Radeon Fury | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Tue, 06 Oct 2015 01:50:25 +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 Radeon Fury | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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.

amd_radeon_r9_nano_real_unofficial_1

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.

amd_radeon_r9_nano_real_unofficial

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.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

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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AMD reportedly has priority supply agreement regarding HBM, HBM2 https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-reportedly-has-priority-supply-agreement-regarding-hbm-hbm2/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-reportedly-has-priority-supply-agreement-regarding-hbm-hbm2/#comments Tue, 14 Jul 2015 10:55:38 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=258850 The first-generation high-bandwidth memory provides extreme performance, but is clearly not perfect for high-end graphics cards due to capacity limitations. A good news is that second-gen high-bandwidth memory is on the way and is due in 2016. Advanced Micro Devices may get it faster and in higher volumes than its arch-rival Nvidia Corp. The only …

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The first-generation high-bandwidth memory provides extreme performance, but is clearly not perfect for high-end graphics cards due to capacity limitations. A good news is that second-gen high-bandwidth memory is on the way and is due in 2016. Advanced Micro Devices may get it faster and in higher volumes than its arch-rival Nvidia Corp. The only question is when exactly HBM2 is set to be available.

HBM2 to solve HBM's problems

One of the key drawbacks of the first-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is its low capacity. At present, it is impossible to install more than 4GB of HBM on a single-GPU graphics card, which was not a good news for AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury-series adapters. SK Hynix, AMD, JEDEC and a number of other industry players are working on the second-gen high-bandwidth memory (HBM 2), which will solve a lot of problems, including capacity-related. Moreover, Advanced Micro Devices may benefit from priority supply agreement it reportedly has with SK Hynix.

sk_hynix_hbm_dram_2

The first-generation HBM (HBM1) stacks four DRAM dies with two 128-bit channels per die on a base logic die, creating a memory device with a 1024-bit interface. Each channel supports 1Gb capacities (2Gb per die), features 8 banks and can operate at 1Gb/s data-rate (1GHz effective DDR clock-rate). As a result, each HBM 4Hi stack (4 high stack) package can provide 1GB capacity and 128GB/s memory bandwidth. The second-generation HBM (HBM2) utilizes 8Gb dies with two 128-bit channels featuring 16 banks and sporting up to 2Gb/s data-rates (2GHz effective DDR frequency). The architecture of the HBM2 will let manufacturers built not only 4Hi stack (4 high stack) packages, but also 2Hi stack and 8Hi stack devices. As a result, memory producers will be able to assemble HBM2 memory chips with up to 8GB capacity (8Hi stack) and up to 256GB/s bandwidth (2Gb/s data rate, 1024-bit bus). Architectural advantages of HBM2 will allow GPU developers to use it not only for ultra-high-end applications with 4096-bit memory bus, but also for adapters that do not require extreme performance.

The industry needs HBM2

Advanced Micro Devices has already announced that it would use HBM memory going forward for a broad range of its ICs [integrated circuits], including graphics processing units and accelerated processing units. Right now, the company is working on its all-new family of graphics processing units based on the next iteration of GCN architecture with increased power efficiency and performance. AMD’s next high-end GPU code-named “Greenland” will be made using 16nm or 14nm FinFET process technology, which will help AMD to considerably increase transistor and stream processor counts compared to the code-named “Fiji” (AMD Radeon R9 Fury-series). As a result, “Greenland” will require more advanced memory and AMD plans to use HBM2 for it.

nvidia_pascal_module

Nvidia will also produce its code-named “Pascal” chips using TSMC's 16nm FinFET process technology and will also dramatically boost transistor count vs. existing graphics processing unit. It is expected that Nvidia's code-named GP100 chip will also need a high-end memory sub-system, presumably based on HBM2. At least, Nvidia officially revealed plans to use “3D memory” with “Pascal”.

Supply agreement

Since AMD has been a key developer of both HBM and HBM2, there is a contract in place that gives AMD priorities in terms of supply, according to WccfTech. While the terms of the agreement are unknown, typically such agreements mean that SK Hynix has to meet AMD’s requirements first and only then ship its chips to other customers. Theoretically, this could give AMD “an edge against its main rival, Nvidia, going into the next generation of GPUs featuring second-generation HBM technology.”

Supply agreements are usually signed in a bid to ensure priority treatment, high volumes and good prices. For example, Apple usually signs supply agreements to ensure that it gets what it needs from its suppliers and at low costs. AMD's share in the GPU market is pretty low these days and it may simply not need a lot of HBM2 chips for its launch next year.

HBM2 is still not quite there yet

Earlier this year SK Hynix demonstrated a 300mm wafer with HBM2 chips on it, which is an indicator that the company is testing such products internally, but this does not give any idea about when the HBM2 is ready for mass production.

