GCN | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Mon, 04 Jan 2016 16:37:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png GCN | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 AMD shows off 14nm Polaris GPU architecture at CES https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/amd-shows-off-14nm-polaris-gpu-architecture-at-ces/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/amd-shows-off-14nm-polaris-gpu-architecture-at-ces/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2016 16:35:39 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=279552 This is set to be a big year for AMD with so many highly anticipated releases set throughout the course of 2016 and it looks like things are starting off strong as the Radeon team has shown off its new Polaris GPU architecture, which is designed and optimized for the 14nm FinFET process. The Polaris …

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This is set to be a big year for AMD with so many highly anticipated releases set throughout the course of 2016 and it looks like things are starting off strong as the Radeon team has shown off its new Polaris GPU architecture, which is designed and optimized for the 14nm FinFET process.

The Polaris GPU brings forth the largest generational jump in performance per watt in the history of AMD GPUs. From the sounds of it, this new architecture will be used to make graphics cards for small form factor PCs, bringing better performance at a lower power cost.

Polaris

AMD's own internal tests show that in a game like Star Wars: Battlefront, the new Polaris GPU can maintain a steady 60 frames per second on medium settings at 1080p while using just 86 watts of power, which is just over 60 percent less than the 140 watts that the GTX 950 currently pulls running Battlefront at the same settings.

The Polaris Architecture is based on the fourth generation of GCN, so it's not just power efficiency that is getting improved, we will also see improvements made to memory compression, the hardware scheduler as well as support for outputs like HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.3. This is all just a preview for now but as the year goes on, we will likely hear much more, particularly since shipments of the first Polaris GPUs are expected to arrive in mid-2016.

KitGuru Says: AMD has a lot of launches planned for this year and it seems like Polaris might be a pretty strong start. Are any of you currently waiting on new GPU launches from AMD or Nvidia? 

 

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AMD moves pre-GCN hardware to legacy status https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/amd-moves-pre-gcn-hardware-to-legacy-status/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/amd-moves-pre-gcn-hardware-to-legacy-status/#comments Wed, 25 Nov 2015 22:09:20 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=276311 This week, AMD officially launched Radeon Software, putting the Catalyst Control Centre to rest and moving on to a new era of driver support. However, these changes don't just put Catalyst to bed, the new driver also drops support for some older Radeon graphics cards as well, meaning the 5000 and 6000 series GPUs are …

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This week, AMD officially launched Radeon Software, putting the Catalyst Control Centre to rest and moving on to a new era of driver support. However, these changes don't just put Catalyst to bed, the new driver also drops support for some older Radeon graphics cards as well, meaning the 5000 and 6000 series GPUs are now ‘legacy' hardware.

According to AMD, the 5000 and 6000 series of graphics cards have now reached “peak performance optimization”. Additionally, some of the mobile 7000 and 8000 series graphics chips for laptops were also affected. The final WHQL driver for the affected graphics cards will have been the Catalyst 15.7.1 release.

Radeon-Settings-Home-Page-e1448351374945

If you are running an older 5000 or 6000 series Radeon graphics card, then you can still get a taste of what Radeon Software: Crimson Edition brings to the table with a beta driver, though don't expect any further updates. This will give you access to the improved user interface but you won't get any further updates. This change also affects pre-GCN APUs, so anything that came before Kavari is now legacy hardware according to Anandtech. 

So from now on, AMD will be focussing on driver optimizations for Graphics Core Next architecture cards, rather than continuing to support older generations.

KitGuru Says: Some people out there are still using pre-GCN cards so it might be time for those people to update to a newer generation. On the plus side, AMD now only has to worry about its GCN architecture for driver optimizations going forward. Are any of you running a pre-7000 series Radeon GPU? 

 

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AMD promises two new GCN GPUs for 2016 https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/amd-promises-two-new-gcn-gpus-for-2016/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/amd-promises-two-new-gcn-gpus-for-2016/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2015 22:32:21 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=275275 AMD has been making some moves these past few months, starting with forming the Radeon Technologies Group and more recently the company announced plans to move away from the Catalyst Control Centre in favour of ‘Radeon Software', which will feature a total overhaul for the driver. Now, AMD's Radeon Chief, Raja Koduri has promised two …

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AMD has been making some moves these past few months, starting with forming the Radeon Technologies Group and more recently the company announced plans to move away from the Catalyst Control Centre in favour of ‘Radeon Software', which will feature a total overhaul for the driver. Now, AMD's Radeon Chief, Raja Koduri has promised two new GCN graphics cards for 2016.

Speaking with Patrick Moorhead at Forbes, the Radeon head explained that the new GPU driver software will play a key role in business strategy over the next few years, this will include more regular and stable updates.

amd_radeon_artwork_angle_new

 

While the driver team at the Radeon Technologies Group works away on that, the architecture team will be coming up with new hardware designs, which means we should be getting two brand new graphics cards next year, based on either the 14nm or 16nm fabrication process. Key focusses will include power consumption and higher performance.

Other areas of focus over the next couple of years will include virtual reality, education, professional graphics and even medicine. It looks like AMD is looking to make a push on all fronts possible. This, combined with the scheduled launch of Zen CPUs should make 2016 quite interesting.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: So we can expect two brand new graphics cards from AMD next year, though we don't know exactly when those will launch. Nvidia also has new architecture planned for next year, in the form of its Pascal GPUs, so it will be interesting to see how things turn out in 2016. Are any of you waiting until next year to pick up a new GPU? 

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AMD’s dual-GPU Radeon R9 Fury X2 ‘Gemini’ adapter spotted in India https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amds-dual-gpu-radeon-r9-fury-x2-gemini-graphics-card-spotted-in-india/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amds-dual-gpu-radeon-r9-fury-x2-gemini-graphics-card-spotted-in-india/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2015 01:33:37 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=270710 Advanced Micro Devices has begun to test its upcoming dual-chip graphics card internally. The company shipped six samples of its dual-GPU Radeon graphics adapters to India, which means that the company is developing drivers for the solution. According to Zauba.com database, which monitors imports and exports to and from India, where high-tech companies employ a …

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Advanced Micro Devices has begun to test its upcoming dual-chip graphics card internally. The company shipped six samples of its dual-GPU Radeon graphics adapters to India, which means that the company is developing drivers for the solution.

According to Zauba.com database, which monitors imports and exports to and from India, where high-tech companies employ a lot of software developers, AMD shipped six “Fiji Gemini” graphics cards from Canada to India. The graphics boards carry two “Fiji” graphics processing units and a cooling system designed by Cooler Master, reports WccfTech.

Typically, AMD begins to send samples of its graphics cards to India months before the announcement. If AMD shipped the very first samples of its dual-GPU Radeon R9 Fury X2 graphics boards to its Indian developers in late September, it may indicate that the product will be formally introduced very late in 2015 or even early in 2016.

amd_radeon_fiji_fury_maxx
Dual-GPU AMD Radeon R9 Fury. Image by Anshel Sag, staff technologist and technical writer at Moor Insights & Strategy.

The upcoming dual-chip AMD Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card – which may be officially called Radeon R9 Fury X2 or Radeon R9 Fury Maxx – features two code-named “Fiji XT” GPUs with 4096 stream processors and 4GB of HBM memory. In total, the graphics solution features 8192 stream processors and 8GB of high-bandwidth memory. The board has two 8-pin PCI Express power connectors, which means that it can consume up to 375W of power.

Manufacturer suggested retail price of AMD’s Radeon Fury X is $649. It is highly likely that the dual-GPU product will cost over $1000.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Looks like AMD Radeon R9 Fury X2 will not be introduced this fall, but will likely hit the market only in winter.

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AMD unveils embedded ‘Tonga XT’ GPU with 2048 stream processors, 256-bit memory bus https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-unveils-embedded-tonga-xt-graphics-chip-with-2048-stream-processors-256-bit-memory-bus/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-unveils-embedded-tonga-xt-graphics-chip-with-2048-stream-processors-256-bit-memory-bus/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2015 21:10:30 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=269973 Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday introduced its new lineup of embedded graphics processing units designed for various special-purpose and professional applications. Among the new embedded graphics solutions that AMD introduced, there is AMD Embedded Radeon E8950 MXM module, which is based on the highly-anticipated “Tonga XT” silicon with all stream processors activated. The AMD Embedded …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday introduced its new lineup of embedded graphics processing units designed for various special-purpose and professional applications. Among the new embedded graphics solutions that AMD introduced, there is AMD Embedded Radeon E8950 MXM module, which is based on the highly-anticipated “Tonga XT” silicon with all stream processors activated.

The AMD Embedded Radeon E8950 MXM module features 2048 stream processors, 128 texture units, 32 raster operations pipelines and 256-bit memory controller. The chip is based on the GCN 1.2 architecture, it fully supports decoding/encoding of ultra-high-definition videos using H.265 and H.264 codecs. The GPU is compatible with DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.5, OpenCL, Mantle and Vulkan application programming interfaces. The small form-factor solution carries 8GB of GDDR5 memory and can drive up to six displays.

amd_embedded_radeon_e8950_1

The AMD Embedded Radeon E8950 is the company’s most powerful and feature-rich embedded graphics solution designed for high-end casino and arcade gaming machines, medical imaging devices and military/aerospace applications. The product has maximum single precision compute performance of around 3TFLOPS.

