As AMD tells it, the new agreement does the following things:
Covers a 5-year period, spanning from calendar year 2016 through 2020;
Establishes a comprehensive framework for technology collaboration between AMD and GF for the 7nm technology node, building on the success of the 14nm node;
Provides AMD with the flexibility to manufacture certain products with another wafer foundry;
Sets annual wafer purchase targets from 2016 through the end of 2020, fixed wafer prices for 2016, and a framework for yearly wafer pricing.
In exchange for the new agreement, AMD is giving GlobalFoundries the following consideration:
Make a $100 million cash payment to GF, paid in installments beginning in Q4 2016 through Q3 2017.
Make quarterly payments to GF beginning in 2017 based on the volume of certain wafers purchased from another wafer foundry.
Grant to West Coast Hitech L.P., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mubadala Development Company PJSC, a warrant to purchase 75 million shares of AMD common stock at a purchase price of $5.98 per share. The warrant may be exercised in whole or in part prior to February 29, 2020. The warrant is only exercisable to the extent that Mubadala or its subsidiaries do not beneficially own, either directly or indirectly, an aggregate of more than 19.99 percent of AMD's outstanding capital stock after the exercise.
so it might also be looking to establish a partnership with TSMC to use that foundry's 16-nm FinFET process. That technology has already been deployed to great effect in Nvidia's Pascal cards. We suppose we'll just have to wait for official word from AMD for more info about its sourcing strategy.
Global Foundries seems like kind of a train wreck. I get the sense that AMD has been wanting to cut their ties with them for a while now, but they're stuck with them due to the agreement that was part of the spinoff.
That being said, I still don't think you should read too much into the power consumption figures with totally different architecture. I'd also like to see how Perf/Watt stacks up in DX12 games where GCN seems to do considerably better.
I would think amd was going to use Samsung a lot more before TSMC
with TSMC making apple iPhone 7 chips is the reason I think nv took so long to get enough 1080 out the door and most likely part of the price increase also
can TSMC do vega also ?
At least from a power consumption point of view it really gives the impression that TSMC's fab process really is better that global foundries, so there's at least that.
Physical size wise, the process is however a little bit larger than global's, so for any given transistor budget the end GPU is slightly larger which means there's less dies coming out of each wafer, even if the yeilds are perfect......The not so good part going to TSMC.
Samsung is another option and their process really is 14nm like global's, but got no clue how the power consumption is with them for something like higher end GPU's such as Vega.
as polaris was a pipe cleaner we really have no clue what vega will be on the same process
horse power wise I think vaga will be very close to a titan x pascal maybe 10% slower or hope 20% faster and I hope near half the price
given the time frame( most likely March ) I can't see them shooting low for the gtx 1080 little vega maybe but big vega should have no problem matching or beating titan x
power draw I don't care as long as it is under 350 watts per card
GloFlo does take some time to refine their process but the 28nm GloFlo process is about the best you can do. I expect Glo-Flo will improve dramatically over time and Vega should do better power to transistor count I do believe. Also if Polaris gets another revision for an update I think it will also improve significantly as well - at least a 100-200mhz bump that is. So AMD could have Vega launch and an updated Polaris next year followed by lower skews of Vega later in the year. It can really dramatically shift performance per price bracket around. I expect Nvidia to push up Volta as much as possible too, if they don't I think AMD will have a big window for 6 months or more.
Vega is set to be built on the same 14nm three-dimensional FinFET process by AMD spin-off GlobalFoundries.
Wish GF won't fail them again. If it was TSMC I would have very high hopes for VEGA. Think Vega with GPU 2ghz clock + HBM2, now its probably 1200mhz like Polaris.
Wish GF won't fail them again. If it was TSMC I would have very high hopes for VEGA. Think Vega with GPU 2ghz clock + HBM2, now its probably 1200mhz like Polaris.
Engineering samples of Zen from GF are at 3ghz, when launched that will most likely be higher. GF are making those too.
Design of Polaris also affects max clock speed, limiting component. Vega could go a hell a lot faster but I don't think AMD concentrated on maxing out speed like Nvidia.
Time to market is everything in this business, and if TSMC got their 16nm process in better shape overall and especially when it comes to power consumption, and did so with a 6 ~ 9 month lead over Global being able to do the same, then it's obvious Nvidia is laughing all the way to the bank with the high prices on what still isn't their highest end card like the GTX1080.
Add that an even faster version of the Titan X can be released, since it is only 471mm^ so it's still smaller than big maxwell seen in the GTX980Ti, or big Fermi seen in the GTX780Ti series, and that as you mentioned Volta's release has been pushed up to mid next year, and whatever Vega is and even if it's faster than anything currently released right now ( including Titan X ), might not remain so for long.
Nvidia aren't sitting with their thumbs up their asses and waiting to see what AMD releases before reacting, that's for sure.
So what you're really saying is your happy to pay exorbitant prices for mid-range cards ? Nvidia are milking you to the hilt and if you're happy to be shafted that's great. We're all different otherwise it would be a bit boring!
So what you're really saying is your happy to pay exorbitant prices for mid-range cards ? Nvidia are milking you to the hilt and if you're happy to be shafted that's great. We're all different otherwise it would be a bit boring!