That's actually a good point, I know people may be used to that, but going forward, it would cause less confusion, especially when AMD releases its own info.
Maybe they are trying to be consistent with historical terminology? I mean, they used the term "4th gen" GCN in the Polaris reveal article earlier this year, so Ryan is obviously aware of it.
Because this naming makes sense, and AMD are "consistently inconsistent" with their naming, and will (as the article shows) rename the same products for the sake of a higher number.
With this naming, I know which support freesync, trueaudio, etc.
Well, while I was hoping Polaris would fill up most of the M400 series lineup, I guess this isn't totally unexpected. Similar to when Maxwell was first launching for Nvidia, I guess.
Yeah, I'm surprised that there are so many rebrands on the mobile side. I figured at least the top end stuff would use Polaris. I mean, Polaris 10 could surely be reined in to 100W MXM-B gaming stuff and Polaris 11 could definitely fit into 50W MXM-A as well as most mid-range discrete stuff.
@ImSpartacus: "Yeah, I'm surprised that there are so many rebrands on the mobile side."
Not really that surprising to me. OEMs demand new chips on a yearly cadence and AMD isn't quite ready to give them Polaris (at least not in enough quantity to fill out the line up). Neither AMD nor nVidia really want to respin any chips on the 28nm node so simply rebadging existing chips makes some sense. I don't take as much issue with the rebadged naming on laptop chips as desktop chips since they can't be directly purchased by end consumers and the same OEMs demanding the chips are the ones that usually look bad (to the average consumer) if their product doesn't meet expectations. I do, however, wish AMD would have done away with GCN 1.0 parts altogether this generation. It would have been nice to go all GCN 1.2 or better, but the GCN 1.1 + GCN 1.0 parts do fill a pretty large gap in their lineup even if they only make up 3 SKUs. I'm also a firm believer that if you are going to do a rebadge, then you should move the chip down the product stack. The R9 lineup here did this fine. They really needed to pull the bottom two SKU's from the old lineup entirely out and shift the rest of the lineup down. There are too many SKUs that barely differ and effectively fill the same role in the low/mid-low end to begin with.
The TDP is too high for lower-end chips. Polaris 11 at a 50 TDP or similar would be equivalent in TDP to a Geforce 960M and Polaris 10 at 175W would be higher than Geforce 980M's TDP. Now, AMD will probably produce lower-TDP parts, but they'll be down-clocked to hit those lower TDPs.
With only these two parts AMD would have a hell of a time coming out with lower-end chips with those low TDPs.
In the grand scheme of things, what does it really matter? Most laptops sold don't even need a mobile GPU, they'd be fine running on integrated graphics. The more demanding people, do research and buy exactly what they need weather this will be mobile chips of Polaris or Pascal these days.
What does it matter for users? Just the usual criticisms about deceptive naming, implying a performance boost when some of these recent rebrands are literally the same SKU.
What does it matter for AMD? I don't know, why don't you ask them how they're doing in the mobile market?
I really hate how prevalent rebadging is in the industry these days. It's impossible to keep all the models in your head, I need to google every single time. Very consumer unfriendly. It feels like keeping models opaque is actually _the point_.
Well it's not like you're buying a laptop every single day. When you decide to do you check it and then google around to find what really is in that thing you're possibly buying.
"Consequently, it has become a semi-annual ritual for the GPU vendors to rebadge parts of their lineups to meet the needs of OEMs, shuffling together old and new parts as part of a continuous cycle of upgrades and replacements."
I really think this is a terrible and tasteless artifact of the "free" market system. Most laptop buyers do not visit sites like this, and will easily be trapped in buying the "new" more expensive 4xx series model .
Hopefully the Desktop parts are ALL new Polaris GPU's. I also want and expect all the new GPU's to have 4GB GDDR5x memory, if its $140-150$ or more it should have GDDR5x, it should have 4GB ram and it should be on average 25% faster than the previous generation GPU's at the same price points.
Anything less than that and I'm skipping this generation as well, probably going to buy a $130 chip to freshen up things to move me through this year, possibly the 270x if I can find it and then wait for better options.