At present SK Hynix uses 29nm manufacturing technology to manufacture HBM memory chips. According to roadmap leaked by SemiAccurate some time ago, the company plans to use its 21nm fabrication process to produce HBM2 sometimes in Q1 or Q2 2016. SK Hynix’s transition to 21nm is generally considered to be slow, which means that actual launch timeframe may be slightly delayed.

sk_hynix_tsv_roadmap_hbm

SK Hynix thoroughly lists all of its products – current, future and even some EOLed – in its catalogue that is updated every quarter. It is well known, which of SK Hynix’s chips are available, which will be available in Q1 or Q2 2016 and which will be sampled in Q1 2016. At present, SK Hynix does not list HBM2 anywhere, which may be a matter of trade secrets. However, back in 2014, the company did list first-gen HBM chips as “sampling” in Q3 and as “available” in Q4. At the present time, nothing is known about availability or sampling of HBM2 chips, which may indicate that their availability timeframe is not exactly clear.

AMD and SK Hynix did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Without any doubts, HBM may have certain teething problems, but nobody is talking about them publicly because of commercial reasons. Before the problems get solved, it is unlikely that SK Hynix or other producers of memory start to manufacture HBM2 in higher volumes.

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AMD’s partners cannot get enough Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards – report https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amds-partners-cannot-get-enough-radeon-r9-fury-graphics-cards-report/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amds-partners-cannot-get-enough-radeon-r9-fury-graphics-cards-report/#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2015 21:47:50 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=258807 Apparently, the problems of Advanced Micro Devices with its latest Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards may be significantly more serious than whining cooling system or limited overclockability. If a new media report is to be believed, then the company cannot supply enough boards to its partners. It is not a secret that the launch of …

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Apparently, the problems of Advanced Micro Devices with its latest Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards may be significantly more serious than whining cooling system or limited overclockability. If a new media report is to be believed, then the company cannot supply enough boards to its partners.

It is not a secret that the launch of AMD’s latest Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards was not very easy for AMD. The company delayed the product for a number of times and while its performance is high, it cannot beat its direct rival in all applications. Moreover, while AMD’s decision to use innovative high-bandwidth memory allowed the company to make its new graphics cards significantly shorter, its choice to use liquid cooling did not really pay off and resulted in a rather noisy cooler. However, all the challenges that AMD faces today may be considered as insignificant as the chip designer simply cannot deliver enough Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards to all of its partners.

Advanced Micro Devices has over 10 add-in-card partners, who officially buy graphics processing units from the company. Virtually all allies of AMD currently ship top-of-the-range Radeon R9 Fury X graphics solutions. However, only Asustek Computer and Sapphire Technology will offer AMD Radeon R9 Fury products initially, reports Hardwareluxx. Eventually companies like Gigabyte Technology, MicroStar International, PowerColor and other will also offer AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards, but at first, such products will only be available in limited quantities from two of AMD’s partners.

amd_radeon_r9_fury_card

According to the report, yields of AMD’s code-named “Fiji” graphics processing unit are rather low. Insufficient yields are not something surprising: with 8.9 billion transistors inside, the “Fiji” is the most complex chip ever produced. While the IC [integrated circuit] is not as large as Nvidia Corp.’s GM200, it is considerably harder to produce because of higher transistor density. Moreover, since “Fiji” uses all-new high-bandwidth memory (HBM) as well as a special interposer to connect memory to the GPU, testing and packaging process of the chip is extremely complex.

The exact yield rate of AMD’s “Fiji” is uncertain and it is unclear how many chips Advanced Micro Devices can get from its partners at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Moreover, since cycle times of TSMC’s 28nm fabrication process are over two months, it is clear that AMD cannot solve all of its problems quickly.

AMD and its partners did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: If AMD’s yields of “Fiji” are considerably lower than those of Nvidia’s GM200, then AMD will not be able to significantly lower the price of its Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics adapters to better compete against Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti.

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Asus Strix R9 Fury with DirectCU III: Custom design, massive cooler https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/asus-strix-r9-fury-with-directcu-iii-pictured-custom-design-massive-cooler/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/asus-strix-r9-fury-with-directcu-iii-pictured-custom-design-massive-cooler/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2015 09:56:57 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=258226 Asustek Computer will use its own printed circuit board design as well as its own high-performance cooling system on its upcoming Strix R9 Fury graphics card based on AMD’ Radeon R9 Fury graphics processing unit. The custom PCB and the massive cooler are designed to improve overclocking potential of the product. The Asus Strix R9 …

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Asustek Computer will use its own printed circuit board design as well as its own high-performance cooling system on its upcoming Strix R9 Fury graphics card based on AMD’ Radeon R9 Fury graphics processing unit. The custom PCB and the massive cooler are designed to improve overclocking potential of the product.

