AMD Cayman info (or rumor)

[kadozer]

New rumor release date for Cayman: Dec 8
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/...00-launch/4335
snippet

Nvidia hopes to short-circuit the hoopla over the launch of AMD’s new flagship Radeon HD 6900 series of boards, due to be released on December 8, by bringing out the new GeForce GTX 570 the day before.

[Vardant]

That doesn't make any sense. The release date for GTX 570 has been known for quite a while, AMD on other hand postponed theirs.

[kadozer]

This might be related who knows *shrugs its been a slow news month. http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.p...postcount=5462
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.p...postcount=5463

[Pantsu]

Afaik reviewers get new cards maybe a week before so they would already have Cayman if it's released on the same day or a day later than GTX 570.

[tbone8ty]

Amd will release the 6950 to counter the gtx 570. Then release the 6970 a week later IMO

[Lanek]

If they advance the launch of the 6950 it can maybe mean they think the card is clearly competitive ( don't look at it like a fanboy word, i am not, i have both brand sitting here, and i have surely use equally nvidia and ATI card till 9700 pro ) ... now let's hope it will be a good match. ... ( and AMD don't overestimate it )

At same time 1 day then, it can be the card is less competitive, but they want price it under the msrp of the 570 ,,,

[Mechanical Man]

[SPECULATION WARNING]

Yeah, what would be more awesome than for GTX570 to launch, next day HF6950 rock its ass from this world

[/SPECULATION WARNING]

[bill_d]

Short story, 6950 board allocations were cut and probably delayed a little bit from actual shipments. While it wasn't stated explicitly by our source, word on the street says it is due to a last minute BIOS tweak. This is not unusual for product introductions, and there are zero reports of any hardware problems on any Cayman based board.

The upside to all of this is that the allocation of 6970s just went up, a lot. Some were hinting that numbers are really close to that of the 6950 drop. If you know anything about semiconductor production, that should give you a bit of insight about yields and bin splits

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/12/...cation/?c=6362

[Lanek]

What he mean ? allocation of 6950 have been transmit to 6970 shipment ?

[cowie]

I would not care about what he said lane.
i sorta kinda got a hint you know sorta that one main review site has one.

[kadozer]

Means alot more 6970s to go around for sale then planned.

[eric66]

What he mean ? allocation of 6950 have been transmit to 6970 shipment ?

means that amd gave priority to 6970 they somehow turned cut out 6950s shipments to 6970 thats what i understood

[ap4lifetn]

means that amd gave priority to 6970 they somehow turned cut out 6950s shipments to 6970 thats what i understood

it also means yields are good,

more 6950's means more chips didn't make the cut to be a full cayman, aka bad yields

more 6970's means that production is going quite well.



hurry up and come out so i can have a GTX580 or a 6970 in my computer!

[Manicdan]

so this is saying a bios can turn a 6950 into a 6970?
im doubting that is true

[cowie]

I'm sure if yields were bad or too hot or delayed you would not hear it from charlie.

[Motiv]

so this is saying a bios can turn a 6950 into a 6970?
im doubting that is true

I know! what next, people turning dual cores into quads. Never going to happen.

[Manicdan]

I know! what next, people turning dual cores into quads. Never going to happen.

sorry to burst your bubble

some AMD chips can be unlocked to quads (still seems to be happening if im right)
some older ATI cards were unlockable via bios

but since the 4000 series how many chips based on the same core have allowed for an unlockable upgrade via bios? the last i recalled were a few 4830s that could be upgraded to 4850s, not all, and its a risk, and that was like 2 years ago.

[zalbard]

but since the 4000 series how many chips based on the same core have allowed for an unlockable upgrade via bios? the last i recalled were a few 4830s that could be upgraded to 4850s, not all, and its a risk, and that was like 2 years ago.

GTX465 -> GTX470, not just a core unlock, but also 200ish MB of extra VRAM, lol.

[LexDiamonds]

sorry to burst your bubble

He was being sarcastic. This being said, I doubt a simple BIOS flash would do the trick these days. I do fondly remember my x800 GTO however.

[Manicdan]

GTX465 -> GTX470, not just a core unlock, but also 200ish MB of extra VRAM, lol.

what nvidia does shouldnt be applied to the track record for amd

He was being sarcastic. This being said, I doubt a simple BIOS flash would do the trick these days. I do fondly remember my x800 GTO however.

i knew he was being sarcastic, but he seemed to miss understand me when i said "i doubt" which simply mean i would bet against bios unlockable 6950s. so 51-99% chance of it not happening, which doesnt mean i think it cant happen, and dosnt mean i expect it, just that im not expecting it

[zerazax]

neliz wrote:

6950 X score is good against the 480, P score is good against the 5970... weird..

Typical cryptic fashion I say, but interesting to ponder/argue about

[-=DVS=-]

neliz wrote:



Typical cryptic fashion I say, but interesting to ponder/argue about

Probably hitting bottleneck at xtreme preset, fillrate maybe ?

[generics_user]

neliz wrote:



Typical cryptic fashion I say, but interesting to ponder/argue about

if this is true 6970 has to be above 580 (6950 has 2 SPs less, 1gb ram and lower clocks), 6950 could be bottlenecked by mem clock like 6850 is in demanding games

[Chickenfeed]

Keep in mind the 5870 outperformed the 480 in Vantage despite the former being slower in actual games. Hopefully if the stars are in order we might actually see launch reviews with 3Dmark 2011 results which would be much more relavent.

[Solus Corvus]

Perhaps an inefficient/buggy AA implementation?

Vantage probably won't tell us the whole story anyway. It is already utilizes the 5d architecture efficiently so going to 4d might not help much. The biggest advantage should be in situations where all of the shaders weren't being used efficiently.