Projected AMD Volcanic Islands 20nm Release Date?

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Hi,
I've heard so many conflicting pieces of "info", such as that AMD person saying that Volcanic Islands (20nm) would be releasing in 2013, and then a rumour saying Curacao XT (28nm) would be releasing Q3 2013 instead. What are your guys' opinions?

My opinion:
Release 20nm this year. They can't expect to delay the launch of a new series by an entire year, and then end up just releasing a refresh. Especially if the Chiphell rumour about Curacao XT and Hainan are right, the specs just don't justify the price. 2304 stream processors for $600 in the Curacao XT, and 1792 stream processors for $400 in the Hainan? $400 is more expensive than the current 7970, and the 7970 has 2048 stream processors.

I'm strongly inclined to believe that the Chiphell rumour is once again false, as their recent credibility with the supposed "Hawaii" leak has gone down the drain for me.

I really want to upgrade, since my 5870x2 has been a headache recently, with a flashing screen (except in games), as well as having a Quadro FX 4600 lying on the side which I want to use Hybrid PhysX with (once I get a single powerful card since my case doesn't fit 3), and also using SoftTH off of one strong card instead of gimping myself with only being able to use one 5870 for 3 monitors (2x 1280*1024, 1x 1920*1080).

What are your guys' opinions about next gen?
 

Vladimir83

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Mar 21, 2013
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Well my personal opinion is that the new "Volcanic islands",will be on 20nm lithography.Which is a bit of a problem since TSMC cannot produced it in full production yet.Although the process verification is finished,there are numerous other difficulties to be pass before full wafer yields be produced.And still,even if they overcome this(as expected in a couple of months),there are others "primary" clients that should be served before AMD.Which means a sort of "deja vu" as with Tahiti:unveil before new year,and in full production few months latter.I believe that certainly we do not we see any of the "volcanic islands" until Q1 2014.

Thats the bad news.The good one is that the GCN 2.0 will be essentially new design,in every way better than nvidias GTX7xx,even before 20nm process advantages.

What is certainly at this moment is that we have to wait to see : )
 
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Didn't TSMC just say that they are ahead of schedule for 20nm production (in April)?
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20130404143508_TSMC_Is_Ahead_of_Its_Own_20nm_Roadmap_Report.html

Either way, I hope the price of the 9970 will be the same if not lower than the 7970's release price, provided TSMC can hold their end of the deal and produce enough wafers for them not to be super expensive.
 

Vladimir83

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Mar 21, 2013
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And I would really want to see hd9970 in Q4 2013,but I guess its just my wishful thinking : )

Either way,AMDs target will be GK110 561mm(2) of wasted silicone for 650$ : )
So don't expect anything below 500-550$.
Also remember of how hd7870 for 300$ make a joke of (than) 500$ GTX580 especially in compute power.
 

ismaeljrp

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Feb 8, 2012
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My opinion, first, you have a weird monitor setup.

Now about the AMD gpus. I don't like to speculate, which is what everyone is doing right now, so take everything with not just a grain, but maybe 50 lbs of salt.

What I would like to see on the other hand ( which isn't speculating, just what I'd like ), is AMD pull a move like the one ATI did when they released the 4800 series. The 4870 and 4850 released with very good performance ( not the best ), but with a price so attractive that the mainstream segment jumped on these cards, because Nvidia's equivalents performance wise were a lot more expensive. All this would force Nvidia to drive prices down and then AMD could deliver another blow by releasing the 8900 parts, which would compete with 780 and 770.

I'd like to see AMD release the 8870 and 8850 first. This is the mainstream-performance segment and where most sales happen.

8870 = 7970 ghz , for $ 320
8850 = 7950 boost , for $ 270

No gaming bundles so that way you can keep prices down. Most aren't attracted by the bundles anyway since not everyone is interested in playing those games. For example some people don't like FPS.

Then go on to release the lower segments 8700 .
8790 = 7870 ghz , for $200
8770 = 7850 , for $150
8750 = 7790 , for $120

Ignore lower end gpus, with APUs and Integrated graphics improving so much, it's almost pointless to continue releasing such low end discreet graphics.

Now here is the knockout blow release the 8900 parts.

8970 > gtx 770 , for $430
8950 = gtx 770 , for $380

then later on release a 8930 card, like what they did with the 7870 xt.

This is all wishful thinking, and it'll most likely not turn out like this. Even then, I'm running an overclocked 7870 XT, so I wouldn't upgrade to any of these. I only upgrade if I'm going to get an 70% performance boost over the card I currently have, at the $250 dollar price point.

Went from a Radeon hd 4670, to a 5770, to a 560 ti O.C. , to my Myst. The Myst was an exeption because It was a gift, if not, I'd still be running the 560 ti.

I don't think they should try to compete with Titan or 780. It doesn't seem cost-effective to me. Instead, Improve your CFX and sell the idea of doing it more. Crossfire 8870s should outperform a gtx 780. For much less.
 
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Well first off, I'd assume that they would release Volcanic Islands as 9xxx series, due to the 8000 series rebadge that they did.

But all names aside, I would be pretty happy if the 8970/9970 turned out to be $430 and better than the Titan by 20-30%. I have a feeling that AMD would release it closer to the 7970's original price point, however, being the first ones to release a new architecture on a new chip.

I'm not sure if they would combat the Titan/780, as I don't know what a larger die versus a smaller wafer would end up looking like, performance-wise. I guess it would make sense if AMD stuck with their current trend of die sizes and release something on a new architecture with similar performance of a Titan for much less money, like $400-$500. Although I'm really wanting to say that the 20nm wafer + GCN 2.0 would push its performance to be better than a Titan. I'm basing this off of the 6xxx series vs the 7xxx series, where there was quite a big improvement.

Ideally one always wishes for AMD to improve their driver/Crossfire support, but I don't see anything that would point to them making a larger effort to improve this time around, ex. not even trying with APU dual graphics anymore and releasing the 7990 an entire year later and then still not improving it.

On that note, I think dual graphics could be really cool if done well. Ie. Kaveri has 7750 performance, pair that up with an actual 7750, get the performance of 7870+ for like $150 + $100. With that, possibly no more use to produce low-end cards?
Would make for an interesting budget ITX build IMO
 

ismaeljrp

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Yeah man, the time-frame they are looking at releasing there stuff should mean great performance-per-dollar. But as you said I guess, it would depend highly on yields, which is something I'm not very knowledgeable about. That APU+GPU combo idea is really good.
 
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So when do you think the next gen AMD cards will come out? And will they be 28nm or 20nm?

My wishful thinking: AMD Volcanic Islands 9xxx series 20nm available Q4
 

ismaeljrp

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Every rumor , and slides from AMD themselves point towards a 1rst qtr 2014. AMD is really busy with the console business they have going, I think that is playing a huge role considering the launches are in just a few months. I think they'll reveal the first GPUs no earlier than a month after the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One. So maybe November or December. I think it'll be 20nm considering 28nm is pretty limiting already.
 

XavierXonora

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I believe they will announce it late in Q4 and release the first cards in Q1.
Also there is a new naming convention http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/59865-next-gen-radeon-series-use-new-nomenclature/
so we wont be seeing any 9970's or 9750's.
Should be 20nm though