Even if the spec changes last minute... No one knew anything about the Nissan GTR and there were still people putting down £5000 deposits.

[Manicdan]

I had the money last year.

You see I was about to buy a 5970 last year, but then I waited for nVidia to release a double-GPU and break the price. That didn't happen, and then 5970-price went up, up, up .. until I gave up.

Competition, a good fight between AMD ans nVidia, has a big impact on prices-development over time. I don't mind spending on HW, I spend too much anyways, but I would like to make educated choices both on price and performance. Therefore timing is important for me.

the answer to that is simple
you wait as long as you possibly can

early 2010 sucked because nvidia didnt deliver anything, the happiest ATI owners bought their stuff late 09 because in 2010 prices went up due to lack of competition.

now that were done with the 40nm TSMC problems, boards are coming out, and competition is finally back to normal.

at a MINIMUM, i recommend you wait 2 weeks after the 6970 launches if you see no price drop from the 580. however if when it comes out, the price is like 400ish, and nvidia drops, go for it then. the cost of getting it early for a slight reduction will be outweighed by the unknown chance that sales will skyrocket, and thus none are available, and possibly cause prices to go up. (btw this was about an agnostic purchase, i was not recommending either card, just stating what i expect to happen as a result of the launches "what if" questions being known)

[hurrdurr]

The slides made me think 6970 will be slightly slower than 580. I think it will be priced at $400. Yeah, that was the price for the smaller-GPU, 1GB RAM 5870, but then AMD had no competition.

If that's the case, GTX 580 prices will probably drop like $50. Whenever 570 comes out it will probably be between 6950 and 6970 (just like 5850-570-5870) and will be priced $3xx.

[neliz]

I had the money last year.

You see I was about to buy a 5970 last year, but then I waited for nVidia to release a double-GPU and break the price. That didn't happen, and then 5970-price went up, up, up .. until I gave up.

Waiting is hardly ever a good idea, there's always something better coming. The only time you could've gone wrong with early adoption is with the GTX280/260.

Before and after that, it was generally the rule: buy now, be happy later. (R300, G80, RV800)

[Ourasi]

Even with FUD's negative spin and unfounded rumors of late, they still can produce a hint of good news every now and then: http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/ite...-november-29th

Subtract the normal FUD, and you get to 22th..

The shadercount seems to, again, be up to 1920sp: http://translate.google.no/translate...1.html&act=url

Me thinks this will be a short life in that pricebracket for the GTX580....

Looking at the slide with a microscope to get some hidden info, kinda puts it into a "tealeaf in a mug" catagory.

I for one thinks there are alot of money to be saved by not getting 580 now, add some performance and the deal is set..

[Mechanical Man]

...

Your links did not work, atleast for me..

Here 1920SP 30SIMD, math would be ok 1920/30=64, 64/4=16.

[spursindonesia]

Well the good news I guess is that the cards are still set for Q4 2010 so those rumors the cards wouldn't be out this year should be thrown out the door

Can't wait to see what happens. Would be sweet to see cards battle again at all segments... it's been quite some time

Well, i dunno how long it's been. If Cayman could deliver & a good match for GTX 580, it would be the first time in a long long time that single chip performances beetween both IHVs are quite competitive from top to middle (okay, below GF104 nVidia sucks, but still ...). In R5xx vs G7x era, ATI was strong on top but weak on the middle (those blazing fast, easy to OC GeF 7600 GT), and going a gen behind, R4xx vs NV4x, same story yet again (my beloved Leadtek GeF 6600 GT was one heck of pocket OCer).

If you want to draw similarities beetween past occurence, perhaps this is R5xx vs G7x, but the acts were reversed. GTX 480 would be like X1800 XT (R520), big, hot, fast, technologically advanced (HDR+AA) but late to the game and quickly replaced by X1900 XT (GTX 580) that was more performing. HD 5870 would be like GeF 7800 GTX (G70), quite fast & available on time, surpassed by X1800 XT but had a contingency partner, 7800 GTX 512 (HD 5970) limited edition. It was finally replaced by GeF 7900 GTX (HD 6970) that was plenty good vs X1900 XT, small, energy efficient, cheaper to produce, very profitable. Good old times.

That makes no sense. AMD's been on top of their game in terms of efficiency and heat for the past two generations, why would they suddenly hit major problems on a process that they're on their 3rd generation for?

And AMD hasn't released info on their card because it's a HUGE business risk to advertise their product before its release. It's been covered repeatedly throughout this thread, but people repeatedly refuse to understand the business of GPUs.

So I'll put it this way: name the GPUs that have been extremely hyped up that have been successful, and name the GPUs that have been wildly successful that were silent til release.

