AMD Discloses 2013 GPU Roadmap - No new cards?

[caveman-jim]

Japanese site 4Gamer.net has new information about AMD's desktop GPU plans for 2013, here's a link to the translated article

They have two slides that show AMD's positioning for 2013:

AMD are currently promoting their AMD Radeon HD 7800 and HD 7900 series with the Never Settle Reloaded marketing campaign, which runs from now until the end of December 2013 - or until the keys run out.

So what's going on here, are AMD not planning a 28nm desktop refresh this year? The mobility series has been updated with GCN based Solar System on the notebook line. What about Sea Islands, the codename (CI) of the replacement for the Southern Islands series? Is it still a 28nm update or is it being abandoned in favor of waiting for Volcanic Islands?

Will AMD relinquish the single GPU and fastest graphics card crown in 2013 with no answer? NVIDIA's Titan looks set to launch before the end of February, taking the fastest GPU crown - albeit at dual-GPU card money - and the GTX 690 is unopposed except for unofficial AMD models made by partners. What we've heard is that the next GPU release is due some time after Computex, before then we'll see only APU's from AMD in the form of an update to Trinity named Richland, and then later in the year we'll see Kaveri, Kabini and the spanky new desktop GPU's.

Another less likely possibility is that AMD and GlobalFoundries are working toward bringing forward 22nm, and the decision to stretch the Southern Islands cards publicly while privately prepping for Sea Islands in Q3 is a hedge bet against the possibility of Volcanic Islands being ready for volume shipping early, and AMD are buying time to find out which way the stormy seas are blowing.

Are the Southern Island cards are the last series of discrete GPU's, AMD are exiting the desktop discrete market and concentrating on cloud, tablet and mobility business? This seems unlikely as the cloud products can be turned into desktop products (or vice versa, as traditionally seen), and there are an awful lot of non-AMD processor based systems out there that need discrete GPU's - will AMD just hand that over to NVIDIA? Finally, if AMD really are not refreshing this year they just gave all the business to NVIDIA if they can scrape together any kind of response together. Even if they had no refresh planned, telling everyone makes little sense unless it's not really true and AMD do have a refresh planned, this is just to give consumer confidence a boost so people don't wait for new cards instead of buying existing inventory.

Right now my bet is that there is a Sea Islands refresh, it's coming Q3, the current Promotion - and this news - marketing to ensure low inventory levels and keep the pressure on NVIDIA as NVIDIA take back the single GPU performance crown.

[smokecloudx]

AMD is up to something i dont know what it is but if this is true then nvidia will take the crown for sure

[noko]

Good questions.

Is there a real need for a slightly faster card? At 28nm can AMD add more stuff and keep the power requirements reasonable? More importantly can Nvidia? I am thinking the small gains may just not be worth it and putting the next true generation on the hot burner for a faster launch might be more prudent. In addition AMD can always use performance/$ matrix to keep sells up.

Then who really needs this in the first place? Of course for the few that want some very high multi monitor resolutions with IQ settings that don't exist could use something way faster but that is a rather puny group but with some rather loud mouths though.

[Redeemed]

Lot of good points here.

I'm really interested. Right now we're at a point where, except for the bleeding-edge-uber-high-end, current top-end GPUs can play pretty much every game at single monitor resolutions with relative ease.

Maybe AMD is merely going to introduce some minor refreshes to the 7000 series and concede the bleeding edge high-end to nVidia. Or officially release a 7990 to compete with Titan, drop the 7970 but keep the GHz and Boost editions to compete with the 680, maybe introduce a 7950 GHz edition w/boos to compete w/ the 670, officially release the 7870XT and drop the regular 7870, current 7870s could be rebranded as 7850XT GHz editions, current 7850s could become 7790s, 7770s could become 7750s, or something along those lines. Adjust prices accordingly to remain competitive in each performance category and then just wait till 22nm for Volcanic Islands.

Purely guessing with all that.

[caveman-jim]

Originally Posted by Redeemed

Lot of good points here.

I'm really interested. Right now we're at a point where, except for the bleeding-edge-uber-high-end, current top-end GPUs can play pretty much every game at single monitor resolutions with relative ease.

Maybe AMD is merely going to introduce some minor refreshes to the 7000 series and concede the bleeding edge high-end to nVidia. Or officially release a 7990 to compete with Titan, drop the 7970 but keep the GHz and Boost editions to compete with the 680, maybe introduce a 7950 GHz edition w/boos to compete w/ the 670, officially release the 7870XT and drop the regular 7870, current 7870s could be rebranded as 7850XT GHz editions, current 7850s could become 7790s, 7770s could become 7750s, or something along those lines. Adjust prices accordingly to remain competitive in each performance category and then just wait till 22nm for Volcanic Islands.