“The demand for rich, vibrant graphics in embedded systems is greater than ever before, and that demand is growing,” said Scott Aylor, corporate vice president and general manager of AMD Embedded Solutions. “Our latest additions to the embedded product lineup help designers build mesmerizing user experiences with 4K multi-screen installations and 3-D and interactive displays. In addition, the powerful capabilities of our GPUs can address the toughest parallel compute challenges.”

amd_embedded_radeon_e8950

In addition to the high-performance Radeon R8950, AMD also introduced slightly less powerful solutions, including the Radeon R8870MXM and the Radeon E8870PCIe with up to 768 stream processors as well as the Radeon E6465MCM, the E6465MXM and the E6465PCIe with up to 128 stream processors.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: If AMD now offers “Tonga XT” for embedded systems, it is only a matter of time before the company rolls-out its Radeon R9 380X based on the same chip.

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AMD’s talks with private equity firm Silver Lake stalled – report https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amds-talks-with-private-equity-firm-silver-lake-stalled-report/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amds-talks-with-private-equity-firm-silver-lake-stalled-report/#respond Tue, 29 Sep 2015 20:23:38 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=269944 The discussions between Advanced Micro Devices and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners have stalled because the two companies have failed to agree on the price and the future of AMD. The chip designer is reportedly considering other options. Silver Lake was interested to acquire a 25 per cent stake in AMD, reports Bloomberg news-agency. …

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The discussions between Advanced Micro Devices and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners have stalled because the two companies have failed to agree on the price and the future of AMD. The chip designer is reportedly considering other options.

Silver Lake was interested to acquire a 25 per cent stake in AMD, reports Bloomberg news-agency. Representatives for the two companies met over the summer, but did not reach any agreement. The talks stalled after the parties failed to agree on a price and strategy, according to people familiar with the matter.

AMD’s current market capitalization is around $1.3 billion, hence, 25 per cent of the company’s stock would cost around $325 million, if acquired on the open market. However, $325 million may be less than AMD needs to fund development of products in 2016 and 2017. In today’s realities, this is $100 million more than AMD spends on research and development per quarter, or design cost of two complex system-on-chips made using a FinFET process technology.

amd_lone_star_campus

AMD has been losing market share to Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp. for several years now. The company hopes that its upcoming microprocessors – code-named “Summit Ridge” and “Raven Ridge” based on the “Zen” micro-architecture will help it to regain share from Intel. In addition, the company readies code-named “Greenland”, “Baffin” and “Ellesmere” graphics processing units powered by the next iteration of AMD’s GCN architecture, which should help it to become more competitive against Nvidia.

Silver Lake is a major private equity firm, which invests in high-tech companies and sells its stake afterwards. Silver Lake has rather strict requirements for companies it invests in. For example, it can demand changing strategic goals or business approaches. Silver Lake has invested in such giants as Dell, Seagate, Avago and Alibaba.

AMD and Silver Lake did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Silver Lake hardly ever makes large acquisitions without partners. For example, Silver Lake teamed up with Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to acquire 65 per cent of Skype in 2009. In a bid to buy out Dell several years ago, Silver Lake collaborated with Microsoft, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Bank of America and Royal Bank of Canada. If Silver Lake is interested in making an investment in AMD, it may well have a potential partner.

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Valve: DirectX 12 does not make a lot of sense, Vulkan does https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/valve-directx-12-does-not-make-a-lot-of-sense-vulkan-does/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/valve-directx-12-does-not-make-a-lot-of-sense-vulkan-does/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2015 00:02:35 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=269081 Microsoft Corp.’s DirectX 12 application programming interface promises to significantly improve performance of video games in Windows 10 operating system thanks to efficient usage of modern hardware. However, Valve Software believes that it makes no sense to use DX12, but to utilize cross-platform Vulkan API instead. Modern application programming interfaces – namely Apple’s Metal, Khronos Group’s …

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Microsoft Corp.’s DirectX 12 application programming interface promises to significantly improve performance of video games in Windows 10 operating system thanks to efficient usage of modern hardware. However, Valve Software believes that it makes no sense to use DX12, but to utilize cross-platform Vulkan API instead.

Modern application programming interfaces – namely Apple’s Metal, Khronos Group’s Vulkan and Microsoft Corp.’s DirectX 12 – are all considered low-level APIs and have generally similar capabilities. All three APIs have improved ability to use multi-core microprocessors, allow software makers to have close-to-metal access to resources of graphics processing units, they all support GPGPU [general-purpose computing on graphics processing units], reduce driver overhead and so on. The three APIs are compatible with a wide range of hardware.

valve_dx12_vs_vulkan

Apple’s and Microsoft’s APIs are only supported by Apple iOS/OS X platforms as well as Microsoft Windows 10, respectively. By contrast. Vulkan should be compatible with all operating systems from Google (future versions of Android) and Microsoft (Windows 7/8/10) as well as a wide range of hardware, which makes it preferable for game developers who want their titles to run on different types of devices.

“Unless you are aggressive enough to be shipping a DX12 game this year, I would argue that there is really not much reason to ever create a DX12 back end for your game,” said Dan Ginsburg, a software developer from Valve, at Siggraph, reports DSO Gaming. “The reason for that is that Vulkan will cover you on Windows 10 on the same class of hardware and so much more from all these other platforms and IHVs that we have heard from. Metal is single platform, single vendor, and Vulkan… we are gonna have support for not only Windows 10 but Windows 7, Windows 8 and Linux.”

vulcan_2

For Valve, which is developing its own Steam OS to power its living room PCs called Steam Machines, DirectX 12 clearly does not make a lot of sense. By contrast, Vulkan will be supported by Steam OS, which is based on Linux.

While for cross-platform developers it makes a great-sense to use Vulkan, DirectX 12 still has a number of advantages. The Vulkan API is still not finalized, so it cannot really be used for commercial products right now. As a result, those, who plan to release their titles in the next twelve month, should keep using DirectX 12.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Vulkan is extremely promising API that can have a tremendous impact on the industry. However, since the technology is simply not ready, for many developers DirectX 12 is virtually the only choice.

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XFX is working on liquid-cooled Radeon R9 Fury graphics card https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/xfx-is-working-on-liquid-cooled-radeon-r9-fury-graphics-card/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/xfx-is-working-on-liquid-cooled-radeon-r9-fury-graphics-card/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2015 22:28:08 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=269015 XFX is gearing up to release a Radeon R9 Fury-based graphics adapter featuring a liquid cooling system. The card will feature overclocking potential on par with AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X, which will help to at least partially close performance gap between the “Fury” and the “Fury X” products. The XFX Radeon R9 Fury with …

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XFX is gearing up to release a Radeon R9 Fury-based graphics adapter featuring a liquid cooling system. The card will feature overclocking potential on par with AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X, which will help to at least partially close performance gap between the “Fury” and the “Fury X” products.

The XFX Radeon R9 Fury with liquid cooling will rely on AMD’s reference design for its graphics cards based on the “Fiji” graphics processing units, but will utilize a cooling system similar to that installed on the flagship AMD Radeon R9 Fury X graphics products. In fact, the whole design of the graphics adapter resembles that of AMD’s top-of-the-range offering, according to images published by VideoCardz web-site.

xfx_radeon_r9_fury_liquid_cooling

Typically, AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards powered by cut-down “Fiji Pro” graphics chips with 3584 stream processors, 224 texture units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096 high-bandwidth memory bus up to 25 per cent slower than the Radeon R9 Fury X adapters with fully-fledged “Fiji XT” GPUs (4096 SPs, 256 Tus, 64 ROPs, etc.). However, if liquid cooling system helps to significantly overclock the “Fiji Pro” GPU, then performance difference between AMD’s enthusiast-class graphics cards will shrink.

AMD and XFX did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It looks like AMD is preparing to let all of its partners to sell the Radeon R9 Fury products. At present only Asustek Computer and Sapphire Technology supply graphics cards featuring “Fiji Pro” GPUs, but shortly everything is expected to change.

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AMD engineer: Developers were given the total freedom with ‘Zen’ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-engineer-developers-were-given-the-total-freedom-with-zen/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-engineer-developers-were-given-the-total-freedom-with-zen/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2015 10:21:26 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=268893 The “Zen” micro-architecture is a tremendously important project for Advanced Micro Devices. If the new technology is successful, AMD will become a viable developer of central processing units again. If not, the company will have troubles with surviving. Fortunately, “Zen” is a completely new micro-architecture that promises to be very competitive. Apparently, the management team …

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The “Zen” micro-architecture is a tremendously important project for Advanced Micro Devices. If the new technology is successful, AMD will become a viable developer of central processing units again. If not, the company will have troubles with surviving. Fortunately, “Zen” is a completely new micro-architecture that promises to be very competitive. Apparently, the management team gave a lot of freedom with the new CPU design.

“It is the first time in a very long time that we engineers have been given the total freedom to build a processor from scratch and do the best we can do,” said Suzanne Plummer, a director of design engineering at AMD and also a veteran Austin chip engineer, who heads development of a “Zen”-based processor, in an interview with MyStatesman.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad

Last week AMD announced that Jim Keller, a legendary processor engineer who headed development of “Zen” micro-architecture, had left the company. It is believed that he has completed the work on the first two iterations of the “Zen” technology. He also worked on the “K12” architecture, which is compatible with the ARMv8-A instruction set architecture.

“[Zen] is a multi-year project with a really large team,” said Ms. Plummer. “It’s like a marathon effort with some sprints in the middle. The team is working very hard, but they can see the finish line. I guarantee that it will deliver a huge improvement in performance and (low) power consumption over the previous generation.”

Ms. Plummer has worked at AMD since 2002, when the company took over Alchemy Semiconductor.

amd_zen_performance_advantages_fad_1

The first processor based on “Zen” micro-architecture is code-named “Summit Ridge”. The chip is expected to hit the market in October, 2016, and aim at high-end desktops and servers. The new cores will offer at least 40 per cent performance improvement at the same clock-rate compared to existing cores.