The Asus Strix R9 Fury graphics board will sport a considerably taller printed circuit board than AMD’s reference design, based on pictures published by WccfTech. The taller PCB is needed to accommodate an all-new multi-phase voltage regulator module (VRM) featuring concrete-core inductors, solid-state black metallic capacitors and hardened MOSFETs. The reworked VRM is designed to give cleaner and higher volume power delivery to the “Fiji” graphics processor and memory, which could result in better overclockability.

asus_strix_r9_fury

The Strix R9 Fury graphics card is also equipped with exact same DirectCU III cooler with three fans as the Asus Strix GTX 980 Ti. The DirectCU III cooling system uses a massive aluminium radiator with thin fins, two thick 10mm heatpipes and two regular heatpipes. The new fans used on the DirectCU III cooler feature new wing-blade design that delivers maximum air flow and improved 105 per cent static pressure over the heat sink, while producing less noise compared to standard fans. Asus believes that its DirectCU III cooler transports 40 per cent more heat away from GPUs compared to reference coolers. In addition, DirectCU III shuts its fans down during light load.

AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury graphics adapters will be based on a cut-down version of the “Fiji” graphics processing unit with 3584 stream processors, 192 texture units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit memory interface. Manufacturers of graphics cards are expected to release factory-overclocked versions of such graphics cards with increased GPU clock-rates. Higher frequencies are projected to compensate for the lower amount of stream processors and texture units and shrink performance gap between the Radeon R9 Fury and the Radeon R9 Fury X.

asus_strix_r9_fury_1

Advanced Micro Devices and its partners plan to start sales of AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards on the 14th of July. Select online stores are already taking pre-orders on the Asustek Computer’s Strix R9 Fury graphics card with 4GB of memory and DirectCU III cooling system (ASUS STRIX-R9FURY-DC3-4G-GAMING).

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

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Looks like Asustek’s Strix R9 Fury will be considerably more interesting solution than those based on AMD’s reference design. But will it be able to hit truly high clock-rates? We have no idea. What we are sure about is that the board will not feature a noisy cooling system because the DirectCU III is one of the quietest cooling solutions for graphics cards ever.

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Sapphire Tri-X R9 Fury graphics card: Reference PCB and triple-fan cooler https://www.kitguru.net/components/hard-drives/anton-shilov/sapphire-tri-x-r9-fury-graphics-card-pictured-reference-pcb-and-massive-cooler/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/hard-drives/anton-shilov/sapphire-tri-x-r9-fury-graphics-card-pictured-reference-pcb-and-massive-cooler/#comments Wed, 08 Jul 2015 06:59:06 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=257967 A web-site has published the first images of Sapphire Technology’s Tri-X R9 Fury graphics cards. The adapters will use reference printed circuit boards developed by Advance Micro Devices as well as massive cooling systems designed by Sapphire. AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards will be based on a version of “Fiji” graphics processing unit with 3584 …

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A web-site has published the first images of Sapphire Technology’s Tri-X R9 Fury graphics cards. The adapters will use reference printed circuit boards developed by Advance Micro Devices as well as massive cooling systems designed by Sapphire.

AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards will be based on a version of “Fiji” graphics processing unit with 3584 stream processors, 192 texture units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit memory interface. The adapters will be equipped with 4GB of HBM memory operating at 1GHz. Select makers of graphics cards will be allowed to use their own coolers and eventually design their own printed-circuit boards for such cards.

sapphire_radeon_r9_fury_tri-x

According to VideoCardz, Sapphire will offer two versions of Tri-X R9 Fury graphics adapters: one with 1GHz GPU clock-rate and another with 1040MHz GPU frequency. Both graphics boards will use the company’s own Tri-X cooler with three fans and a backplate. Both cards will be equipped with four display connectors: three DisplayPort 1.2 and one HDMI (1.4a).

sapphire_radeon_r9_fury_tri-x_1

Sapphire is one of the closest partners of AMD and is among the largest suppliers of Radeon adapters on the planet. If the company does not overclock the “Fiji” graphics processor on its Radeon R9 Fury graphics adapters significantly, then this may indicate that the GPU is not a really good overclocker. Due to low overclockability of AMD’s “Fiji” chip, performance difference between Radeon R9 Fury and Radeon R9 Fury X will be as high as 25 per cent.

AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards will hit the market on the 14th of July, 2015, MSRP of the R9 Fury is $549.

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

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: The Fury X was designed to run at a max temperature of 50 degrees under load so it will be interesting to see how these air-cooled versions perform, especially where cooling is concerned. 

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Asustek readies Strix Radeon R9 Fury with DirectCU III cooler https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/asus-readies-strix-radeon-r9-fury-with-directcu-iii-cooler/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/asus-readies-strix-radeon-r9-fury-with-directcu-iii-cooler/#comments Sat, 04 Jul 2015 17:34:33 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=257489 Even though AMD’s flagship Radeon R9 Fury X is exclusively made by a contract manufacturer under supervision of Advanced Micro Devices and actual suppliers of graphics cards cannot change its cooling system or clock-rates, the upcoming AMD Radeon R9 Fury will provide a lot more flexibility for makers of add-in-boards. For example, Asustek Computer plans …

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Even though AMD’s flagship Radeon R9 Fury X is exclusively made by a contract manufacturer under supervision of Advanced Micro Devices and actual suppliers of graphics cards cannot change its cooling system or clock-rates, the upcoming AMD Radeon R9 Fury will provide a lot more flexibility for makers of add-in-boards. For example, Asustek Computer plans to use its new DirectCU III cooler on its Strix Radeon R9 Fury graphics adapter.

AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury will be powered by a cut-down version of the “Fiji” graphics processing unit with 3584 stream processors, 192 texture units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit memory interface. Manufacturers of graphics cards will be allowed to develop their own printed-circuit boards as well as cooling systems for the Radeon R9 Fury, which is why it is likely that there will be factory-overclocked versions of such adapters available.

While processing power of the Radeon R9 Fury will be up to 25 per cent lower compared to the Radeon R9 Fury X, it is possible that versions with boosted clock-rates will demonstrate performance that will be as good as that of AMD’s top-of-the-range offering.

asus_strix_graphics_cards

Four online stores from Germany and Austria this weekend began to take pre-orders on Asustek Computer’s Strix R9 Fury graphics card with 4GB of memory and DirectCU III cooling system (ASUS STRIX-R9FURY-DC3-4G-GAMING), reports VideoCardz citing data from Geizhals.at. Nothing particular is known about the product, but since it features a cooler comparable to that used by the Asus Strix GTX 980 Ti, it is highly likely that the graphics card should be able to hit decent clock-rates. Typically, Asus Strix graphics boards use proprietary printed circuit boards the company designs in-house.

Asustek’s DirectCU III cooling system features a massive aluminium radiator with thin fins, two thick 10mm heatpipes and two regular heatpipes. The new fans used on the DirectCU III cooler feature new wing-blade design that delivers maximum air flow and improved 105 per cent static pressure over the heat sink, while producing less noise compared to standard fans. Asus claims that its DirectCU III cooler transports 40 per cent more heat away from GPUs compared to reference coolers. In addition, DirectCU III shuts its fans down during light load.

asus_directcuiii

The version of the DirectCU III cooler used on the Asus Strix GTX 980 Ti sports three fans, but the Asus Strix R9 Fury may use only two because of shorter printed circuit board.

Advanced Micro Devices and its partners plan to start sales of AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards on the 14th of July, but those who want to obtain the upcoming high-end graphics adapter on day one can already do it by pre-ordering it in select stores in Europe. Unfortunately, day one prices between €623 and €662 are too high to be compelling, given the expected performance of the product as well as its recommended price.

AMD and Asustek Computer did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Looks like AMD’s partners will be ready with their own Radeon R9 Fury versions starting the first day of sales. This is a great news. However, it remains to be seen whether the cut-down “Fiji” performs really well in modern games.

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Specifications of AMD Radeon R9 Fury and AMD Radeon R9 Nano revealed https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/specifications-of-amd-radeon-r9-fury-and-amd-radeon-r9-nano-revealed/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/specifications-of-amd-radeon-r9-fury-and-amd-radeon-r9-nano-revealed/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2015 22:37:01 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=257425 Advanced Micro Devices has reportedly finalized specifications of its upcoming Radeon R9 graphics cards based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processor, the Radeon R9 Fury and the Radeon R9 Nano. Both products promise to be rather powerful, but will still be noticeably slower than the Radeon R9 Fury X. AMD’s recently released Radeon R9 Fury …

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Advanced Micro Devices has reportedly finalized specifications of its upcoming Radeon R9 graphics cards based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processor, the Radeon R9 Fury and the Radeon R9 Nano. Both products promise to be rather powerful, but will still be noticeably slower than the Radeon R9 Fury X.

AMD’s recently released Radeon R9 Fury X turned out to be pretty powerful graphics solution that has every right to carry the “flagship” title. The top-of-the-line Radeon R9 graphics adapter based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processing unit will not be the only product in AMD’s family of cards powered by the same GPU as the company is preparing three more solutions: the Radeon R9 Fury, the Radeon R9 Nano and the dual-GPU Radeon R9 Fury X2. Two out of three new cards will be aimed at gamers, who do not want to spend over $600 on a graphics card, whereas the dual-GPU product will be designed for those, who want to have maximum performance at any cost.

amd_radeon_fury_series

AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury will be based on a cut-down version of the “Fiji” chip with 3584 stream processors, 192 texture units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 4096-bit memory interface, according to TweakTown. The GPU will be clocked at 1050MHz, hence, peak FP32 compute performance of the chip will be around 7.52TFLOPS, which is a lot. Suppliers of graphics adapters will be allowed to design their own printed-circuit boards as well as cooling systems for the Radeon R9 Fury. AMD’s reference design of the product uses an air cooler.

