With Polaris looking to only be mid-range parts, I am hoping for a strong Zen CPU release, so I can build my 10 year anniversary AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU system.
Polaris 10 is actually better for me, I don't buy $400 ish and up GPUs. $200-250 range typically. With that being said, they are working on larger die GPUs based on the new GCN arch as well, such as Vega + HBM2. They're just tackling the broader market first with mobile / entry level desktop discrete (Polaris 11) and mid-range DT discrete (10). Both manufacturers are going to have to slash prices on their last gen hardware in a big way.
Zen will start more on the higher-end though, it appears. They seem focused on getting that out the door in a CPU-only configuration first, rather than rushing out APUs. That's probably not a bad plan, assuming Zen is fairly competitive, as they really need to recapture mindshare on the CPU side to a much greater extent. For mainstream APUs they've got Bristol Ridge for now, and that buys them time to work on Zen-based APUs that will span a wider range. If they eventually integrate HBM2 with some of their APUs, that will make things interesting.
Another +1. Pretty much anyone knows their own local timezone's offset from UTC. If times are posted just as PST/EST, then anyone outside the US not only has to go and look up that offset, they also need to figure out whether the US is or is not in Daylight Savings time, which does not start/end on the same day worldwide.
While I totally agree with you that the use of UTC time would better, they're probably just copying the information they received. Most companies in north America will send you time based on the EST/PST version, not in UTC.
Also, if it help you in the future, D, as in EDT/PDT means daytime, and S, as in EST/PST, means standard time.
Another thing is that many people have a bad tendency to use "PST" "EST" etc. even during daylight savings time. It's not correct, but despite that it's very common.
Maybe because one person who writes the article googling it (assuming they really need to) is a lot more helpful than hundreds of readers all having to google it individually.
We may not get the launch until E3. I'm going to wait till all the graphics cards are revealed this year before making a decision on my purchase, but I'd be lying if I said I was happy to wait for details.
They better not mess this up like they did with the first 28nm parts. It would be suicidal if they try to offer next to no perf gains again. 40% perf per $ gain is fine, 10-20% is not and will just give a huge boost to Nvidia over the next years, just like last time.
Well, all the info we have so far suggests that the most powerful Polaris card will be similar to performance to a Radeon 290x. Even if it does compete with the Fury it will probably be outmatched by the Geforce 1070 to they'll have to price it below that.
I was disappointed with that at first, but keep in mind all of those "Polaris 10 with 290X performance" were claiming "7Gbps GDDR5X" which to my knowledge doesn't exist, so they could be total nonsense.
Yes, Polaris is middle range GPU and be priced accordingly. 1080 is high end and is priced accordingly. Big AMD will come next year, like big Nvidia also. The Polaris, will be super nice in HTPC environment and other situations that requires low energy products! And still deliver reasonable punch to the games.
I'm curious what range the new chips will fall in, right now nVidia has the high end so a launch in the mid-high range would carve out a market for AMD and allow new mobile offerings. From the timing being just before WWDC I'm expecting offerings appropriate for an rMBP and iMac refresh.
Are 14nm mobile APUs coming this year? They should finally provide some competition to Intel in notebooks, at least in the TDP front, but it won't be until Zen when they can be more competitive on the performance front.
Their roadmap seems to indicate for 14nm that it's Zen first, APUs second. I guess they (a) wanted to start grabbing server market as quickly as possible and (b) wanted to make sure Polaris was bedded in and any teething problems resolved first before integrating it with a CPU.
But who knows for sure. You _might_ see 14nm APUs this year, but I think early next. We'll almost certainly see Polaris in laptops this year, though.
"With Raja Koduri set to present, it’s very likely that this will be the formal Polaris launch event."
Is it really? Raj put on a whole dog and pony show at Capsaicin that turned out to be a study in the fact that he likes spicy food. Which is nice & all but isn't exactly a launch of a new GPU.