“Everything is riding on ‘Zen’,” said analyst Nathan Brookwood with Insight 64. “They are shooting for performance parity with where (arch-rival) Intel will be. AMD understands that they have to succeed with ‘Zen’. If ‘Zen’ fizzles, they will really have to do a lot of running around.”

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: “Zen” will be AMD’s first major new design since 2011. It has to be successful. If it is not successful, AMD’s share in the market of CPUs will shrink even further.

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PowerColor, XFX prep to start shipments of AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/powercolor-xfx-are-gearing-up-to-start-shipments-of-amd-radeon-r9-fury-graphics-cards/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/powercolor-xfx-are-gearing-up-to-start-shipments-of-amd-radeon-r9-fury-graphics-cards/#comments Sat, 19 Sep 2015 16:20:37 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=268494 PowerColor and XFX are preparing to add another graphics card into their range of adapters based on AMD’s “Fiji” graphics processing unit. In the coming weeks the two companies will start to sell their AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards, thus, expanding availability of AMD’s latest product. Although all partners of Advanced Micro Devices formally …

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PowerColor and XFX are preparing to add another graphics card into their range of adapters based on AMD’s “Fiji” graphics processing unit. In the coming weeks the two companies will start to sell their AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards, thus, expanding availability of AMD’s latest product.

Although all partners of Advanced Micro Devices formally offer AMD Radeon R9 Fury and AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics adapters based on the fully-fledged Fiji GPUs with 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit memory bus, far not all can supply AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards powered by cut-down “Fiji” chips (3584 SPs, 224 TUs, 64 ROPs). In fact, only Asustek Computer and Sapphire Technology sell AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards today. Fortunately, that is going to change soon.

powercolor_radeon_r9_fury

PowerColor, a Tul Corp.’s brand, recently quietly added description of its Radeon R9 Fury graphics adapter to its web-site. The board is currently not available anywhere, but its addition into the list of products clearly indicates that the company is on-track to start selling it in the coming weeks.

XFX, a Pine Holdings Limited’s brand, is also gearing up to start shipments of its Radeon R9 Fury graphics card. VideoCardz web-site has published press images of XFX’s yet-unannounced R9 Fury, which is an indicator that the product is about to be formally introduced.

xfx_radeon_r9_fury_1

The Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards from PowerColor and XFX rely on AMD’s reference design and come with 4GB of high-bandwidth memory and massive triple-fan/three-slot cooling systems with multiple copper heat-pipes to maximize their overclocking potential. The cards require two auxiliary 8-pin PCI Express power connectors. In fact, both boards will be very similar to Sapphire’s Radeon R9 Fury Tri-X.

xfx_radeon_r9_fury

At present, it is unclear when companies like Gigabyte Technology, MicroStar International and other plan to start offering their versions of the Radeon R9 Fury.

The manufacturer suggested retail price of AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards is $549/£439.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While it is great to see that availability of AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury is improving, the lack of creative touch on those cards is evident. So far, only Asustek Computer has designed a custom printed-circuit board for its Radeon R9 Fury Strix. All the others continue to use AMD’s reference design, probably because they just buy actual cards from the GPU developer.

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AMD Radeon R9 380X with ‘Tonga XT’ to hit the market in late October https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-radeon-r9-380x-with-tonga-xt-gpu-to-hit-the-market-in-late-october/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-radeon-r9-380x-with-tonga-xt-gpu-to-hit-the-market-in-late-october/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2015 21:05:07 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=268228 Advanced Micro Devices and its partners are gearing up to release the Radeon R9 380X graphics card featuring the code-named “Tonga XT” graphics processing unit. The product is expected to hit the market next month and will become a good addition to the company’s lineup for the holiday season. Manufacturers of graphics cards already have …

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Advanced Micro Devices and its partners are gearing up to release the Radeon R9 380X graphics card featuring the code-named “Tonga XT” graphics processing unit. The product is expected to hit the market next month and will become a good addition to the company’s lineup for the holiday season.

Manufacturers of graphics cards already have samples of the fully-fledged “Tonga” graphics chip with 2048 stream processors, 128 texture units and 32 raster operations pipelines. AMD is expected to start shipping commercial versions of the “Tonga XT” GPUs shortly and makers of add-in-boards should be able to start selling their Radeon R9 380X products sometimes in late October, reports Fudzilla.

The AMD Radeon R9 380X graphics adapters will carry 4GB of GDDR5 memory, which indicates a 256-bit memory bus, not a 384-bit memory interface, as expected by several unofficial sources. Usage of 256-bit memory interface should simplify printed-circuit boards of the graphics cards and make them cheaper. As a result, makers of add-in-boards will be more flexible in terms of final pricing.

amd_radeon_r9_280

Performance of AMD Radeon R9 380X in actual games should be higher than that of the Radeon R9 280X (aka Radeon HD 7970) despite of wider memory interface supported by the latter thanks to improvements on the micro-architectural level (such as better support for async shaders, improved performance of tessellation/gemetry and so on) and new techniques that improve effective memory bandwidth (e.g., delta colour compression).

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: The Radeon R9 380X looks rather good on paper. However, its success will be determined by pricing. Right now, AMD and its partners sell the Radeon R9 380 for $249, whereas the Radeon R9 390 is priced at $349. Keeping in mind that AMD used to sell its Radeon R9 290-series products for as low as around $250, it is hard to imagine that a product with lower performance for $299 will become a success. If AMD actually wants to fight back market share from Nvidia, it will have to reconsider its prices for the holiday season. As a result, it is logical to expect that the launch of the Radeon R9 380X will be accompanied by changes in AMD’s price-list.

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AMD reportedly begins to fight back market share from Nvidia https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-reportedly-begins-to-fight-back-market-share-from-nvidia/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-reportedly-begins-to-fight-back-market-share-from-nvidia/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2015 00:59:49 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=268151 Advanced Micro Devices began to fight back its market share from Nvidia Corp. in the third quarter of the year, a financial analyst revealed on Wednesday. While Nvidia still dominates the market, the launch of AMD’s latest graphics cards helped the company to improve its sales a bit. “Graphics processor unit pricing and availability suggest …

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Advanced Micro Devices began to fight back its market share from Nvidia Corp. in the third quarter of the year, a financial analyst revealed on Wednesday. While Nvidia still dominates the market, the launch of AMD’s latest graphics cards helped the company to improve its sales a bit.

“Graphics processor unit pricing and availability suggest that AMD’s recent Radeon R9 300-series refresh has helped regain some lost share at about $400 and about $200 price points, while Nvidia maintains a dominant position in premium high-end GPU cards ($500+),” wrote Ian Ing, an analyst with MKM Partners, in an article at Barron’s.

The analyst notes that due to shortages of AMD Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards during the third quarter, AMD could not really gain a lot of share in the segment of expensive graphics adapters used by enthusiasts. At the same time, the analyst indicates, that in many cases such add-in-boards are sold at prices, which exceed those recommended by AMD, which means that the company earns premium by selling the adapters.

amd_radeon_r9_390_official

By contrast, prices of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX Titan X and GeForce GTX 980 Ti decreased by 3 and 2 per cent during the quarter, respectively. Still, thanks to wide availability, Nvidia and its partners can sell a lot of graphics adapters powered by the company’s latest code-named GM200 chip.

Mr. Ing claims that since AMD Radeon R9 300-series graphics cards are readily available, but their prices do not decline, demand for such add-in-boards could be fairly high, which suggests that AMD is gaining share.

In Q2 2015 AMD’s share in the market of discrete graphics processing units for desktops declined to historical minimum of around 18 per cent. By contrast, Nvidia commanded 82 per cent of the market.

AMD is in its quiet period and could not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Trying to guess market share by monitoring retailers may not be a good idea. However, at present this is one of a few ways to understand what is happening in the market. While it is a good news that AMD is increasing its presence in the market, it should be noted that given AMD’s current position even if the company gains 5 per cent a quarter Nvidia will still be the dominant player.

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Shortages of AMD Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards persist https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-radeon-r9-fury-series-graphics-cards-continue-to-be-in-short-supply-analyst/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-radeon-r9-fury-series-graphics-cards-continue-to-be-in-short-supply-analyst/#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2015 22:08:19 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=268067 About three months since the formal announcement, Advanced Micro Devices’ flagship products based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processing units are still in extremely short supply, according to a market analyst and various retailers. At present, AMD offers Radeon R9 Fury X and Radeon R9 Nano based on the fully-fledged “Fiji” graphics chip with 4096 …

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About three months since the formal announcement, Advanced Micro Devices’ flagship products based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processing units are still in extremely short supply, according to a market analyst and various retailers.

At present, AMD offers Radeon R9 Fury X and Radeon R9 Nano based on the fully-fledged “Fiji” graphics chip with 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit memory bus. Both the “Fury X” and the “Nano” graphics adapters are based on AMD’s design and are made under supervision of the company by a contract manufacturer. Asustek Computer and Sapphire Technology also offer AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards powered by cut-down “Fiji” chips (3584 SPs, 224 TUs, 64 ROPs) and featuring custom design of cooling systems and printed circuit boards.

amd_radeon_r9_fury_card

As it appears, AMD does not sell its cut-down “Fiji” graphics processors to many of its partners and does not allow the latter to customize adapters that feature fully-fledged “Fiji” GPUs. Consequently, for suppliers of graphics cards it makes more sense to sell Nvidia-based solutions right now.