You'll get your 4GB of VRAM. Polaris 11 is strongly rumored to have a 128-bit bus, which would use a minimum of four die (one per controller) and the latest in both GDDR5 and GDDR5X have 8Gb (1GB) per die.
And Polaris 10 is generally rumored to sport a 256-bit bus, so it would need twice that amount.
But I'm doubtful that you'll get your 25% perf/$ bump. At least not at launch prices, as the $700 launch 1080 is pretty much flat on perf/$ compared to the 980 Ti.
slickr - I would suggest that Polaris GPUs will see a rough average of around 1.4x performance per SP/CU relative to previous iterations of GCN courtesy of uArch improvements and increased clocks. For the $150 and below market that will likely include a 1280SP/20CU Polaris 11. 1280 x 1.4 = 1792, so you're looking at a performance equivalent of current Tonga with upgraded features and significantly lower power consumption. --- Last thing, I would suggest you go for 260x if purchasing a temp card as it has a much better feature set (Freesync specifically) and is quite a bit cheaper on the second hand market relative to the slight performance disparity.
Prepare for getting a 270x then. There is no way a Gpu under $300 is gonna give you gddr5x this year. Though performance boost of atleast 25% is still quite possible.
I think the 640m was exclusively GK107, while the 920m was exclusively GK208. I think you'd be hard pressed to find an Nvidia GPU that's been rebadged 3+ times, even in ultra low-end mobile where it's a relatively common practice. There's usually a revision or die shrink of some kind, and like you said they typically migrate down the product stack. AMD rebranding most of their lineup so many times while maintaining their relative positions in the stack is really something special... but I also understand why they had to do it.
True. Congrats, you found it. There's also a version of the 630 and 730 that use GK107. However none of that conflicts with any of the points that I made in my previous comment, so...
The cool thing is the average joe doesn't know, so you can buy the "old" cards really cheap or old laptops but their vid cards would be the same as the ones being sold today. Good if you wanted that model but didn't want to pay this year's prices.
It seems most models got bumped down a notch in the numbering regime. So it would seem likely that Polaris will fill in the new gaps at the high end. At least I hope so.
Interesting, so the gaps are Polaris. R9 M480 and R9 M480X are now guaranteed to be Polaris 11. Maybe even M485, though that would be confusing... R9 M490 and M490X are then surely Polaris 10.
I wonder if this also means Polaris 10 yields are good, so there's no need for a heavily cut down part as M485X. Instead, just use Tonga.
On the desktop, Polaris 10 is looking like $200-$300. Polaris 11 taking up $130-$180 or so. But we might just see some Bonaire rebadges in the entry level. That's OK, I guess, Nvidia is still peddling Fermi chips there...
I hope someone hit that warp speed button because that trip to Polaris takes to much time. Not to mention that the Borg(the green color on their ships is no coincidence) just gone transwarp.
Well considering that nvidia said the 1070 will NOT have gddr5x, and thats a $380/$450 card, i would also doubt the amd ~$300 polaris cards having gddr5x.
I think yields on gddr5x have been too poor to expect it mainstreem. And i guess hbm2 is either too expensive or yields have been too poor for that to be mainstream as well.
So, looks like its still gddr5 for mainstream for this generation.
Yields are not the issue with GDDR5x, it is not produced on a brand new process. It is just a brand new product and the supply chains and manufacturing isn't spun up to full speed yet.
I wonder if AMD is gonna skip a number and use the 500 series for the new chips. It's also possible if not likely that amd will never have any new chips in the R5 segment at elast not until they run out of 28nm chips and will only focus on the new R7 and R9 which is what the P10 and P11 will be
Is Topaz really GCN 1.2? Couldn't find a lot of info about it on the web, but it's said to be in the R7 265M, and from my experience with that chip it's not GCN 1.2.
Some of the low end ones don't make sense. The R5 M435 for example looks like it has the same config as the R7 M440 but with GDDR5.