Purely guessing with all that.

If Titan intro's at $899 then there's no need to adjust any pricing.

[KAC]

Pricing has already been adjusted. 7970s were selling for 350 boners with 2 top end games to come out this year. You can't do better than that on the price. Especially given nVidia hasn't improved anything with 670s running at 369 a pop for reference designs, I don't think it is AMD that needs to do much.

[Redeemed]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

If Titan intro's at $899 then there's no need to adjust any pricing.

And another good point.

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by noko

Good questions.

Then who really needs this in the first place? Of course for the few that want some very high multi monitor resolutions with IQ settings that don't exist could use something way faster but that is a rather puny group but with some rather loud mouths though.

That's me right there...


In any case, since i've already mentioned that my next GPU upgrade would be with processors using the 22nm process, maybe AMD's product that will end using that process is going extremely well, and there's no point of a 28nm refresh part if it's life expectency is only ~6 months.


Add that it's no secret that both the PS4 and xbox 720 are going to be using AMD GPU's and CPU's, and it's going to put a lot of manufacturing pressure on TSMC and it's 28nm process since they both need a lot of volume, so there wouldn't be much capacity left over for discrete high end video cards anyhow.


It'll be a record for me if the new cards really do get released by the end of the year, as the HD7970's will almost be 2 years old, wich is rare i keep hardware that long, but with the long hours put in at work, i have much less time to game anyhow....

[badsykes]

Still on HD6950 moded in 6970 ... I don't know why but i smell a crossfire for first time.The 6900 series cards will be very very cheap on second hand market..

[bill dennison]

I hope it not true

my 7970's have been in for almost a full year their going to make me take them out and clean them and then put them back in the same system
have not done that in years since the 2900's , they are messing up my whole replacement cycle


in all seriousness I was hoping to cut down to one card in the ati system to cut the heat in the room down
was hoping for a card 25% to 45% faster than the 7970 ghz edition would handle most things at 2560x1600

[badsykes]

Originally Posted by bill dennison

I hope it not true

my 7970's have been in for almost a full year their going to make me take them out and clean them and then put them back in the same system
have not done that in years since the 2900's , they are messing up my whole replacement cycle


in all seriousness I was hoping to cut down to one card in the ati system to cut the heat in the room down
was hoping for a card 25% to 45% faster than the 7970 ghz edition would handle most things at 2560x1600

There is an ant called Titan and she will lunch herself this month... Only 1000$


PS: if you get bored of your 7970 send them to me ...I accept gifts from overseas... :P

[bill dennison]

Originally Posted by badsykes

There is an ant called Titan and she will lunch herself this month... Only 1000$


PS: if you get bored of your 7970 send them to me ...I accept gifts from overseas... :P

don't think I would touch Titan, one Titan will probably put out as much heat into the room as my two 7970

for my 680 system I would get a second 680 before a Titan


looks like we are getting the back seat to the all the new ps and xbox consoles and alike, all production going to them
well after two years i'm going to want something a lot faster than 25% to 45% over a 7970 ghz edition

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by badsykes

There is an ant called Titan and she will lunch herself this month... Only 1000$


PS: if you get bored of your 7970 send them to me ...I accept gifts from overseas... :P

Remains to be seen just how many will be released as Geforce versions even if they are priced at close to 1000$?.....Call me crazy, but i think that since the titan is really built for GP-GPU functions, and even if we assume it's still much faster in gaming over the GK104 found in the GTX680 cards, Nvidia would rather sell them as quadros and teslas for several thousand $$$ for each card, and make a lot more money that way.


Capitalism is a pain in the ass sometimes...


I'm still not getting the full speed out of my 4 HD7970's as it is, so the first order of the day is more CPU performance and since developers will still be sitting on their thumbs at least until both the X720 and PS4 with their 8 core CPU's and DX11 GPU's get released later this year, apart from the odd release like star citizen where they'll push PC hardware to the limit, as it's a PC exclusive title(woot btw), i don't see much to worry about for graphics work.

[Athlon-pv]

Originally Posted by shadow001

Remains to be seen just how many will be released as Geforce versions even if they are priced at close to 1000$?.....Call me crazy, but i think that since the titan is really built for GP-GPU functions, and even if we assume it's still much faster in gaming over the GK104 found in the GTX680 cards, Nvidia would rather sell them as quadros and teslas for several thousand $$$ for each card, and make a lot more money that way.
.

Yeah it is rather weird that Nvidia does this.

If I look at what is going on with AMD this year then I can't say that the graphics card unless it is part of an APU is interesting.

If AMD is sure that it will skip a cycle with new cards there must be something on the horizon which requires their attention.

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by Athlon-pv

Yeah it is rather weird that Nvidia does this.