“AMD’s flagship Fury X and Fury continue to have a very limited number of SKUs and are largely out of stock, suggesting that the pace of availability and ecosystem support is discouraging add-in-board (AIB) manufacture,” wrote Ian Ing, an analyst with MKM Partners, in an article at Barron’s.

amd_radeon_r9_fury_x_exploded

Overclockers UK, a major online store in the U.K., offers to pre-order Radeon R9 Fury X, but has Radeon R9 Fury from Asustek Computer and Sapphire Technology in stock. AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics cards are available from multiple suppliers. In fact, OcUK even offers a small discount on the Sapphire Radeon R9 Nano and sells them for £515.

Newegg.com, a major online store in the U.S., at press time only had Radeon R9 Fury X from VisionTek in stock. The store also has Radeon R9 Fury from Asustek Computer and Sapphire Technology available. AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics cards are available from several brands, but all are sold at prices that exceed MSRP [manufacturer suggested retail price].

CaseKing.de, a major German retailer, does not have a single Radeon R9 Fury X in stock, but has multiple Radeon R9 Nano from different suppliers as well as Radeon R9 Fury from Asustek and Sapphire.

amd_radeon_fiji

Insufficient availability of the AMD Radeon R9 Fury-series products have challenged AMD for about a quarter. The reasons for tight supply of the “Fiji” graphics processor are unclear. If AMD ran into yield issues with its largest graphics processor ever, then there would be products based on cut-down versions of “Fiji” available (e.g., Radeon R9 Fury or Radeon R9 Fury LE). However, the R9 Fury sold only by Asus and Sapphire, which means that there are not a lot of such chips available from AMD. The Radeon R9 Nano graphics cards are in stock of retailers, but it is the first week of its availability.

Limited availability of AMD Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards keeps prices of such graphics cards high and does not allow AMD to recapture market share it lost to Nvidia Corp. in the recent quarters.

amd_radeon_r9_nano_1

AMD is in its quiet period and could not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It looks like the amount of “Fiji” graphics processors in production is limited. As a result, if you are planning to get a Radeon R9 Fury graphics card, grab one while you can. For example, the Radeon R9 Nano can be acquired in the first week of availability. Perhaps, AMD will solve the issues with availability of its “Fiji” in the coming months, but not in the coming weeks or days.

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Sony slashes price of PlayStation 4 at Tokyo Game Show https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/anton-shilov/sony-slashes-price-of-playstation-4-at-tokyo-game-show/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/anton-shilov/sony-slashes-price-of-playstation-4-at-tokyo-game-show/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2015 20:51:44 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=267941 Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation 4 system is the fastest selling game console in history. Sales dynamics of Sony’s PS4 suggests that it does not need a price-cut to remain popular. Nonetheless, the company announced plans to reduce the price of its PlayStation 4 starting from the 1st of October. The price-cut will be effective only …

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Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation 4 system is the fastest selling game console in history. Sales dynamics of Sony’s PS4 suggests that it does not need a price-cut to remain popular. Nonetheless, the company announced plans to reduce the price of its PlayStation 4 starting from the 1st of October. The price-cut will be effective only in Japan, but eventually the company may slash the price of PS4 in other countries.

Starting next month, Sony PlayStation 4 500GB will cost ¥34980 ($290, £189), down from $39980 ($332, £216), in Japan, the company announced at the Tokyo Game Show. Sony hopes that the price-cut – along with further expansion of the PlayStation ecosystem with new games, new network services and virtual reality headset – will accelerate the expansion of the PS4 system to new audiences.

Cumulative sales of Sony’s PlayStation 4 exceeded 25 million units in late July, 2015. The console is extremely popular across the world and in some European countries its market share is around 90 per cent. Earlier this year a high-ranking executive from Sony Computer Entertainment said that PS4 did not need a price-cut in Europe.

sony_playstation_4

Platform holders never announce price-cuts in advance. Even if Sony plans to reduce the price of its PlayStation 4 in the U.S. and Europe in the coming weeks, it will never confirm the plan ahead.

Console makers tend to cut prices of their systems in order to improve their sales. Sony cut the price of its PS3 for the first time about a year after its release. It is logical for the company to reduce the price of its PlayStation 4 ahead of its second holiday season.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: If you are planning to buy a game console shortly, it looks like it makes sense to wait several weeks. There will be deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the U.S., European retailers typically follow their colleagues with discounts, bundles and other offerings.

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AMD preps Radeon R9 380X with fully-fledged “Tonga” GPU https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-preps-radeon-r9-380x-with-fully-fledged-tonga-gpu/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-preps-radeon-r9-380x-with-fully-fledged-tonga-gpu/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2015 21:25:11 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=267731 Advanced Micro Devices is reportedly working on a new graphics card based on its code-named “Tonga” graphics processing unit. The Radeon R9 380X will be powered by the fully-fledged GPU with all stream processors activated. Performance of the product will be similar to that of the Radeon R9 280X. The AMD Radeon R9 380X will …

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Advanced Micro Devices is reportedly working on a new graphics card based on its code-named “Tonga” graphics processing unit. The Radeon R9 380X will be powered by the fully-fledged GPU with all stream processors activated. Performance of the product will be similar to that of the Radeon R9 280X.

The AMD Radeon R9 380X will feature “Tonga” GPU with 2048 stream processors as well as 384-bit memory bus, reports Expreview. The graphics board will offer considerably higher performance than the Radeon R9 380, but will also consume more power. Thanks to the GCN 1.2 architecture, the new graphics adapter will significantly outperform the Radeon R9 280X, which is based on the outdated “Tahiti” graphics chip.

xfx_radeon_r9_380x

AMD reportedly decided not to offer Radeon R9 285X with unlocked “Tonga” chip last year because it considered its power consumption too high. Right now, the company needs a new product that would feel the gap between the Radeon R9 380 and the Radeon R9 390-series products.

AMD’s partners among graphics card makers have already received the unlocked “Tonga” graphics processor and are reportedly preparing adapters based on their own designs of printed circuit boards. One of such graphics cards developed by XFX has been pictured.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While it is great to see AMD working on a new graphics card, it is completely unclear why the company did not introduce a product with “full” “Tonga” graphics processor unit earlier.

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AquaComputer unveils full-cover water-block for Radeon R9 Nano https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/aquacomputer-unveils-full-cover-water-block-for-amd-radeon-r9-nano/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/aquacomputer-unveils-full-cover-water-block-for-amd-radeon-r9-nano/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2015 22:12:05 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=267398 AquaComputer, a leading maker of components for custom liquid-cooling solutions, on Friday introduced its full-cover water-block for AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics cards, thus making high-performance liquid-cooled gaming PCs in mini-ITX form-factor a reality. The Kryographics R9 Nano single-slot full-cover water-block for AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics boards is made of pure electrolytic copper with …

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AquaComputer, a leading maker of components for custom liquid-cooling solutions, on Friday introduced its full-cover water-block for AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics cards, thus making high-performance liquid-cooled gaming PCs in mini-ITX form-factor a reality.

The Kryographics R9 Nano single-slot full-cover water-block for AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics boards is made of pure electrolytic copper with either acrylic or aluminum top cover. Water channels in the block pass over the GPU+HBM package as well as voltage regulator module to cool-down the inductors, which get rather hot with the stock cooling solution. The GPU+HBM package is covered by a micro structure with 0.5mm grid to ensure maximum cooling performance.

aquacomputer_liquid_cooler_water_radeon_r9_nano

According to AquaComputer, the GPU temperature of the Radeon R9 Nano remains at below 35°C in typical conditions (with room/liquid temperature of around 27°C) when its water-block is used, which is massively cooler compared to AMD’s stock cooling system.

The Kryographics R9 Nano water-block is designed for custom-built liquid-cooled solutions and is aimed at experienced enthusiasts who are seeking for either additional performance from AMD’s smallest and most powerful graphics card, or want to make their PCs completely silent. What should be noted is that just a few of mini-ITX PC cases can support custom liquid cooling systems.

Traditionally, water-blocks from AquaComputer are easy to install and are compatible with various tubes and various pumps from the company and its competitors.

aquacomputer_liquid_cooler_water_radeon_r9_nano_1

According to TechPowerUp, different versions of the AquaComputer Kryographics R9 Nano full-cover water-block will be available shortly. Pricing looks as follows:

  • Kryographics R9 Nano – €94.9
  • Kryographics R9 Nano acrylic glass edition – €104.9
  • Kryographics R9 Nano black edition – €104.9
  • Kryographics R9 Nano, nickel plated version – €109.9
  • Kryographics R9 Nano acrylic glass edition, nickel plated version – €119.9
  • Kryographics R9 Nano black edition, nickel plated version – €119.9

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While the Kryographics R9 Nano single-slot full-cover water-block for AMD Radeon R9 Nano is a unique product, its market prospects are completely unclear. Those, who want to have extreme performance, will naturally buy AMD Radeon R9 Fury X. Meanwhile, small form-factor systems do not use liquid cooling. On the other hand, maybe the Radeon R9 Nano will just redefine SFF PCs as we know them?

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Major technology investment firm may get significant stake in AMD https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/major-technology-investment-company-may-acquire-significant-stake-in-amd/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/major-technology-investment-company-may-acquire-significant-stake-in-amd/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2015 22:59:08 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=267292 Silver Lake, a leading private equity firm, is reportedly planning to acquire a significant stake in Advanced Micro Devices. Details of the deal are unclear, but it makes a lot of sense for private equity companies to buy AMD, whose stock is trading at nearly its 12-months low. Silver Lake plans to acquire 20 per …

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Silver Lake, a leading private equity firm, is reportedly planning to acquire a significant stake in Advanced Micro Devices. Details of the deal are unclear, but it makes a lot of sense for private equity companies to buy AMD, whose stock is trading at nearly its 12-months low.