Real-world performance of AMD Radeon R9 Fury is to be determined, but since it lacks 512 of 4096 stream processors featured by the fully-fledged AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, it will clearly be noticeably slower in demanding applications. Recommended price of AMD’s Radeon Fury is $549.

amd_radeon_fury_nano

AMD’s small form-factor graphics card for gamers who use mini ITX chassis – the AMD Radeon R9 Nano – will be based on the fully-fledged “Fiji” graphics processor with 4096 stream processors, according to AnandTech, which cites sources from AMD. The graphics card will be only 6” long and will feature one 8-pin PCIe power connector. The Radeon R9 Nano will carry 4GB of HBM memory operating at 1GHz.

Keeping in mind that the card needs to offer leading-edge performance while consuming just 175W, it might be easier for AMD to hit necessary performance-per-watt targets using the fully-unlocked GPU operating at relatively low clock-rates rather than to play with both configuration and frequency. In fact, to fulfil the promise of offering two times higher performance-per-watt compared to the Radeon R9 290X, AMD’s Radeon R9 Nano should hit around 6.8TFLOPS FP32 rate (or 38.8GFLOPS/W). To do so with a fully-fledged “Fiji”, AMD needs to clock it at around 830MHz.

amd_radeon_fury_specs_4

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: The Radeon R9 Fury should be a pretty interesting card to consider, especially on the condition that it offers good overclocking potential, something the Radeon R9 Fury X just does not really provide. However, the Radeon R9 Nano seems to be an extremely interesting solution, provided that it does feature fully-fledged “Fiji” GPU. If it can be overclocked (perhaps, when using a different cooling system), then it may demonstrate performance close to that of the Radeon R9 Fury X. If it is not too expensive, then it may become a bestseller.

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AMD offers to personalize Radeon R9 Fury X with custom plates https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-proposes-to-personalize-radeon-r9-fury-x-with-custom-plates/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-proposes-to-personalize-radeon-r9-fury-x-with-custom-plates/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2015 09:05:01 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=256832 AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X looks impressively stylish thanks to its short printed-circuit board and simplistic design of its cooling system. Nonetheless, some end-users – especially modders – may find the new flagship from AMD too basic. The GPU developer proposes such users to create their own front plate for the cooler. The enclosure of …

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AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X looks impressively stylish thanks to its short printed-circuit board and simplistic design of its cooling system. Nonetheless, some end-users – especially modders – may find the new flagship from AMD too basic. The GPU developer proposes such users to create their own front plate for the cooler.

The enclosure of AMD’s closed-loop liquid cooling system made by CoolerMaster features removable front panel, which is made of plastic. This week AMD published 3D models of the plate in a bid to help its customers to 3D print it, or even make it of aluminium using a computerized and numerically controlled milling cutter (akin to those used by Apple to make unibody cases for MacBooks and iPads).

amd_radeon_r9_fury_x_exploded

The faceplate is designed to make it easier to service the card and to reduce noises made by the cooling system. On the other hand, it is also a great decorative accessory that helps to personalize the board. Unfortunately, most of gamers use tower PC cases, which is why they will only enjoy their creativity when their cards are not installed into their PCs.

amd_radeon_r9_front_red_dots

The 3D model of the Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card’s front panel can be downloaded HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Modifying graphics cards to cool them better or reduce their noise level is clearly a thing that many enthusiasts have done for years. But modifying front panels of cooling systems that are only seen once, before the installation? Do any of our readers own a Radeon R9 Fury X? Do you have plans to modify the front-panel?

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AMD officially launches the Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-formally-introduces-radeon-r9-fury-x-4gb/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-formally-introduces-radeon-r9-fury-x-4gb/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2015 20:54:38 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=256019 Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday officially launched its new flagship graphics processing unit as well as a card based on the GPU. The new graphics processor is the first chip in the world to use all-new high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is a high-profile innovation on its own, to boot, AMD has managed to put together its …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday officially launched its new flagship graphics processing unit as well as a card based on the GPU. The new graphics processor is the first chip in the world to use all-new high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is a high-profile innovation on its own, to boot, AMD has managed to put together its fastest GPU yet.

Specifications the Radeon R9 Fury X have been known for a while. The code-named “Fiji” graphics processing unit integrates 4096 stream processors, 256 texture mapping units, 64 raster operations pipelines as well as an all-new memory controller with 4096-bit interface. The new GPU is reportedly based on the GCN 1.2 architecture and supports DirectX 12 (feature_level_11_1), OpenGL 4.5, OpenCL 2.1 and Vulkan application programming interface.

amd_radeon_r9_fury_card

AMD’s “Fiji XT” chip integrates 8.9 billion of transistor and is the most complex graphics processing unit made to date. Peak compute performance of the GPU is 8.6TFLOPS, the highest FP32 rate ever demonstrated by a GPU.

amd_radeon_fiji_gpu

All AMD Radeon R9 Fury and Fury X graphics cards carry 4GB of HBM memory, which operates at 1GHz frequency. While HBM memory on the new flagship graphics cards from AMD has peak bandwidth of 512GB/s, the limited amount of onboard memory has potential to limit gaming at high-resolutions, although we have not yet performed our own tests.