If I look at what is going on with AMD this year then I can't say that the graphics card unless it is part of an APU is interesting.

If AMD is sure that it will skip a cycle with new cards there must be something on the horizon which requires their attention.

At this point, there's been so many twists and turns to AMD's roadmap with regards to several product lines with regards to CPU's( especially abandoning the high end desktop) and GPU's( unknown timeline releases) and APU's(???), that we don't know what the hell is going on in Austin these days.


Add the crappy quarterly financial results to the mix for even more confusion and i wouldn't put it past some of the bigger players buying out the company while it's stock is this low.

[bill dennison]

Originally Posted by shadow001

At this point, there's been so many twists and turns to AMD's roadmap with regards to several product lines with regards to CPU's( especially abandoning the high end desktop) and GPU's( unknown timeline releases) and APU's(???), that we don't know what the hell is going on in Austin these days.


Add the crappy quarterly financial results to the mix for even more confusion and i wouldn't put it past some of the bigger players buying out the company while it's stock is this low.

the new consoles will be keeping them busy and should inprove their bottom line

[ditroia]

Maybe AMD are busy working with MS & Sony on the GPU/APU's on their new consoles?

[Athlon-pv]

Originally Posted by ditroia

Maybe AMD are busy working with MS & Sony on the GPU/APU's on their new consoles?

That is a done deal already, if they still have to make changes to consoles due to launch this year that might not show a lot of confidence.

Usually you find out when stuff has been delayed from semiaccurate or fudzilla due to AMD or manufacturing process.

But like Shadow001 says it has been rather crazy. That AMD doesn't release anything on AM3+ yet is no surprise that is one of their less profitable markets. Kabini and Temash should be good enough to change things for AMD

http://img.clubic.com/05643306-photo...d-ces-2013.jpg

[bobvodka]

Originally Posted by shadow001

I'm still not getting the full speed out of my 4 HD7970's as it is, so the first order of the day is more CPU performance and since developers will still be sitting on their thumbs at least until both the X720 and PS4 with their 8 core CPU's and DX11 GPU's get released later this year,

When you say 'cpu performance' I'm interested in what you think you'll gain?
In the PC space CPU workload is pretty much dominated by draw call submission and that's fundamentally a single threaded problem, even DX11's deferred contexts don't score you much of a win in a real world situation (less so on AMD hardware as they haven't done the native command list stuff NV have done.)

[Litennörd]

Bobvodka, is the draw calls situation any better in DX11.1 than DX11?
I've looked on Repi's twitter occasionally, and he has mentioned to some folks that they are planning to use DX11.1 to reduce the CPU overhead in BF4

[bobvodka]

Same driver arch, same basic problems.. however judging by repi's feed it would seem like there has been some internal changes which help the way the engine does things thus the performance gain (he mentions pointing something out to MS which has apparently been fixed.)

However as I don't know how they are treating things or what problem this resolves I can't really speculate beyond that.

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by bobvodka

Same driver arch, same basic problems.. however judging by repi's feed it would seem like there has been some internal changes which help the way the engine does things thus the performance gain (he mentions pointing something out to MS which has apparently been fixed.)

However as I don't know how they are treating things or what problem this resolves I can't really speculate beyond that.

I'm not thinking so much in graphics workload to be honest, as we're getting pretty close to the point of near photo realism in real time with the features already supported in DX11, but more in terms of better physics in games since they still suck even using current engines, more interactivity and AI that isn't as dumb as a brick, wich is the case with most games.


Things that still aren't handled very well or not at all by GPU's....Think battlefield with a completely destructible environment across the entire map and not just in some locations.

[bman212121]

Originally Posted by Athlon-pv

That is a done deal already, if they still have to make changes to consoles due to launch this year that might not show a lot of confidence.

Usually you find out when stuff has been delayed from semiaccurate or fudzilla due to AMD or manufacturing process.

But like Shadow001 says it has been rather crazy. That AMD doesn't release anything on AM3+ yet is no surprise that is one of their less profitable markets. Kabini and Temash should be good enough to change things for AMD

http://img.clubic.com/05643306-photo...d-ces-2013.jpg

I also haven't heard any rumors of any chips being 'taped out' yet, so it's quite possible the final silicon isn't done. I would imagine AMD does have their hands quite full making sure they don't mess up like NVidia did back at the launch of the xbox 360.


I still think we are going to see something come out this year, but it might be up in the air as of when.

[Redeemed]

All of this just plays into hype the products even more so once they finally do launch. People will clamor for whatever gets released by either company.

Me? I'm expecting a refresh of some sort. Maybe introduce a couple new HD7000 series SKUs to increase competitiveness while dropping a couple SKUs or leaving things just as they are.

Interesting regardless.