Silver Lake plans to acquire 20 per cent stake in Advanced Micro Devices, which will make it the largest shareholder of the company, reports Fudzilla, which cites multiple sources with knowledge of the matter. AMD’s current market capitalization is about $1.43 billion, which means that Silver Lake will not have to pay a lot for such a high stake in AMD. However, it will not be easy to get 20 per cent of the world’s second supplier of x86 microprocessors.

amd_lone_star_campus

At present around 60 per cent of AMD’s stock is owned by various investment funds. Mubadala Development Company holds 18.2 per cent stake in AMD and is currently the largest shareholder of the company. Around 18.9 per cent of AMD’s stock is owned by the company and its insiders. Less than 20 per cent of AMD’s shares are not owned by the company, its insiders or top institutional holders.

If Silver Lake wants to get a 20 per cent stake, it will either need to purchase shares from AMD, its insiders, major institutional investors and/or in the open market. Alternatively, AMD will need to issue additional shares that will be bought by Silver Lake. In any case, the purchase will mean a major change in AMD’s ownership structure.

The troubled chipmaker needs cash in a bid to fund its crucial products that will be released in 2016 and 2017. Since design of processors made using FinFET process technologies is very expensive – around $150 million for a complex chip without the costs of photomasks and other things needed to start mass production – AMD does need additional money. Apparently, Silver Lake may just help to make AMD competitive again.

AMD hopes the products it releases in 2016 and 2017 – “Summit Ridge” and “Raven Ridge” microprocessors based on “Zen” and “K12” micro-architectures as well as code-named “Greenland”, “Baffin” and “Ellesmere” graphics processing units powered by the next iteration of GCN architecture – will be significantly more competitive than the chips AMD has today.

Silver Lake is a major private equity firm, which invests in high-tech companies. Silver Lake has invested in such giants as Dell, Seagate, Avago and Alibaba.

AMD and Silver Lake did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: If AMD manages to secure additional finances and speed up development and production of next-gen products, this will be definitely good for the whole market. Unfortunately, we have no idea what really is going on and where Silver Lake plans to acquire its 20 per cent stake.

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AMD radically changes approach to GPUs: Forms Radeon Technologies Group https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-radically-changes-approach-to-gpus-forms-radeon-technologies-group/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-radically-changes-approach-to-gpus-forms-radeon-technologies-group/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2015 21:21:59 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=267079 Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday announced another round of its reorganization. From now on, all the development of graphics processing technologies, graphics adapters and software will be conducted at the newly established Radeon technologies group. The new unit will be led by Raja Koduri, a legendary developer of graphics processing units (GPUs), and will be …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday announced another round of its reorganization. From now on, all the development of graphics processing technologies, graphics adapters and software will be conducted at the newly established Radeon technologies group. The new unit will be led by Raja Koduri, a legendary developer of graphics processing units (GPUs), and will be dedicated to graphics.

The Radeon technologies group will be a separate unit within AMD, which will report to Lisa Su, chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices. Raja Koduri will become the senior vice president of AMD as well as the chief architect at the Radeon technologies group. The RTG will complement computer and graphics (CG) business group as well as enterprise, embedded and semi-custom (EESC) business group lead by Jim Anderson and Forrest Norrod, respectively. At present, it is unknown whether Radeon technologies group will report its financial results separately from the two other units, but that is a possibility.

amd_raja_koduri

AMD’s Radeon technologies group will develop GPU architectures, graphics processors, graphics cards and software. In addition, the RTG will deal with relations with independent software vendors (ISVs), industry partners and other parties, which are strategically important to AMD’s graphics business. Raja Koduri will be responsible for all aspects of Radeon technologies group’s business and his strong dedication to computer graphics should play a positive role.

“With the creation of the Radeon Technologies Group we are putting in place a more agile, vertically-integrated graphics organization focused on solidifying our position as the graphics industry leader, recapturing profitable share across traditional graphics markets, and staking leadership positions in new markets such as virtual and augmented reality,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer of AMD.

The RTG will be focused purely on GPU architectures and discrete graphics adapters, namely Radeon and Fire Pro, which means that the new group will be considerably more agile than AMD’s CG is today in the market of standalone GPUs. The Radeon technologies group will not have to develop accelerated processing units or semi-custom chips for AMD’s CG or EESC divisions, which means stronger dedication to discrete graphics processors.

amd_radeon_artwork_angle_new

While graphics continues to be strategically important for AMD, the RTG will not have to align its roadmaps, strategy or tactics with other units. While deep integration of the former ATI Technologies into AMD was crucial for creation of highly-integrated accelerated processing units, the end result was that AMD simply did not have a business unit strongly dedicated to discrete GPUs.

Advanced Micro Devices desperately wants to fight discrete GPU market share back from Nvidia Corp. and the dedicated unit should help the company to do just that. The new Radeon business group should have all the abilities to respond to market challenges quicker.

The formation of a separate graphics technologies group at AMD is a good sign, but it also means new challenges. For Mr. Koduri the primary task will be to create an entirely new organization within AMD, which will be competitive against Nvidia. Another challenge to Raja Koduri will be to ensure that the new products are released on time starting next year, something that is not easy to do when you do not have that many resources at your disposal.

amd_radeon_r9_390_official

Raja Koduri has more than 20 years of hands-on experience advancing computer graphics, from content creation to GPU system architecture and design. Mr. Koduri is responsible for some of ATI Technologies’ and AMD’s most successful graphics products. The engineer was also responsible for development of graphics architectures at Apple between 2009 and 2013.

“AMD is one of the few companies with the engineering talent and IP to make emerging immersive computing opportunities a reality,” said Koduri. “Now, with the Radeon Technologies Group, we have a dedicated team focused on growing our business as we create a unique environment for the best and brightest minds in graphics to be a part of the team re-defining the industry.”

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It is great to see that AMD is finally creating a separate division within the company, which will be dedicated to graphics. Only time will tell whether the Radeon Technologies Group will be able to reinvigorate the company’s graphics business, but given the current state of things, it is clear that AMD’s management had to act.

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AMD will not allow partners to modify specs of Radeon R9 Nano https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-will-not-allow-partners-to-modify-specs-of-radeon-r9-nano/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-will-not-allow-partners-to-modify-specs-of-radeon-r9-nano/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2015 15:22:04 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=265767 Even though Advanced Micro Devices will allow its partners to build their own versions of AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics cards, it will not let them significantly alter specifications of such graphics adapters. As a result, the difference between the original Radeon R9 Nano and custom versions from AMD’s partners will be minimal. In about …

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Even though Advanced Micro Devices will allow its partners to build their own versions of AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics cards, it will not let them significantly alter specifications of such graphics adapters. As a result, the difference between the original Radeon R9 Nano and custom versions from AMD’s partners will be minimal.

In about three months from now Advanced Micro Devices will allow its partners to build custom versions of Radeon R9 Nano graphics adapters. The only thing that AMD’s partners will be allowed to modify is the cooling system of the product. Producers of graphics adapters will not be able to increase clock-rates of their Radeon R9 Nano or significantly adjust printed-circuit boards, reports Expreview web-site.

amd_radeon_r9_nano_1

Custom versions of AMD Radeon R9 Nano will have to preserve form-factor of the graphics card and should be compliant with mini-ITX standards. Thermal design power of partner’s Radeon R9 Nano graphics cards will have to be the same as TDP of AMD’s version.

AMD Radeon R9 Nano-based graphics boards from AMD’s allies will use fully-fledged “Fiji” graphics processing units with 4096 stream processors, 256 texture mapping units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit HBM memory bus.

amd_radeon_r9_nano

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It looks like custom versions of AMD Radeon R9 Nano will not be significantly different compared to AMD’s own graphics adapter. What we can expect are graphics adapters with hybrid or liquid cooling systems, which will have higher overclocking potential than AMD’s own Radeon R9 Nano. Keeping in mind that “Nano” graphics cards have different voltage regulator module compared to AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, even modified “R9 Nano” graphics adapters with advanced cooling systems will not have overclocking potential on par with the top-of-the-range product.

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AMD Radeon R9 Nano: Extreme performance in mini-ITX form-factor https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-unveils-radeon-r9-nano-leading-edge-performance-in-mini-itx-form-factor/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-unveils-radeon-r9-nano-leading-edge-performance-in-mini-itx-form-factor/#comments Thu, 27 Aug 2015 14:58:11 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=265121 Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday introduced its highly-anticipated AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics card, which combines massive performance with relatively low power consumption and ultra-small form-factor. The new graphics card uses fully-fledged “Fiji” graphics processor and its peak compute performance even exceeds that of Nvidia Corp.’s GeForce GTX Titan X. Small form-factor, unbeatable performance The …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday introduced its highly-anticipated AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics card, which combines massive performance with relatively low power consumption and ultra-small form-factor. The new graphics card uses fully-fledged “Fiji” graphics processor and its peak compute performance even exceeds that of Nvidia Corp.’s GeForce GTX Titan X.

Small form-factor, unbeatable performance

The AMD Radeon R9 Nano is not a small brother to the flagship Radeon R9 Fury X, but a graphics card that offers nearly similar performance, which means that it is essentially a competitor. The miniature graphics adapter sports “Fiji” graphics processing unit with 4096 stream processors, 256 texture mapping units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit interface for high-bandwidth memory operating at 1GHz. The board carries 4GB of HBM memory with 512GB/s bandwidth.

amd_radeon_r9_nano

Compute performance of the AMD Radeon R9 Nano is 8.2TFLOPS, which just 5 per cent below that of the top-of-the-line Radeon R9 Fury X and which is considerably higher than compute performance of Nvidia’s flagship offering, the GeForce GTX Titan X (6.2TFLOPS).