What concerns me is that less than 2 weeks out from Computex there have been exactly ZERO leaks of pictures of actual Polaris boards from AIBs. You couldn't throw a rock and miss specific rumors, die shots, shroud shots, etc. of Pascal going way back, but with Polaris, there's practically nothing. If June 1st is a "launch" of Polaris then it will be of the paper variety.
Hi, me too, i found it unusual that there are no leaks, nothing which will not be good if AMD is effectively doing just paper lunch with products coming only two months after.
No website got some new hardware that they have NDA on from AMD?
PS4K production should be ramping up full speed, if we trust French site leak that it's to be there in Oct this year. (makes sense, due to expected VR launch)
I think things have been unusually quiet as well. It worries me a bit that they've had technical or manufacturing issues, it's clocking too low, etc. But we'll see. If it gets 290x performance and is quiet and low power for a reasonable price, I'd still be tempted to get a couple for my kids.
"Given the timing, we should also get an update on AMD’s mobile GPU plans."
Given the hype they've given Polaris (low power) I'd assume that would mean plenty of Polaris things, and the new APU as well. A better question would be if they had any desktop plans as well. They've abandoned desktop CPUs since 45nm, and the "low power" hype doesn't imply any effort for desktop GPUs (even though that seems to be where the high margin parts are, at least the retail upgrade parts).
/sad member of the AMD cheering section is sad. Missed opportunities and low revenue will do that to a company.
When is AMD going 14nm for their APUs. They will never be competitive until they do. But I believe once they do, The CPU speed disadvantage they have over Intel will not matter for mobile if the Efficiency is comparable, and the iGPU will be just be good enough to play any games. AMD does need HBM for the APUs for this.
As far as leaks and news reports, next year will be 14nm APU's, and this year, we'll see 28nm APU's with DDR4 ram on the new AM4 motherboards. I feel like 14nm Zen/Polaris with DDR4 will be nice, and if they package HBM with APU's, we may see some impressive feats.
What's the definition of the mid-tier area? I'm guessing that's the $200-300 segment? Right now that seems to be the GTX970 or 290X. If a new part is the same performance, that'll be great. The mid-tier seems to be a weird area because you're competing with so many old cards, the 290 series which is like 3 years old, the 970 which is a year, the 1060? which will be new and than whatever SKU Polaris will have. First time in awhile we're getting a nice jump in performance.
AMD has lost the game. It is always late, and always falls short no matter what. It is already a given that AMD is going to set Polaris's top chip against NVIDIA'S 1060 and charge the price of a 1080 for it because it is has a TDP lower than a 1070 by 10 watts, while shouting what a great product Vega will be when it is launched, which is probably going to be after NVIDIA has move to 7 nm process and does not give a damn anyway about what AMD says or does. AMD is done. No point in waiting for anything from AMD.
Polaris is not late. It has always been announced and expected as "mid 2016". The top Polaris chip is expected to be priced at half the cost of the gtx 1080 at around $300 US . It is not a competitor for the 1080 . That is where Vega is positioned and expected later this year . As for process nodes Samsung/AMD have a lead at 10 nm over even intel . TSMC haven't even managed 14 nm. Anything else you do not understand?
Well, let's hope that: - Polaris 10 will be available on July 1st in volume... - GloFo's Samsung 14nm is better or at least on par with TSMC's 16 nm (remember iPhone debate)... - there will be one variant with DDR5X... - price will be REALLY competitive for the given performance...
If any of the above isn't true, AMD will have a hell of a year regarding GPUs.
- It doesn't need to be available in volume. (neither 1080 is and 1070 is quite away and both are FE => crappy designs that tends to throttle AND hefty price premium) - Agreed - Entire 3xx lineup is competitive perf/price wise, I don't see how 4xx would be different
What is more likely, though, that we won't see any direct competition any time soon. E.g.:
AMD - nVidia
Sub 200$: 470 - ? Sub 300$: 480/480x - ? Sub 500$: 1070 - ? Sub 700$: 1080 - ? 1k: ? - ?