The “Fiji” chip is made using a 28nm process technology at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Since 4096-bit memory interface is extremely complex, AMD has to use a special interposer (a complex pad made using 65nm process technology at United Microelectronics Corp.) to connect memory to the GPU. The HBM memory is produced by SK Hynix. The final assembly of the chip is performed by Amkor Technologies in South Korea.

amd_radeon_fiji_diagram_gpu

Due to extreme complexity of AMD “Fiji” graphics processing unit, innovative DRAM and rather expensive packaging and assembly, AMD Radeon Fury X is very expensive to manufacture.

The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X is available now starting at $649 in the U.S. and £509 in the U.K. The less advanced AMD Radeon R9 Fury will hit the market next month and will cost $549. Later this year AMD will also release small form-factor Radeon R9 Fury Nano graphics adapter that will cost less than $500.

amd_radeon_r9_fury_x_specifications

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: AMD has jumped back in to the high-end GPU market, bringing with it its fastest graphics core yet and HBM, which will play a huge role in high-end GPUs over the next few years. We don't have a review up just yet but we will be running some tests of our own shortly so keep an eye out.

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AMD’s official Radeon R9 Fury X test results: World’s fastest GPU https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amds-official-radeon-r9-fury-x-performance-results-worlds-fastest-gpu/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amds-official-radeon-r9-fury-x-performance-results-worlds-fastest-gpu/#comments Fri, 19 Jun 2015 01:28:52 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=255272 Advanced Micro Devices this week officially unwrapped its new flagship single-chip graphics card based on the highly-anticipated “Fiji” graphics processing unit. The new AMD Radeon R9 Fury X graphics adapter has a number of advantages that can make it one of the world’s highest-performing solutions. In fact, according to AMD’s own benchmarks, the new graphics …

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Advanced Micro Devices this week officially unwrapped its new flagship single-chip graphics card based on the highly-anticipated “Fiji” graphics processing unit. The new AMD Radeon R9 Fury X graphics adapter has a number of advantages that can make it one of the world’s highest-performing solutions. In fact, according to AMD’s own benchmarks, the new graphics card has all chances to be the world’s top single-GPU graphics card.

AMD Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card is based on the “Fiji XT” graphics processing unit that contains 8.9 billion of transistors and features 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units as well as 4096-bit memory bus. With 8.6 TFLOPS of compute performance and 512GB/s memory bandwidth, the adapter is the most technologically advanced graphics card ever introduced. The only drawback of the Radeon R9 Fury X is limited amount of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) onboard – 4GB – which may be a problem for a number of games.

amd_radeon_r9_fury_specifications

AMD officially remains silent about performance that can be expected from its Radeon R9 Fury X, but WccfTech web-site has published official performance benchmarks of the graphics board listed in the reviewer’s guide of the adapter. Such guides are written by independent hardware vendors (IHVs) to assist reviewers of their products. The documents are designed to provide reference performance numbers in order to reveal what type of performance to expect from a graphics card or a microprocessor. While the RG papers are not supposed to unveil weak points of solutions, they tend to be rather accurate and faithful.

The benchmark results were obtained on an unknown test system in various games in 3840*2160 resolution with or without antialiasing. AMD’s specialists compared the Radeon R9 Fury X to Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti, which costs equal amount of money ($649) and which is only slightly behind the flagship GeForce GTX Titan X in terms of performance.

amd_radeon_fury_x_performance_semi-official

The test results of the Radeon R9 Fury X obtained by AMD show that it is faster than the rival in all cases. In some situations the difference is negligible and the GeForce GTX Titan X would be faster than the Radeon R9 Fury X. However, in other situations the Radeon R9 Fury X’s positions seem to be unbeatable.

amd_radeon_fury_x_performance_semi-official_3dmark

From test results, it is unclear whether 4GB onboard frame-buffer limits performance of the Radeon R9 Fury X anyhow or not, but what is clear is that it can compete against its direct rival with 6GB of memory.

AMD Radeon R9 Fury X graphics board will be available next week for $649. In mid-July AMD will also ship AMD Radeon R9 Fury with basic cooling solution and lower performance for $549.

amd_radeon_fiji_fury_card_render

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Without any doubts, AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X is a really fast graphics card. With further driver optimizations it may become the world’s highest-performing graphics adapter. But will it be more successful than Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti and Titan X? Only time will tell!

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SK Hynix confirms mass production of first-gen HBM memory https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/sk-hynix-confirms-mass-production-of-first-gen-hbm-memory/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/sk-hynix-confirms-mass-production-of-first-gen-hbm-memory/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2015 02:24:33 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=254873 SK Hynix, one of the world’s major producers of memory, on Tuesday said that it had begun volume shipments of its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) designed for bandwidth-demanding applications. The first products to use HBM will be AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards, but eventually other devices will utilize the new memory type as well. The …

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SK Hynix, one of the world’s major producers of memory, on Tuesday said that it had begun volume shipments of its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) designed for bandwidth-demanding applications. The first products to use HBM will be AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards, but eventually other devices will utilize the new memory type as well.