According to AMD, the Radeon R9 Nano is at least 30 per cent faster than any mini-ITX graphics card available today (i.e., Nvidia GeForce GTX 970) in various games in ultra-high-definition 4K (3840*2160) resolution. Thanks to ultimate compute performance of the novelty, that difference will only increase over time as games take advantage of compute capabilities of GPUs.

amd_radeon_r9_nano_perf

AMD’s “Fiji” graphics processing unit based on the GCN 1.2 architecture fully supports all modern technologies and application programming interfaces, including DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.5, OpenCL 2.1, Vulkan, Mantle, FreeSync and other.

“With the Radeon R9 Nano graphics card, AMD is enabling 4K class gaming in your living room in an exceptionally quiet, ultra-small design built to excel in today's games and on the latest APIs like DirectX 12 and Vulkan,” said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager of product, computing and graphics business unit at AMD. “There simply is nothing else like it.”

State-of-the-art design

The miniature AMD Radeon R9 Nano uses 6” printed circuit board specially developed for high-end graphics cards. The card will fit into any mini-ITX system that is compatible with dual-slot graphics adapters.

amd_radeon_r9_nano_2   amd_radeon_r9_nano_3

The board features 4+1-phase voltage regulator module based on high-end solid-state chokes as well as International Rectifier’s IR3564B dual-output digital multi-phase controller used on advanced mainboards. The VRM is extremely sophisticated and features additional chokes to stabilize and clean power in a bid to ensure stable operation in rather extreme conditions. The card has one 8-pin auxiliary PCI Express power connector.

amd_radeon_r9_nano_6

Too cool-down the card, which can dissipate up to 175W of power, AMD developed a special cooling system featuring one vapour chamber, numerous heat-pipe, an aluminum radiator and a 90mm fan that can exhaust heat in multiple directions. The cooler looks similarly to the one used on the Radeon R9 Fury X and features brushed aluminium finishes and multiple metal parts in order to ensure minimal vibration. The fan reportedly produces 42dBa of noise.

The graphics adapter features three DisplayPort 1.2a outputs as well as one HDMI 1.4 connector.

Price and availability

AMD’s partners will begin to sell the Radeon R9 Nano graphics boards under their own brands starting from the 10th of September. The manufacturer suggested retail price of the Radeon R9 Nano will be similar to that of the Radeon R9 Fury X: $649 in the U.S., £509 in the U.K. and €629 in Eurozone.

amd_radeon_r9_nano_1

In the first three months of availability, all AMD Radeon R9 Nano will be manufactured by a contract maker under supervision of Advanced Micro Devices and then sold to partners. Three months from now select AIB suppliers may release their own mini-ITX graphics cards based on the “Fiji” graphics processing units similar to AMD’s Radeon R9 Nano.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Small form-factor, limited power consumption, extreme compute performance and great performance in games make AMD’s Radeon R9 Nano a very attractive product. Its MSRP is rather high, but its competitors – AMD Radeon R9 Fury X and Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti – consume more power and are larger. Therefore, if you are building a mini-ITX PC to play video games in 4K UHD resolution, you really don’t have a lot of choice here.

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Pricing and launch date of AMD Radeon R9 Nano leaked https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/pricing-and-launch-date-of-amd-radeon-r9-nano-leaked/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/pricing-and-launch-date-of-amd-radeon-r9-nano-leaked/#comments Thu, 27 Aug 2015 06:50:54 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=265048 Specifications and capabilities of AMD’s upcoming Radeon R9 Nano graphics card have been largely known for quite some time now. The new graphics adapter will be the highest-performing mini-ITX add-in board ever built and will be among the fastest graphics cards available today. According to a new leak, the product will not be too expensive. AMD’s partners …

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Specifications and capabilities of AMD’s upcoming Radeon R9 Nano graphics card have been largely known for quite some time now. The new graphics adapter will be the highest-performing mini-ITX add-in board ever built and will be among the fastest graphics cards available today. According to a new leak, the product will not be too expensive.

AMD’s partners will start to sell the Radeon R9 Nano graphics card on the 10th of September, 2015. The manufacturer suggested retail price of the Radeon R9 Nano will be similar to that of the Radeon R9 Fury X: $649 in the U.S., £509 in the U.K. and €629 in Eurozone, according to WccfTech, which cites AMD’s documents and sources close to the company.

amd_radeon_fury_nano

The AMD Radeon R9 Nano will be built by a contract manufacturer under supervision of Advanced Micro Devices and sold to partners as card, not as a graphics processing unit. Only three months later some manufacturers of graphics boards may be granted rights to build their own Radeon R9 Nano graphics adapters.

The AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics card for mini-ITX personal computers is powered by AMD’s “Fiji” graphics processing unit with 4096 stream processors, 256 texture mapping units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit memory interface. The Radeon R9 Nano will have compute performance of around 8.2TFLOPS, which is only 5 per cent below that of the Radeon R9 Fury X. Just like the flagship graphics solution from AMD, the miniature graphics adapter carries 4GB of HBM [high-bandwidth memory] operating at 1000MHz.

amd_radeon_fury_nano_1

The AMD Radeon R9 Nano will be the fastest graphics adapter for small form-factor systems ever designed. Its performance will be comparable to that of AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti. It is unlikely that the Radeon R9 Nano will get a strong rival in its category any time soon.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Keeping in mind that the AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics card is unique, its $649/£509 price tag does not seem to be excessive. What remains to be seen is whether AMD will be able to satisfy demand for the miniature graphics adapter. In fact, it is easier to build the flagship AMD Radeon R9 Fury X than the Radeon R9 Nano. For the for former, AMD needs to get one “Fiji” chip with 4096 stream processors, but for the latter the company needs a GPU with 4096 SPs, low power consumption and low heat dissipation, a combination that may be hard to find.

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AMD readies faster A8 and A10 accelerated processing units https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-readies-faster-a8-and-a10-accelerated-processing-units/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-readies-faster-a8-and-a10-accelerated-processing-units/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2015 09:36:19 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=264911 Advanced Micro Devices is working on two new A8 and A10 accelerated processing units for desktop systems. The new chips will be based on the code-named “Kaveri” design and will not bring tangible performance improvements compared to existing APUs. Nonetheless, the new processors will help AMD to maintain average selling prices of its highly-integrated offerings …

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Advanced Micro Devices is working on two new A8 and A10 accelerated processing units for desktop systems. The new chips will be based on the code-named “Kaveri” design and will not bring tangible performance improvements compared to existing APUs. Nonetheless, the new processors will help AMD to maintain average selling prices of its highly-integrated offerings for desktops.

The new quad-core AMD A8-7690K and AMD A10-7890K will feature slightly higher clock-rates than existing A8 and A10 accelerated processing units. For example, the A10-7890K accelerated processing unit will have default frequency of 4.10GHz, which is 200MHz higher compared to existing flagship APU. The A8-7690K will be around 100MHz faster than its predecessor, reports CPU-World. Unfortunately, it is unknown whether the new chips will also sport higher GPU frequency.

amd_fusion_carrizo_bristol_ridge

From micro-architecture point of view, the new APUs from AMD are similar to their predecessors: they feature four “Steamroller” cores, DirectX 12-class integrated graphics processor featuring GCN 1.1 architecture, second-generation video coding engine (VCE) and fourth-generation unified video decoder (VCE) units that ensure high quality video playback and support all modern encoding formats (MPEG 2, MPEG 4, H.264, VC-1, etc.) except H.265/HEVC, VC-9 and some other.

amd_apu_kaveri_specs

AMD’s latest accelerated processing units that belong to the “Kaveri Refresh” family feature a reworked power supply circuitry, which gives cleaner and higher volume power delivery to the die. This lets AMD to increase “official” frequencies of its highly-integrated desktop chips and which also provides overclockers a significantly better headroom for further tweaking. In addition, AMD is able to bolster clock-rates of its chips thanks to the fact that GlobalFoundries’ 28nm super high performance (SHP) process technology has got significantly better than it was early in its lifecycle.

In addition to high-performance AMD A8-7690K and AMD A10-7890K, Advanced Micro Devices is also working on AMD A6-7470K as well as Athlon X4 850 and Athlon X4 870K.

The new microprocessors are expected to hit the market in the coming weeks and months.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While it is nice to see that AMD is gradually increasing performance of its APUs, the chips are still behind their competitors from Intel Corp. when it comes to general-purpose computing performance. Moreover, relatively high thermal design power of 95W does not allow to build ultra-small systems based on the new AMD A8 and A10 “Kaveri” accelerated processing units.

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Specs of AMD Radeon R9 Nano confirmed: 4096 SPs, 8.19TFLOPS https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/specs-of-amd-radeon-r9-nano-confirmed-4096-sps-8-19tflops/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/specs-of-amd-radeon-r9-nano-confirmed-4096-sps-8-19tflops/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2015 01:03:58 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=264891 It is not a secret that AMD’s upcoming Radeon R9 Nano graphics card will be the most powerful adapter for mini-ITX personal computers ever produced and will have no rivals for quite some time. As it appears, the Radeon R9 Nano will not only offer high performance, but it will actually offer compute performance that will …

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It is not a secret that AMD’s upcoming Radeon R9 Nano graphics card will be the most powerful adapter for mini-ITX personal computers ever produced and will have no rivals for quite some time. As it appears, the Radeon R9 Nano will not only offer high performance, but it will actually offer compute performance that will be comparable to that of AMD’s flagship Radeon R9 Fury X.