LOL@more RE-BRANDS!!! AMD must be really good at it by now, they don't sell gpus/cpus very often, so they have to re-brand lots of inventory that no one buys! Geez, they should be out of business by now, they have less than 14% of the gpu market currently, and even less of the desktop cpu market.....
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
49 Comments
Back to Article
Alphasite - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Out of interest, why do you guys still ever to them as GCN 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, etc? Would it not be more congruent to use AMD's official naming scheme?AS118 - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
That's actually a good point, I know people may be used to that, but going forward, it would cause less confusion, especially when AMD releases its own info.ImSpartacus - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Maybe they are trying to be consistent with historical terminology? I mean, they used the term "4th gen" GCN in the Polaris reveal article earlier this year, so Ryan is obviously aware of it.Ryan Smith - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Spartacus is correct. At this point I'm being consistent with existing names; Polaris will be GCN4, reflecting AMD's revised naming.farmergann - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
I'd suggest they also change the m465x to Gen3 GCN as it appears to be a mobile dGPU equivalent of Carrizo's GPU.extide - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Uhhh, no. They have it labeled correctly. It is not at all a GCN 3 (1.2) part.rtho782 - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Because this naming makes sense, and AMD are "consistently inconsistent" with their naming, and will (as the article shows) rename the same products for the sake of a higher number.With this naming, I know which support freesync, trueaudio, etc.
AS118 - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Well, while I was hoping Polaris would fill up most of the M400 series lineup, I guess this isn't totally unexpected. Similar to when Maxwell was first launching for Nvidia, I guess.ImSpartacus - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Yeah, I'm surprised that there are so many rebrands on the mobile side. I figured at least the top end stuff would use Polaris. I mean, Polaris 10 could surely be reined in to 100W MXM-B gaming stuff and Polaris 11 could definitely fit into 50W MXM-A as well as most mid-range discrete stuff.extide - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Polaris 10 will be in the R9 M490/x (or possibly 495) series, and Polaris 11 will be the M480/x. You can see they slot in nicely right there.BurntMyBacon - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
@ImSpartacus: "Yeah, I'm surprised that there are so many rebrands on the mobile side."Not really that surprising to me. OEMs demand new chips on a yearly cadence and AMD isn't quite ready to give them Polaris (at least not in enough quantity to fill out the line up). Neither AMD nor nVidia really want to respin any chips on the 28nm node so simply rebadging existing chips makes some sense. I don't take as much issue with the rebadged naming on laptop chips as desktop chips since they can't be directly purchased by end consumers and the same OEMs demanding the chips are the ones that usually look bad (to the average consumer) if their product doesn't meet expectations. I do, however, wish AMD would have done away with GCN 1.0 parts altogether this generation. It would have been nice to go all GCN 1.2 or better, but the GCN 1.1 + GCN 1.0 parts do fill a pretty large gap in their lineup even if they only make up 3 SKUs. I'm also a firm believer that if you are going to do a rebadge, then you should move the chip down the product stack. The R9 lineup here did this fine. They really needed to pull the bottom two SKU's from the old lineup entirely out and shift the rest of the lineup down. There are too many SKUs that barely differ and effectively fill the same role in the low/mid-low end to begin with.
Flunk - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
The TDP is too high for lower-end chips. Polaris 11 at a 50 TDP or similar would be equivalent in TDP to a Geforce 960M and Polaris 10 at 175W would be higher than Geforce 980M's TDP. Now, AMD will probably produce lower-TDP parts, but they'll be down-clocked to hit those lower TDPs.With only these two parts AMD would have a hell of a time coming out with lower-end chips with those low TDPs.