You'll see a pretty obvious trend

You're absolutely right mate.

Even if they can't offer the performance, then AMD would put price pressure on the GTX580, they've done this for a few generations now and it is doing their market share quite good.

I however, see no reason to be "afraid" or "fear" anything right now.

Sit back, relax, take a cup of tea, things will unfold soon when the cards ship.

edit: Why is everyone assuming that Cayman is slower than an overclocked 5870? I thought the consensus was that it's nearing Hemlock territory, right on top of the GTX580?

Now, i will hold you accountable later on for this neliz, also with Cayman Pro trading blows with GTX 580 remark.

[marten_larsson]

Your links did not work, atleast for me..

Here 1920SP 30SIMD, math would be ok 1920/30=64, 64/4=16.

And according to that thread, Cayman is still on track for release this month. How shocking.

[bl4ckdr4g00n]

What do you get after reading this?

Now that we’ve seen the speed of the GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB, our attention naturally turns to the future. Unfortunately, while we know some interesting things about the forthcoming ATI Radeon HD 6900-series, we’re still not allowed to tell you anything about it...

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2010/11...ch.net+feed%29

[Mechanical Man]

Yeah, they know these interesting things. 4VLIW, 128Z/Stencil, 32ROP etc..

That their 500 series lineup is just pure speculation on their part based on nothing real. They also nicely miss GF104 size vs Barts size.. Its heck of a difference.

[Olivon]

Now, i will hold you accountable later on for this neliz, also with Cayman Pro trading blows with GTX 580 remark.

I saw it too

[AbortRetryFail?]

Yeah, they know these interesting things. 4VLIW, 128Z/Stencil, 32ROP etc..

That their 500 series lineup is just pure speculation on their part based on nothing real. They also nicely miss GF104 size vs Barts size.. Its heck of a difference.

Yeah ... not sure how things will shake out until release.

I've seen rumors at 70% of 520^2 (IIRC 'Barts' is less than half that size). I don't know how that works out per wafer when yields are factored in, but with AMD process understanding I'd say it looks really good for them.

[Andi64]

Yeah, they know these interesting things. 4VLIW, 128Z/Stencil, 32ROP etc..

That their 500 series lineup is just pure speculation on their part based on nothing real. They also nicely miss GF104 size vs Barts size.. Its heck of a difference.

Yeap, the 500 series lineup is just speculation but it looks feasible. On the other hand, what you say is true... Barts, IMHO, is the real replacement of HD4800 series segment (a mid-range targeted card that could trade blows with competitors high-end). I can see a HD6850 for U$S99 still giving profit to AMD, just like what happened with HD4850. I don't know if it will happen, though, it depends on what nVidia has to offer.

AMD did increase performance per mm2 with Barts, and it was already ahead of nVidia. I think, and is just speculation based on that fact, that Cayman will be better positioned than GTX580 on any posible situation. If it's a 3000M transistors GPU, it will be faster but expensive, if it's less than that... it will be defenitily faster than HD5870 and cheaper than GTX580. I think AMD has a better architecture, so there is no way Cayman can fail.

From the customer POV, we don't give a damn about die sizes, profit margins, or whatever... so, both line-ups, 500 series and HD6000 series, are going to be very very nice

[generics_user]

to be honest i highly doubt that amd has problems with the process, they already released 6 GPUs on this and are also shipping cpus on this process in big quantities to OEMs, i don't remember nvidia or ati doing so many process within 2 years on the same process...

the only thing that might be holding them back is issues with the stepping (unlikely considering they had alot of time to get this thing done and 50% of all new stuff should be present in barts already) or driver issues (more likely)

i think that we're going to see it this month with mass availability in early december....

[Ourasi]

Your links did not work, atleast for me..

Here 1920SP 30SIMD, math would be ok 1920/30=64, 64/4=16.

Sorry about that, linkcopy from one of my other posts don't work on XS, they are fixed now atleast..

[zalbard]

http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/ite...-november-29th @

The latest info that we have received on Cayman is that there might be a launch this month. It appears to be delayed by a single week and that the company will make it for a late November launch.
We’ve been hearing November 22nd as the launch date and some other people have indicated mid of that week and now the date is November 29th, but again things tend to change far too often.
We are not sure on the quantities and availability but ATI might have more cards than the competition expected. We are not sure about the performance, early report was that the prototype was slower than GTX 580, but who knows, with a tweak or two as well as an increased clock and better drivers, Cayman might have a chance. In any case it will be a very close race.
The plan is to launch Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 together, while the X2 dual chip version aka Radeon HD 6990 comes later, most likely in early 2011.
Now let’s go after that final spec.

FUD, right? I hope...