Amd Volcanic Islands details

[tajoh111]

by my source, is full uncutted gpu only for profesional SKUs, FirePro. In gaming SKU will be later, in october will be launched only cutted GPU gamin card, but who knows? we will see

This is good news. To me this means AMD is finally willing to take risks again. Since after the 5870 launch, I have had somewhat low expectations in regards to improvements from AMD every next generation. Most of the time, they undercut even these low expectations at launch.

E.g 4870 --> 5870 expected faster than a 4870x2 by 15%(expected the extra clocks and loss from CF scaling to equal that percent). The card was a little bit slower than the 4870x2.
5870--> 6970 expected something faster than gtx 480. This card was the same speed as a gtx 480.
6970-->7970 expected something 40-50 percent faster than a gtx 580. This card was only 20 percent faster.

The 4870 launch was the only launch from them that really matched/exceeded my expectations because they were low because of the 2900xt failure.

Nvidia hasn't really met my expectation either for the most part. Particularly the gtx 280 because there were so y about it before it launched. The only card that impressed me from them are their big parts when they were fully enabled. But even then, by the time they came out, it was too late.

If Nvidia could get their big chips out the door fully enabled within a few months of AMD's launch I would be buying most of them E.g I would have bought a gtx 580 if it launched nearer to the 5870 launch. I would have bought a fully enabled gk110 at launch if it was released around the 7970 launch.

I am happier with Nvidia's approach towards a failure than AMDs. AMD fails to meet my expectations because they go too safe. Nvidia fails to meet my expectations because they go to big and can't get everything right the first time.

If AMD makes a 500mm2 chip that performs 40+ percent faster than a ghz edition, there a good chance that I will buy it. If they make a 420mm2 chip thats 20% faster than a 7970ghz I won't be buying it.

I don't see why they wouldn't be. 28nm must be pretty mature by now.

The thing I want most from AMD is to make a videocard so big they actually do have to worry about yields and have to harvest cores.

AMD doesn't have the most experience on the GPU side for designing and making big GPU cores. Nvidia has always had problems and they made big cores since the gtx 8800.

If AMD is going to make expensive cards, I would rather see a 700 dollar 500mm2 card from them than a 550 dollar 350mm2 card from them. In my opinion 649-700 dollar for something 500mm2 plus is completely fair. I think AMD will need to do this if they want to stay competitive because of the compute nature of both companies flagships.