The AMD Radeon R9 Nano graphics card – which sales are expected to begin in the coming weeks – is based on the fully fledged code-named “Fiji” graphics processing unit with 4096 stream processors, 256 texture mapping units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit memory interface, according to slide from AMD’s presentation published by VideoCardz web-site. The graphics board will continue to carry 4GB of HBM [high-bandwidth memory] operating at 1000MHz.

amd_radeon_fury_nano_graphics_card

The miniature graphics card from AMD and its partners will have clock-rates comparable to those of the flagship Radeon R9 Fury X. The Radeon R9 Nano will have compute performance of around 8.2TFLOPS, which is only 5 per cent below that of the Radeon R9 Fury X. Actual performance of the Radeon R9 Nano will be considerably higher than that of the Radeon R9 Fury, which uses a cut-down version of “Fiji” with 3584 stream processors, and will be very close to that of the top-of-the-range product.

AMD-Radeon-R9-Nano-Final-Specifications-900x507

Thermal design power of the AMD Radeon R9 Nano will be 175W. Many small form-factor personal computers these days can cool-down such graphics cards. Makers of high-performance systems will likely release SFF PCs featuring the Radeon R9 Nano with extreme performance in games in the coming months. Moreover, thanks to the fact that the “Fiji” graphics processor supports hardware-accelerated decoding and encoding of H.265 (HEVC) video, the Radeon R9 Nano can even be used to playback of ultra-high-definition video. Unfortunately, since “Fiji” does not support HDMI 2.0 output, it may not be the best card to build home-theater personal computers for Ultra HD Blu-ray playback.

Pricing of AMD’s Radeon R9 Nano is unknown. Its performance is clearly higher than that of the AMD Radeon R9 Fury, which costs $549, but the product is not as fast as the Radeon R9 Fury X, which retails for $649.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Keeping in mind that far not all people, even among enthusiasts, like liquid-cooling systems, the Radeon R9 Nano may actually become more popular than the Radeon R9 Fury X. The Radeon 9 Nano will be truly unique and it has all chances to become a best-seller.

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Sales of desktop graphics cards hit 10-year low in Q2 2015 https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/sales-of-desktop-graphics-cards-hit-10-year-low-in-q2-2015/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/sales-of-desktop-graphics-cards-hit-10-year-low-in-q2-2015/#comments Mon, 24 Aug 2015 21:20:49 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=264714 Sales of graphics cards for desktop PCs decreased once again in the second quarter of 2015, according to data from Jon Peddie Research. Market share of Advanced Micro Devices also hit a new low during the quarter. Shipments of discrete graphics adapters for desktops dropped to 9.4 million units in Q2 2015, which is minimum …

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Sales of graphics cards for desktop PCs decreased once again in the second quarter of 2015, according to data from Jon Peddie Research. Market share of Advanced Micro Devices also hit a new low during the quarter.

Shipments of discrete graphics adapters for desktops dropped to 9.4 million units in Q2 2015, which is minimum amount in more than ten years. According to JPR, sales of graphics cards dropped 16.81 per cent compared to the previous quarter, whereas sales of desktop PCs decreased 14.77 per cent. The attach rate of add-in graphics boards (AIBs) to desktop PCs has declined from a high of 63 per cent in Q1 2008 to 37 per cent this quarter. Average sales of graphics cards have been around 15 million units per quarter in the recent years, but declined sharply in 2014.

nvidia_geforce_gtx_980_1

Nvidia continued its dominance in the market of desktop discrete graphics cards. Market share of the company increased to 81.9 per cent, an all-time high. By contrast, sales of AMD Radeon graphics adapters decreased to a minimum in more than 10 years. The share of AMD dropped to 18 per cent in Q2 2015, which is the lowest share that AMD had in history. The highest share of desktop discrete market that AMD ever had was 55.5 per cent back in Q3 2004, according to Jon Peddie Research. AMD shipped around 35 per cent or desktop discrete graphics processing units in the last four years. AMD’s share began to contract sharply after Nvidia introduced its GeForce GTX 970 and 980 graphics cards in Q3 2014. In about a year AMD lost 20 per cent of market share it controls.

jpr_aib_q2_2015

 

Note: Some numbers are estimates.

JPR claims that while the market of desktop AIBs is shrinking, sales of expensive graphics cards used by gamers are increasing.

“However, in spite of the overall decline, somewhat due to tablets and embedded graphics, the PC gaming momentum continues to build and is the bright spot in the AIB market,” said Jon Peddie, the head of JPR.

jpr_aib_q2_2015_shares

AMD’s quarter-to-quarter total desktop graphics cards unit shipments decreased 33.3 per cent. Nvidia’s quarter-to-quarter unit shipments decreased 12 per cent.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It is noteworthy that AMD is losing market share despite the fact that it has rather competitive graphics processing units. Further improvements of integrated graphics processors will decrease sales of add-in graphics boards.

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AMD: We have very strong roadmap for GCN architecture https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-we-have-very-strong-roadmap-for-gcn-architecture/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-we-have-very-strong-roadmap-for-gcn-architecture/#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2015 23:57:59 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=263320 Despite of ongoing problems and lowering research and development budget, Advanced Micro Devices maintains optimism and claims that it will keep financing development of key products. In the recent months, Advanced Micro Devices has been criticized heavily for re-introducing its previous-generation graphics processing units under new names. The release of one new GPU per year …

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Despite of ongoing problems and lowering research and development budget, Advanced Micro Devices maintains optimism and claims that it will keep financing development of key products.

In the recent months, Advanced Micro Devices has been criticized heavily for re-introducing its previous-generation graphics processing units under new names. The release of one new GPU per year is clearly a result of multiple business decisions, massive layoffs from the company several years ago as well as limited research and development budget. Nonetheless, AMD seems to remain rather optimistic and claims that it has strong APU, CPU and GPU roadmaps. What is particularly interesting is that the company intends to continue improving its GCN [graphics core next] architecture, not introduce something brand new.

“Where we’ve been incredibly protective in maintained investment is in where we are banking the future of the company,” said Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer of AMD, at the at Pacific Crest annual global technology leadership forum, reports Tech Trader Daily. “So it is on that next generation of CPUs starting with ‘Zen’. It is on successive generations of our graphics core next. Huge volume in what we have in not only in discrete graphics and our APU, but the game console wins are all on graphics core next and we have a very strong roadmap for that graphics core next IP going forward.”

amd_graphics_leadership_1

Based on previous comments of Mr. Papermaster made in late-2014 and mid-2015, next year the company intends to release graphics processors that will be based on an architecture that will be considerably different than today’s GCN. In particular, the next iteration of GCN architecture is projected to be two times more energy efficient compared to current GCN and will support new features. Since AMD intends to use 14nm or 16nm FinFET process technologies to make its next-gen GPUs, increased performance and energy efficiency is not surprising.

What is noteworthy is that this year year AMD’s GCN turns four years old. Previously AMD has never used one ISA [instruction set architecture] for over four years. AMD introduced three generations of its TeraScale architectures over four years (in 2006 – 2010), each time bringing major improvements. GCN has also evolved significantly since late 2011 and it looks like AMD wants to continue developing generations of GCN-based GPUs.

amd_graphics_leadership

While AMD’s latest “Fiji” graphics processor based on the third iteration of GCN looks competitive against its rivals, it should be noted that Nvidia has introduced two major architectures (“Kepler” and “Maxwell”) since 2012 and plans to unveil “Pascal” next year.

While architectural innovation may be relatively slow and take time, it should be noted that AMD needs to actually introduce more than one new graphics processor a year, otherwise its lineup will largely consist of outdate GPUs, which will result in further loss of market share.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It remains to be seen how competitive will AMD’s fourth iteration of GCN be against “Pascal”. Based on AMD’s comments, GCN 1.3 should be rather powerful. But the technology has been on the market for a long time already and nowadays even microprocessor architectures remain on the market only for three to four years.

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Eizo rolls-out 27” IPS monitor with 144Hz refresh rate, AMD FreeSync https://www.kitguru.net/peripherals/monitors/anton-shilov/eizo-rolls-out-27-ips-monitor-with-144hz-refresh-rate-amd-freesync/ https://www.kitguru.net/peripherals/monitors/anton-shilov/eizo-rolls-out-27-ips-monitor-with-144hz-refresh-rate-amd-freesync/#comments Thu, 06 Aug 2015 09:02:35 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=262575 Eizo, a leading maker of high-end displays, this week introduced a premium 27” monitor, which weds IPS [in-plane switching] panel, 144Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync technology. The combination is pretty unique since the vast majority of displays with 144Hz refresh rate feature cheap TN+film panels. The Eizo Foris FS2735 display with 27” IPS panel has …

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Eizo, a leading maker of high-end displays, this week introduced a premium 27” monitor, which weds IPS [in-plane switching] panel, 144Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync technology. The combination is pretty unique since the vast majority of displays with 144Hz refresh rate feature cheap TN+film panels.

The Eizo Foris FS2735 display with 27” IPS panel has 2560*1440 resolution as well as LED backlight. The monitor is designed specifically for gamers and features Eizo’s proprietary motion blur reduction feature that controls the blinking of the LED backlight as well as AMD’s FreeSync technology that dynamically synchronizes refresh rate of the display with the frame rate of AMD Radeon graphics adapters to eliminate stuttering and tearing.

eizo_fs2735_1

The unique combination of Eizo’s traditional quality, an IPS panel, 144Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync will likely make the display rather popular among demanding gamers, who want to have vivid colours as well as extreme refresh-rate along with AMD’s FreeSync. So far, only Asustek Computer has introduced a similar display.

eizo_fs2735

The monitor features one DisplayPort, two HDMI ports and one DVI-D input. The device also integrates dual-port USB 3.0 hub as well as two 1W speakers. The display comes with G-Ignition Mobile software, which allows to adjust display settings using smartphones.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4St3cm4Ghc ‘]

The Eizo Foris FS2735 will be available this winter (e.g., in late 2015). Pricing is unknown, but typically Eizo displays cost slightly more than monitors from other companies. The product will come with a five-year manufacturer's limited warranty.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: AMD FreeSync is getting more popular among display makers. Implementation of the technology is free and easy: manufacturers only have to use a compatible display scaler available from multiple vendors. Perhaps, eventually, AMD FreeSync will become a standard/default feature of displays aimed at gamers and multimedia enthusiasts.