The_Assimilator - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
AMD actually, finally retired Pitcairn? I'm expecting flying pigs any second now.dragonsqrrl - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Ya but unfortunately Cape Verde is still there, now returning for its 3rd rebadge...dragonsqrrl - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
...correction, 4th rebadge on mobile. Incredible.FMinus - Sunday, May 15, 2016 - link
In the grand scheme of things, what does it really matter? Most laptops sold don't even need a mobile GPU, they'd be fine running on integrated graphics. The more demanding people, do research and buy exactly what they need weather this will be mobile chips of Polaris or Pascal these days.dragonsqrrl - Sunday, May 15, 2016 - link
What does it matter for users? Just the usual criticisms about deceptive naming, implying a performance boost when some of these recent rebrands are literally the same SKU.What does it matter for AMD? I don't know, why don't you ask them how they're doing in the mobile market?
schizoide - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
I really hate how prevalent rebadging is in the industry these days. It's impossible to keep all the models in your head, I need to google every single time. Very consumer unfriendly. It feels like keeping models opaque is actually _the point_.FMinus - Sunday, May 15, 2016 - link
Well it's not like you're buying a laptop every single day. When you decide to do you check it and then google around to find what really is in that thing you're possibly buying.jjj - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
The R9 M485X has a 256-bit bus not 128.Ryan Smith - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Thanks.sharath.naik - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
still at 28nm? mobile needs to move to 14nm first.jann5s - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
"Consequently, it has become a semi-annual ritual for the GPU vendors to rebadge parts of their lineups to meet the needs of OEMs, shuffling together old and new parts as part of a continuous cycle of upgrades and replacements."I really think this is a terrible and tasteless artifact of the "free" market system. Most laptop buyers do not visit sites like this, and will easily be trapped in buying the "new" more expensive 4xx series model .
vladx - Sunday, May 15, 2016 - link
Duh, I think that was the whole point.slickr - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Hopefully the Desktop parts are ALL new Polaris GPU's. I also want and expect all the new GPU's to have 4GB GDDR5x memory, if its $140-150$ or more it should have GDDR5x, it should have 4GB ram and it should be on average 25% faster than the previous generation GPU's at the same price points.Anything less than that and I'm skipping this generation as well, probably going to buy a $130 chip to freshen up things to move me through this year, possibly the 270x if I can find it and then wait for better options.
ImSpartacus - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
You'll get your 4GB of VRAM. Polaris 11 is strongly rumored to have a 128-bit bus, which would use a minimum of four die (one per controller) and the latest in both GDDR5 and GDDR5X have 8Gb (1GB) per die.And Polaris 10 is generally rumored to sport a 256-bit bus, so it would need twice that amount.
But I'm doubtful that you'll get your 25% perf/$ bump. At least not at launch prices, as the $700 launch 1080 is pretty much flat on perf/$ compared to the 980 Ti.
farmergann - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
slickr - I would suggest that Polaris GPUs will see a rough average of around 1.4x performance per SP/CU relative to previous iterations of GCN courtesy of uArch improvements and increased clocks. For the $150 and below market that will likely include a 1280SP/20CU Polaris 11. 1280 x 1.4 = 1792, so you're looking at a performance equivalent of current Tonga with upgraded features and significantly lower power consumption.---
Last thing, I would suggest you go for 260x if purchasing a temp card as it has a much better feature set (Freesync specifically) and is quite a bit cheaper on the second hand market relative to the slight performance disparity.
Siddhartha202 - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Prepare for getting a 270x then.There is no way a Gpu under $300 is gonna give you gddr5x this year.
Though performance boost of atleast 25% is still quite possible.
brruno - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
God... Some there are 3/4y old, from HD 7000M / 8000M series..1 rebrand is usual, 2 "acceptable" in some conditions, 4 rebrands its just criminal..
extide - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
nVidia has rebranded some low end fermi parts in 3-4+ generations as well. Even some of the older tesla parts.brruno - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
but they rebrand it to low end ; 640M > 740M > 825M > 920MAMD is rebranding almost their entire line up and keeping it in the same "range" .