The first-generation HBM (HBM1) memory (which complies with JEDEC’s JESD235 standard) stacks four DRAM dies with two 128-bit channels per die on a base logic die, which results into a memory device with a 1024-bit interface. Each channel is similar to a standard DDR interface, but is completely independent and therefore each channel within one stack and even within one die can operate at different frequency, feature different timings and so on. HBM devices require 1.2V voltage.

sk_hynix_hbm_dram_3

The first-gen HBM uses 2Gb DRAM dies and thus can form only 1GB 4Hi stack (4 high stack) packages. Each HBM 4Hi stack provides 128GB/s of bandwidth. HBM memory chips are tested before shipping to customers by SK Hynix. Each HBM 4Hi stack is placed on an interposer next to the graphics processing unit, for the first time in the industry. The first-gen HBM stacks are made using a proven 29nm fabrication process.

sk_hynix_hbm_dram_1

“AMD has pioneered the adoption of HBM1 technology in graphics applications achieving unprecedented memory bandwidth while reducing memory subsystem power” said Joe Macri, corporate vice president and product CTO at AMD, “Integrating AMD’s graphics processing unit and HBM1 on a single 2.5D silicon interposer represents a major step forward in high performance graphics applications”.

Even though the first-generation HBM has a number of limitations when it comes to the amount of stacks (only four layers are supported) and capacities of DRAM channels, AMD believes that unprecedented bandwidth provided by such chips – 512GB/s – will help it to significantly improve performance of its Radeon Fury X graphics solutions compared to current-gen solutions.

sk_hynix_hbm_dram_2

SK Hynix is shipping HBM to AMD today and plans to support demand for such memory from other customers.

Next year SK Hynix and other memory producers will start to manufacture second-generation HBM that will support up to eight memory stacks, higher DRAM capacities and clock-rates. HBM2 will allow to create 8GB memory chips with 256GB/s bandwidth per chip.

sk_hynix_tsv_roadmap_hbm

“High bandwidth memory technology is the first JEDEC standard memory targeted for interposer system-in-package applications, effectively breaking down the memory wall barrier through tight integration of DRAM and high performance processors” said Kevin Widmer, vice president of technical marketing at SK Hynix America. “The performance requirements of emerging graphics, computing and networking applications are driving the demand for High bandwidth memory.”

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Without any doubts, HBM is the biggest DRAM breakthrough in a decade. Unfortunately, the first-gen seems to have serious limitations, which may curtail performance of AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury-series. On the other hand, let’s wait and see how serious will those performance limitations be.

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Dual-GPU flagship AMD Radeon R9 Fury X2 graphics card pictured https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/dual-gpu-flagship-amd-radeon-r9-fury-x2-graphics-card-pictured/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/dual-gpu-flagship-amd-radeon-r9-fury-x2-graphics-card-pictured/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2015 00:44:27 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=254864 Even though AMD’s new-generation dual-chip flagship graphics card is only expected to hit the market several months from now, the company already uses such graphics card for demonstrations. The new add-in board does not resemble current-gen dual-chip graphics adapters. The upcoming dual-chip AMD Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card – which may be officially called Radeon R9 …

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Even though AMD’s new-generation dual-chip flagship graphics card is only expected to hit the market several months from now, the company already uses such graphics card for demonstrations. The new add-in board does not resemble current-gen dual-chip graphics adapters.

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” graphics processing units 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, which may indicate that its clock-rates and power consumption are not really high.

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 graphics card looks big, but not as big as current-generation dual-GPU adapters thanks to usage of HBM memory. The board utilizes a PCI Express bridge from PLX, just like today’s dual-GPU graphics cards from AMD.

The upcoming Radeon R9 Fury X2 graphics adapter will use a dual-slot cooling system, but it is unclear whether the cooler will use liquid, like the one on the Radeon R9 295X2, or not.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Looks like AMD’s new dual-GPU flagship is ready. Considering the fact that AMD’s single-chip flagship – Radeon R9 Fury X – will cost $649, it is highly likely that the new dual-GPU product will cost between $1000 and $1500.

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AMD Radeon Fury X poses for camera once again https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-radeon-fury-x-poses-for-camera-once-again/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-radeon-fury-x-poses-for-camera-once-again/#comments Fri, 12 Jun 2015 00:13:15 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=254108 Although Advanced Micro Devices and some of its allies have published a number of teaser photos of AMD’s upcoming Radeon Fury X graphics cards, they have not revealed the actual look of the boards. Fortunately, a Chinese web-site has managed to picture the whole adapter and thus reveal its design. As expected, the AMD Radeon Fury …

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Although Advanced Micro Devices and some of its allies have published a number of teaser photos of AMD’s upcoming Radeon Fury X graphics cards, they have not revealed the actual look of the boards. Fortunately, a Chinese web-site has managed to picture the whole adapter and thus reveal its design.