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Nintendo on NX: It was important for us to recommit to consoles https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/anton-shilov/nintendo-about-announcement-of-nx-it-was-important-for-us-to-recommit-to-consoles/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/anton-shilov/nintendo-about-announcement-of-nx-it-was-important-for-us-to-recommit-to-consoles/#comments Mon, 03 Aug 2015 22:59:06 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=261919 Although Nintendo confirmed earlier this year that it had begun development of its next-generation video game console code-named NX, it did not reveal any actual details about the forthcoming product. Apparently, the only reason why Nintendo disclosed the fact of development was to tell its customers that it will not exit the market of dedicated game …

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Although Nintendo confirmed earlier this year that it had begun development of its next-generation video game console code-named NX, it did not reveal any actual details about the forthcoming product. Apparently, the only reason why Nintendo disclosed the fact of development was to tell its customers that it will not exit the market of dedicated game consoles.

“Normally, we wouldn’t have taken that step of telling people we are working on the next system, but we wanted people to know we remain committed to the dedicated game device business,” said Scott Moffitt, executive vice president of sales at Nintendo of America, in an interview with Examiner.

It is not a secret that announcement of a new game console helps to sell existing hardware and software. Keeping in mind that sales of Nintendo Wii U are very slow, the company has clearly failed to make its current system popular, it made a great sense for the company to pre-announce its NX without revealing any details.

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It is still unclear when Nintendo plans to release its next-gen system. It is logical to assume that the console will be released in 2016, around four years after Wii U. However, Nintendo does not want to confirm any timeframes. However, it claims that its customers were enthusiastic about the new console.

“Judging by our stock price, the [reaction] was very enthusiastic, but our game fans were also very enthusiastic,” said Mr. Moffitt. “People also respected the fact that we remain committed to making rich, deep experiences that they can enjoy in their living room.”

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KitGuru Says: If sales of Wii U do not pick up this year and in 2016 the company releases its NX system, then Wii U will be one of the worst selling game consoles in history.

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AMD is researching multi-core ‘exascale heterogeneous processor’ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-is-researching-exascale-heterogeneous-processor-with-16-zen-cores-gpu-and-hbm/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-is-researching-exascale-heterogeneous-processor-with-16-zen-cores-gpu-and-hbm/#respond Mon, 03 Aug 2015 21:53:39 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=261901 Advanced Micro Devices has confirmed that it is researching a multi-core accelerated processing unit based on “Zen” micro-architecture, which will eventually power supercomputers with extreme performance. At present the company is only considering a concept design and it is unclear when AMD decides to actually develop such processor. AMD, just like many other leading designers …

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Advanced Micro Devices has confirmed that it is researching a multi-core accelerated processing unit based on “Zen” micro-architecture, which will eventually power supercomputers with extreme performance. At present the company is only considering a concept design and it is unclear when AMD decides to actually develop such processor.

AMD, just like many other leading designers of chips, believes that supercomputers with exascale-class performance will have to use hybrid processor that feature both general-purpose cores as well as multiple stream processors found in graphics processing units. AMD has been promoting the idea of hybrid accelerated processing units since 2006, hence, its vision regarding “exascale heterogeneous processor”, which it outlined in a paper published by IEEE, is not surprising.

“To make fully realize the capabilities of the GPU, we envision exascale compute nodes comprised of integrated CPUs and GPUs (i.e., accelerated processing units or APUs) along with the hardware and software support to enable scientists to effectively run their scientific experiments on an exascale system,” the paper reads. “We discuss the hardware and software challenges in building a heterogeneous exascale system, and we describe on-going research efforts at AMD to realize our exascale vision.”

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BitsAndChips web-site reports that the concept of EHP [exascale heterogeneous processor] features 16 or even 32 general-purpose cores based on “Zen” architecture, stream processors based on the next iteration of GCN [graphics core next] architecture as well as HBM [high bandwidth memory].

Earlier this year first details about 16-core APU leaked. AMD’s EHP for supercomputers is expected to feature 16 x86 “Zen” cores with two-way simultaneous multi-threading technology and 512KB L2 cache per core, 32MB L3 cache as well as a new-generation “Greenland” graphics engine with ½ double precision compute rate. The exascale heterogenerous processor is also projected to feature a quad-channel DDR4 memory controller with enhanced ECC capabilities that supports up to 256GB of memory per channel, 64 lanes of PCI Express 3.0 that can be used for SATA Express, integrated SATA, 1GbE, USB as well as various legacy interfaces. The APU is also expected to feature on-package 16GB of HBM2 memory with 512GB/s or higher bandwidth. It is assumed that the chip will hit the market in 2017, but AMD has never confirmed this.

AMD confirmed development of a datacenter APU earlier this year, but has never revealed its specifications. Keeping in mind that initial processors based on “Zen” micro-architecture will be made using 14nm FinFET process technology and will not feature more than eight cores, chips with 16 or 32 cores will likely be manufactured using 10nm FinFET fabrication process sometimes in 2018, at the earliest.

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KitGuru Says: The new paper released by AMD formally confirms what the company has been talking about for years. It does not mean that the company is actually developing an APU with 32 x86 cores and a GPU engine. However it does confirm the company’s vision regarding the future of server chips.

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Microsoft: Life-to-date sales of Xbox One exceed 11.6 million of units https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/console-desktop-pc/anton-shilov/microsoft-life-to-date-sales-of-xbox-one-exceed-11-6-million-of-units/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/console-desktop-pc/anton-shilov/microsoft-life-to-date-sales-of-xbox-one-exceed-11-6-million-of-units/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2015 09:58:30 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=261258 Despite of growing popularity of mobile platforms, games for smartphones and tablets as well as the rise of PC, video game consoles are selling really well. In fact, the latest systems from Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. have so far been more successful than their predecessors. Microsoft is shy to reveal actual sales figures of …

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Despite of growing popularity of mobile platforms, games for smartphones and tablets as well as the rise of PC, video game consoles are selling really well. In fact, the latest systems from Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. have so far been more successful than their predecessors.

Microsoft is shy to reveal actual sales figures of its Xbox One game console. Even in its financial statements the company only discloses sales figures for both Xbox 360 and Xbox One systems. However, Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, have finally revealed at least something about shipments of Xbox One: it is, apparently, selling better than Xbox 360 in the same period almost a decade ago.

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“We have sold a ton of Xbox Ones globally, more than we have sold 360s [in the same period],” said Mr. Spencer in an interview with the Edge Magazine, reports GamesRadar.

Microsoft Xbox One has been available for well over 1.5 years already, or for over six quarters. On the 19th of July, 2007, Microsoft announced that sales of its Xbox 360 console exceeded 11.6 million units after six quarters on the market. If Microsoft claims that life-to-date shipments of Xbox One now exceed those of Xbox 360 in the first 1.5 years of availability, then it means that Microsoft officially sold more than 11.6 million of its new-generation game consoles.

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VGChartz, which accumulates data from various market tracking companies like NPD Group, Media Create and Gfk, believes that Microsoft so far has sold 13 million of Xbox One game systems.

Cumulative sales of Sony’s PlayStation 4 after five quarters on the market were 22.3 million units as of the 31st of March, 2015.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: In fact, 13 million is a rather huge number. Moreover, even Microsoft itself acknowledges that Xbox One trails PlayStation 4 in terms of sales. It is not clear at all why the software giant does not want to release official life-to-date shipments figures for Xbox One. Since Microsoft does not disclose Xbox One numbers, people compare sales of XB1 and X360 combined to shipments of PlayStation 4. Apparently, the latter is selling better than two systems from Microsoft, which further damages reputation of the world’s largest software developer.

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AMD begins to ship Radeon R9 Nano to partners, images hit the web https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-begins-shipments-of-radeon-r9-nano-to-partners-images-hit-the-web/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-begins-shipments-of-radeon-r9-nano-to-partners-images-hit-the-web/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2015 23:56:40 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=260312 A web-site has published the first images of AMD’s third graphics card based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processing unit – the AMD Radeon R9 Nano. The publication of the picture indicates that AMD had already finalized specifications of the product and recently started to ship it to select partners. Iyd.Kr web-site this week published …

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A web-site has published the first images of AMD’s third graphics card based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processing unit – the AMD Radeon R9 Nano. The publication of the picture indicates that AMD had already finalized specifications of the product and recently started to ship it to select partners.

Iyd.Kr web-site this week published two images of AMD Radeon R9 Nano, the highest-performing small form-factor graphics card for mini-ITX systems. The graphics board looks exactly like on renders by Advanced Micro Devices: it seems to have a very solid design and its cooling system looks very compact.

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The Radeon R9 Nano is reportedly based on the fully-fledged “Fiji” graphics processing unit with 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit memory interface. The card is equipped with 4GB of high-bandwidth memory operating at 1GHz, which provides 512GB/s of bandwidth.

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Peak thermal design power of the graphics adapter is 175W, but its final GPU clock-rate is unknown. Unofficial estimates point to 830MHz – 900MHz frequency, but AMD keeps the final specifications under wraps.

Pricing of AMD Radeon R9 Nano is yet to be discovered. AMD plans to officially unveil the product in August.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

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KitGuru Says: Keeping in mind that AMD has started to ship samples of the product to its partners, it is now a matter of time before the final specs and performance numbers of the AMD Radeon R9 Nano leak.

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