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PsychoPif - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
I'm going to be buying a new PC for back to school. Let's hope the parts are avaible this summer or I'll have to go Intel + NVidiaSttm - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
With Polaris looking to only be mid-range parts, I am hoping for a strong Zen CPU release, so I can build my 10 year anniversary AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU system.Alexvrb - Sunday, May 22, 2016 - link
Polaris 10 is actually better for me, I don't buy $400 ish and up GPUs. $200-250 range typically. With that being said, they are working on larger die GPUs based on the new GCN arch as well, such as Vega + HBM2. They're just tackling the broader market first with mobile / entry level desktop discrete (Polaris 11) and mid-range DT discrete (10). Both manufacturers are going to have to slash prices on their last gen hardware in a big way.Zen will start more on the higher-end though, it appears. They seem focused on getting that out the door in a CPU-only configuration first, rather than rushing out APUs. That's probably not a bad plan, assuming Zen is fairly competitive, as they really need to recapture mindshare on the CPU side to a much greater extent. For mainstream APUs they've got Bristol Ridge for now, and that buys them time to work on Zen-based APUs that will span a wider range. If they eventually integrate HBM2 with some of their APUs, that will make things interesting.
hans_ober - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Please post timings in the form of UTC. Makes it easier to read.>The event will begin on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 at 10:00 AM CST / 10:00 PM EDT.
As per AMD.
AndrewJacksonZA - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
+1 for UTC please.edzieba - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Another +1. Pretty much anyone knows their own local timezone's offset from UTC. If times are posted just as PST/EST, then anyone outside the US not only has to go and look up that offset, they also need to figure out whether the US is or is not in Daylight Savings time, which does not start/end on the same day worldwide.Le Québécois - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
While I totally agree with you that the use of UTC time would better, they're probably just copying the information they received. Most companies in north America will send you time based on the EST/PST version, not in UTC.Also, if it help you in the future, D, as in EDT/PDT means daytime, and S, as in EST/PST, means standard time.
Arnulf - Saturday, May 21, 2016 - link
The thing is not every country in the world switches to/from daylight savings time on the same day of the year.US is (once again) a notorious exception in this regard, 14 days off compared to most other countries that undergo DST switchover.
barleyguy - Sunday, May 22, 2016 - link
Another thing is that many people have a bad tendency to use "PST" "EST" etc. even during daylight savings time. It's not correct, but despite that it's very common.darcotech - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
+1 Yes, please use UTC format, Anandtech is global website, right? Thanksh4rm0ny - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Yes! Please do UTC!Sttm - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
It's 40 rods to the hog's head and that's the way I likes it!Why don't you just Google it yourself?
h4rm0ny - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Maybe because one person who writes the article googling it (assuming they really need to) is a lot more helpful than hundreds of readers all having to google it individually.barleyguy - Sunday, May 22, 2016 - link
Less educational though. ;-)khon - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Very interesting. Personally I am hoping for a midrange card (~250-300$) with performance around the level of the current R9 Fury.tarqsharq - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
We may not get the launch until E3. I'm going to wait till all the graphics cards are revealed this year before making a decision on my purchase, but I'd be lying if I said I was happy to wait for details.Flunk - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
After GTX 1080 launches you might very well get an R9 Fury for $250.AndrewJacksonZA - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Now *THAT* would be a very tempting deal!Cellar Door - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
More like Fury X to be honest - if they want to get any market share back or let alone keep their current one.mrvco - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
I'm hoping for Fury performance in the mid $200's. I'll be curious to see how CF Polaris cards compare to single 1070 and 1080 cards as well.medi03 - Sunday, May 22, 2016 - link
1070 which is likely in that area costs 449$.jjj - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
They better not mess this up like they did with the first 28nm parts. It would be suicidal if they try to offer next to no perf gains again. 40% perf per $ gain is fine, 10-20% is not and will just give a huge boost to Nvidia over the next years, just like last time.Flunk - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Well, all the info we have so far suggests that the most powerful Polaris card will be similar to performance to a Radeon 290x. Even if it does compete with the Fury it will probably be outmatched by the Geforce 1070 to they'll have to price it below that.jjj - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
It doesn't matter how it performs as long as perf per dollar is exciting.Drumsticks - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
I was disappointed with that at first, but keep in mind all of those "Polaris 10 with 290X performance" were claiming "7Gbps GDDR5X" which to my knowledge doesn't exist, so they could be total nonsense.tarqsharq - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
I'm hoping all we've seen so far have been downclocked engineering samples and cut down mobile parts.I'm looking for 2560 SPs, 40 CUs, 8gb of 10Gbps GDDR5X clocked close to 1.5ghz (preferably more) for the top tier Polaris.