HD 8870M -> M270 -> M370 -> M470
OCedHrt - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Uh the 370 became 465 so you can still judge by the last teo digitsbrruno - Sunday, May 15, 2016 - link
465X , not 470 .. yes..Still, minimal diference..
dragonsqrrl - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
I think the 640m was exclusively GK107, while the 920m was exclusively GK208. I think you'd be hard pressed to find an Nvidia GPU that's been rebadged 3+ times, even in ultra low-end mobile where it's a relatively common practice. There's usually a revision or die shrink of some kind, and like you said they typically migrate down the product stack. AMD rebranding most of their lineup so many times while maintaining their relative positions in the stack is really something special... but I also understand why they had to do it.Arnulf - Sunday, May 15, 2016 - link
GeForce GT 730AKA GT 630
AKA GT 530
AKA GT 430
All using GF108, rebranded over four years ...
dragonsqrrl - Sunday, May 15, 2016 - link
True. Congrats, you found it. There's also a version of the 630 and 730 that use GK107. However none of that conflicts with any of the points that I made in my previous comment, so...webdoctors - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
The cool thing is the average joe doesn't know, so you can buy the "old" cards really cheap or old laptops but their vid cards would be the same as the ones being sold today. Good if you wanted that model but didn't want to pay this year's prices.Ej24 - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
It seems most models got bumped down a notch in the numbering regime. So it would seem likely that Polaris will fill in the new gaps at the high end. At least I hope so.trane - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Interesting, so the gaps are Polaris. R9 M480 and R9 M480X are now guaranteed to be Polaris 11. Maybe even M485, though that would be confusing... R9 M490 and M490X are then surely Polaris 10.I wonder if this also means Polaris 10 yields are good, so there's no need for a heavily cut down part as M485X. Instead, just use Tonga.
On the desktop, Polaris 10 is looking like $200-$300. Polaris 11 taking up $130-$180 or so. But we might just see some Bonaire rebadges in the entry level. That's OK, I guess, Nvidia is still peddling Fermi chips there...
BurntMyBacon - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
@trane: "I wonder if this also means Polaris 10 yields are good, so there's no need for a heavily cut down part as M485X. Instead, just use Tonga."Alternately, a cut down Polaris 10 still slots in above this Tonga chip and yields are bad enough that they can't supply two SKUs.
Or, they anticipate enough desktop demand that they won't have the necessary supply to keep up with an extra SKU.
Or, they have a lot of back inventory or R9 M395X chips and they just happen to conveniently slot in between Polaris 11 and Polaris 10.
Or some combination of these four lines of thought. We don't really know.
farmergann - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
The m465x would more or less be a match for Carrizo's Gen3 GCN, no? I'd correct that if I were you guys :)yannigr2 - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
I hope someone hit that warp speed button because that trip to Polaris takes to much time. Not to mention that the Borg(the green color on their ships is no coincidence) just gone transwarp.none12345 - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Well considering that nvidia said the 1070 will NOT have gddr5x, and thats a $380/$450 card, i would also doubt the amd ~$300 polaris cards having gddr5x.I think yields on gddr5x have been too poor to expect it mainstreem. And i guess hbm2 is either too expensive or yields have been too poor for that to be mainstream as well.
So, looks like its still gddr5 for mainstream for this generation.
extide - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
Yields are not the issue with GDDR5x, it is not produced on a brand new process. It is just a brand new product and the supply chains and manufacturing isn't spun up to full speed yet.SunLord - Saturday, May 14, 2016 - link
I wonder if AMD is gonna skip a number and use the 500 series for the new chips. It's also possible if not likely that amd will never have any new chips in the R5 segment at elast not until they run out of 28nm chips and will only focus on the new R7 and R9 which is what the P10 and P11 will beET - Sunday, May 15, 2016 - link
Is Topaz really GCN 1.2? Couldn't find a lot of info about it on the web, but it's said to be in the R7 265M, and from my experience with that chip it's not GCN 1.2.Some of the low end ones don't make sense. The R5 M435 for example looks like it has the same config as the R7 M440 but with GDDR5.
vladx - Sunday, May 15, 2016 - link
I really think Polaris will be M5xx, but knowing AMD they'll probably try to confuse consumers even more.vladx - Sunday, May 15, 2016 - link
Disgusting stuff from AMD, really.SeanJ76 - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
LOL@more RE-BRANDS!!!AMD must be really good at it by now, they don't sell gpus/cpus very often, so they have to re-brand lots of inventory that no one buys! Geez, they should be out of business by now, they have less than 14% of the gpu market currently, and even less of the desktop cpu market.....