AMD Radeon 300 series graphics cards rumour roundup

[Nelly.]

8GB of ram is still mainly E-peen.

Im sure 8gb variants will show up fast enough.

Yeah, I would be alright with 4GB at 1200P, but looking to go with a 1440P FreeSync screen when they are readily available, so I will go with a pair of 8GB cards when they're available.

I just hope we don't have to wait too long for 390X 8GB's, will be a big upgrade year for me, Skylake / DDR4 / 500GB+ SSD / 1000W PSU as well.

[scaryjim]

... I'm sure 8gb variants will show up fast enough.

They won't until 2nd Gen HBM is released, as the maximum density on a stack (afaik) is currently 1GB, and (also afaik) you can't just add extra stacks - the stacks of HBM are actually baked on to a common substrate with the GPU, rather than being connected by conventional traces.

In fact, it's going to be increasingly hard for vendors to differentiate their products as the silicon gets more and more integrated - everything will be down to what AMD choose to churn out of the fabs...

[DanceswithUnix]

I presume if they want FirePro versions of the cards, then that will have to be 8GB.

[shaithis]

They won't until 2nd Gen HBM is released, as the maximum density on a stack (afaik) is currently 1GB, and (also afaik) you can't just add extra stacks - the stacks of HBM are actually baked on to a common substrate with the GPU, rather than being connected by conventional traces.

In fact, it's going to be increasingly hard for vendors to differentiate their products as the silicon gets more and more integrated - everything will be down to what AMD choose to churn out of the fabs...

Either that or OEMs will be buying capacity from fabs!

[bae85]

Another rebadge. C'mon AMD it's wearing a little thin. No fanboism here, I have a 6950 that I want an excuse to upgrade, but I have never, and probably will never, spend more than £200 on a GPU. Looking at this, seems there's little chance of either of the actually new cards coming in anywhere near that, which is something I don't understand since my 6950 was £190 a few months after release and that was a second-rung card that could be unlocked (pretty much) to the top tier 6970. What's with the inflation in the GPU market?

I bought one of the original 6950's, which I unlocked and is running as a 6970. I've had it nearly 4 years and I'm waiting for the 3xx series to come out so I can get a 290x cheaper when they drop the prices to get rid of the 'old' stock even if the 380 will be a rebadged 290 that's good enough for me!

[kamas]

get 970 and forget about this :-)

[kalniel]

get 970 and forget about this :-)

Why would you do that, if you didn't need a card right now?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It would be nice if AMD actually made shorter reference PCBs.

[Kumagawa]

Another rebadge. C'mon AMD it's wearing a little thin. No fanboism here, I have a 6950 that I want an excuse to upgrade, but I have never, and probably will never, spend more than £200 on a GPU. Looking at this, seems there's little chance of either of the actually new cards coming in anywhere near that, which is something I don't understand since my 6950 was £190 a few months after release and that was a second-rung card that could be unlocked (pretty much) to the top tier 6970. What's with the inflation in the GPU market?

90nm - October 5, 2005
80nm - October 17, 2006 ( 12 months+ )
65nm - July 11, 2007 ( 9 months- )
55nm - November 15, 2007 ( 4 months+ )
40nm - April 29, 2009 ( 17 months+ )
28nm - January 2, 2012 ( 30 months+ )
20nm - 37 months+ (as of 09 February 2015)

It may have something to do with the fact they have been stuck on 28nm for over 3 years.

[lotonero]

3D CENTER are just doing speculations comparing the r200 series to the hd 7000 series.
But AMD just stated several months ago that the new line of GPU/CPU will be at 20nm or 14nm contruction manufactoring, so those chips in r300 series wont be anywhere a rebranding of the r200 series.
This speculation only damage the AMD marketing strategy over NVIDIA company.
R300 series will crunch up quite well Nvidia, especially in the range of price/performance.
At this moment NVIDIA is quite being flamed for they're gtx970 memory issues and gtx 970/980 coil whine issues and customers are just waiting to put hands on AMD new graphic cards.
And i speak as an owned of a r9 290 vapor-x, one of the best card in the market. I'll be quite envious of who can buy next generation AMD products thou ...

[hexuqito]

Give me before June a 380 or 380x faster than the crippled 970 or the 290 with decent temperatures and noise short for a mini itx system and I'll gladly buy it.

[kalniel]

But AMD just stated several months ago that the new line of GPU/CPU will be at 20nm or 14nm contruction manufactoring, so those chips in r300 series wont be anywhere a rebranding of the r200 series.

1) plans can change
2) they may have worded it very carefully - 'new line' may mean precisely only the new chips, allowing room for them to rebrand existing chips as part of a R300 series with or without the pirate islands chips.

R300 series will crunch up quite well Nvidia, especially in the range of price/performance.

That's kind of a given, because AMD have no alternative but to price cards lower if they perform worse.

customers are just waiting to put hands on AMD new graphic cards.

Sadly, that's just speculation and not what the sales figures are showing.

[Valantar]

It really is no wonder that AMD is losing market share when they seem not to grasp that consumers unable to afford the highest-end cards want actual new tech, not just rebranded old tech with a price cut. I get that R&D is expensive, but given that they can make an all new high end chip design at 300W/$500 (the numbers are of course pure guesswork, but hopefully not too far off given the rumors), how hard could it be to scale this chip design down to, say 250/200/150w and $350, $250 and $150? I haven't owned an Nvidia GPU as long as I've owned my own PCs, but if AMDs answer to the GTX 970 is a rebranded, overclocked and price-cut 290X, I'm headed to the green camp. And yes, I get that HBM is expensive, but (given that the above table is correct), the gap between the 380 and 390 series is WAY too big. How about a cut-down core + 512-bit HBM?

[kalniel]

but if AMDs answer to the GTX 970 is a rebranded, overclocked and price-cut 290X, I'm headed to the green camp.

Where they've never done the same...

[6ixty]

VERY excited. Might upgrade!

[ekamdeep]

i dont think we will need 8gb ram that high bandwidth