A man can dream.
haukionkannel - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Yes, Polaris is middle range GPU and be priced accordingly. 1080 is high end and is priced accordingly. Big AMD will come next year, like big Nvidia also.The Polaris, will be super nice in HTPC environment and other situations that requires low energy products! And still deliver reasonable punch to the games.
mdriftmeyer - Saturday, May 21, 2016 - link
No it doesn't. It's a mid-level card for under $300 that is a 390/390X performance at a considerable power drop.frostyfiredude - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
I'm curious what range the new chips will fall in, right now nVidia has the high end so a launch in the mid-high range would carve out a market for AMD and allow new mobile offerings. From the timing being just before WWDC I'm expecting offerings appropriate for an rMBP and iMac refresh.darcotech - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Yes, me too, I am hoping for new mobile dGPU for Macbook Pro retina.Krysto - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Are 14nm mobile APUs coming this year? They should finally provide some competition to Intel in notebooks, at least in the TDP front, but it won't be until Zen when they can be more competitive on the performance front.h4rm0ny - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Their roadmap seems to indicate for 14nm that it's Zen first, APUs second. I guess they (a) wanted to start grabbing server market as quickly as possible and (b) wanted to make sure Polaris was bedded in and any teething problems resolved first before integrating it with a CPU.But who knows for sure. You _might_ see 14nm APUs this year, but I think early next. We'll almost certainly see Polaris in laptops this year, though.
Arnulf - Saturday, May 21, 2016 - link
No, Raven Ridge (first 14nm APU, using Zen cores) is scheduled for H1 2017.CajunArson - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
"With Raja Koduri set to present, it’s very likely that this will be the formal Polaris launch event."Is it really? Raj put on a whole dog and pony show at Capsaicin that turned out to be a study in the fact that he likes spicy food. Which is nice & all but isn't exactly a launch of a new GPU.
What concerns me is that less than 2 weeks out from Computex there have been exactly ZERO leaks of pictures of actual Polaris boards from AIBs. You couldn't throw a rock and miss specific rumors, die shots, shroud shots, etc. of Pascal going way back, but with Polaris, there's practically nothing. If June 1st is a "launch" of Polaris then it will be of the paper variety.
darcotech - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Hi, me too, i found it unusual that there are no leaks, nothing which will not be good if AMD is effectively doing just paper lunch with products coming only two months after.No website got some new hardware that they have NDA on from AMD?
beck2050 - Sunday, May 29, 2016 - link
AIB partners don't have the chips yet.Kvaern1 - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Do Global Foundries have anything else 14nm on the market yet?HighTech4US - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
Note the words from AMD about Polaris are: "Polaris updates"http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/comp...
That doesn't sound like a launch is happening at Computex.
The supporting Polaris document also has a title of "Discover the Polaris architecture".
http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-tech...
medi03 - Sunday, May 22, 2016 - link
PS4K production should be ramping up full speed, if we trust French site leak that it's to be there in Oct this year. (makes sense, due to expected VR launch)andrewaggb - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
I think things have been unusually quiet as well. It worries me a bit that they've had technical or manufacturing issues, it's clocking too low, etc. But we'll see. If it gets 290x performance and is quiet and low power for a reasonable price, I'd still be tempted to get a couple for my kids.wumpus - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
"Given the timing, we should also get an update on AMD’s mobile GPU plans."Given the hype they've given Polaris (low power) I'd assume that would mean plenty of Polaris things, and the new APU as well. A better question would be if they had any desktop plans as well. They've abandoned desktop CPUs since 45nm, and the "low power" hype doesn't imply any effort for desktop GPUs (even though that seems to be where the high margin parts are, at least the retail upgrade parts).
/sad member of the AMD cheering section is sad. Missed opportunities and low revenue will do that to a company.
sharath.naik - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
When is AMD going 14nm for their APUs. They will never be competitive until they do. But I believe once they do, The CPU speed disadvantage they have over Intel will not matter for mobile if the Efficiency is comparable, and the iGPU will be just be good enough to play any games. AMD does need HBM for the APUs for this.AS118 - Saturday, May 21, 2016 - link
As far as leaks and news reports, next year will be 14nm APU's, and this year, we'll see 28nm APU's with DDR4 ram on the new AM4 motherboards. I feel like 14nm Zen/Polaris with DDR4 will be nice, and if they package HBM with APU's, we may see some impressive feats.webdoctors - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
What's the definition of the mid-tier area? I'm guessing that's the $200-300 segment? Right now that seems to be the GTX970 or 290X. If a new part is the same performance, that'll be great. The mid-tier seems to be a weird area because you're competing with so many old cards, the 290 series which is like 3 years old, the 970 which is a year, the 1060? which will be new and than whatever SKU Polaris will have. First time in awhile we're getting a nice jump in performance.medi03 - Sunday, May 22, 2016 - link
390x wipes the floor with 970.390 is on par with 970. (nearly 100$ cheaper than 390x)
ShatteredStatistics - Saturday, May 21, 2016 - link
Evil Geniuses getting a nice AMD sponsorship deal.http://www.legitreviews.com/evil-geniuses-announce...
versesuvius - Sunday, May 22, 2016 - link
AMD has lost the game. It is always late, and always falls short no matter what. It is already a given that AMD is going to set Polaris's top chip against NVIDIA'S 1060 and charge the price of a 1080 for it because it is has a TDP lower than a 1070 by 10 watts, while shouting what a great product Vega will be when it is launched, which is probably going to be after NVIDIA has move to 7 nm process and does not give a damn anyway about what AMD says or does. AMD is done. No point in waiting for anything from AMD.Outlander_04 - Sunday, May 22, 2016 - link
Polaris is not late. It has always been announced and expected as "mid 2016".The top Polaris chip is expected to be priced at half the cost of the gtx 1080 at around $300 US . It is not a competitor for the 1080 . That is where Vega is positioned and expected later this year .
As for process nodes Samsung/AMD have a lead at 10 nm over even intel . TSMC haven't even managed 14 nm.
Anything else you do not understand?
Mugur - Monday, May 23, 2016 - link
Well, let's hope that:- Polaris 10 will be available on July 1st in volume...
- GloFo's Samsung 14nm is better or at least on par with TSMC's 16 nm (remember iPhone debate)...
- there will be one variant with DDR5X...
- price will be REALLY competitive for the given performance...
If any of the above isn't true, AMD will have a hell of a year regarding GPUs.
medi03 - Wednesday, May 25, 2016 - link
- It doesn't need to be available in volume. (neither 1080 is and 1070 is quite away and both are FE => crappy designs that tends to throttle AND hefty price premium)- Agreed
- Entire 3xx lineup is competitive perf/price wise, I don't see how 4xx would be different
What is more likely, though, that we won't see any direct competition any time soon. E.g.:
AMD - nVidia
Sub 200$: 470 - ?
Sub 300$: 480/480x - ?
Sub 500$: 1070 - ?
Sub 700$: 1080 - ?
1k: ? - ?