As expected, the AMD Radeon Fury X graphics card based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processing unit uses a hybrid liquid cooling system as well as a short printed circuit board. According to the image published by ChipHell, the new flagship graphics adapter from Advanced Micro Devices is considerably smaller than modern top-of-the-range solutions from AMD or Nvidia. The Radeon Fury resembles ATI Radeon 9000- and ATI Radeon X800-series graphics adapters released more than a decade ago.

amd_radeon_fiji_card_unofficial

AMD does not want to talk about its yet-unreleased Radeon Fury graphics card officially and does not even allow to picture it. Nonetheless, pretty much all specifications of the new flagship graphics card from AMD are already well known. The new GPU has 4096 stream processors, 256 texture mapping units and revamped GCN 1.3 architecture. The flagship graphics board will carry 4GB of high-bandwidth memory with 512GB/s or even 640GB/s bandwidth. Although the card is short, it requires two 8-pin PCI Express power connectors, which means that it is rather power hungry (may consume up to 375W of power).

The only things that are unknown about the AMD Radeon Fury for sure are performance numbers and price-points of the new boards.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While the cooling system of AMD’s Radeon Fury looks impressive, not all modern PCs have mount locations for 120mm fans. It will be interesting to see whether AMD will allow partners to use their own cooling systems on their products.

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AMD Radeon 2015 roadmap leaks: Whole lineup now revealed https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-radeon-2015-roadmap-leaks-whole-lineup-now-revealed/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-radeon-2015-roadmap-leaks-whole-lineup-now-revealed/#comments Tue, 09 Jun 2015 22:29:16 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=253645 A web-site has published a slide that reveals AMD’s graphics products lineup that will be available later this year. The image does not only unveil the names and positioning of AMD’s upcoming Radeon solutions, but also code-names of the new graphics processing units from the company. If the slide published by VideoCardz is genuine, then …

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A web-site has published a slide that reveals AMD’s graphics products lineup that will be available later this year. The image does not only unveil the names and positioning of AMD’s upcoming Radeon solutions, but also code-names of the new graphics processing units from the company.

If the slide published by VideoCardz is genuine, then AMD’s new lineup of graphics adapters will consist of seven new models based on various graphics processing units. The flagship products based on the code-named “Fiji XT” and “Fiji Pro” graphics processors will not formally belong to the Radeon R9 300-series. Previously it was reported that the new boards will carry the Radeon Fury brand-name. It is noteworthy that the new Radeon Fury graphics cards based on the “Fiji” GPUs will be available a little later than the members of the Radeon R9 300-series, which may indicate that the new flagship products will not hit the market right after formal announcement of the 16th of June.

The high-end Radeon R9 390 and R9 390X will be based on the “Grenada” graphics processing units, which are claimed to be improved versions of the “Hawaii” chips with higher clock-rates and revamped architecture. Both boards will carry 8GB of memory and will cost $329 and $389, respectively, according to WccfTech. Higher clock-rates of GPU and memory will help the new cards to offer performance that will be higher than that of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 970, but it is unclear how the Radeon R9 390-series will compare against GeForce GTX 980.

amd_radeon_roadmap_2015

AMD also plans to introduce Radeon R9 380 with 4GB of memory based on the code-named “Antigua” chip also known as “Tonga Pro”. The product is expected to cost $235. In addition, AMD wants to offer Radeon R9 380 with 2GB of memory for $195.

AMD also intends to roll-out Radeon R7 370 and Radeon R7 360 based on the “Pitcairn” and “Bonaire” graphics processors, which have been available for years. The outdated GPUs will address $100 – $175 market segment. Keeping in mind that graphics boards based on the “Pitcairn” and “Bonaire” GPUs have been available for years, it is unlikely that the new Radeon R7 will actually get popular. People who wanted them have already bought such boards.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Although AMD’s Radeon R9 390-series graphics adapters may actually be rather competitive, it is obvious that they are late. AMD needed to respond to Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 970 and 980 last September, but decided to cut prices of existing solutions, not offer anything new.

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Specifications of AMD’s Radeon Fury confirmed by benchmark database https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/specifications-of-amds-radeon-fury-confirmed-by-benchmark-database/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/specifications-of-amds-radeon-fury-confirmed-by-benchmark-database/#comments Tue, 09 Jun 2015 16:20:05 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=253573 Even though Advanced Micro Devices openly demonstrates its next generation graphics processing unit, it has never confirmed specifications of the product. Nonetheless, multiple leaks have already revealed the vast majority of technical details about the upcoming AMD Radeon Fury graphics card and recently specs of the device were confirmed once again. According to database of …

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Even though Advanced Micro Devices openly demonstrates its next generation graphics processing unit, it has never confirmed specifications of the product. Nonetheless, multiple leaks have already revealed the vast majority of technical details about the upcoming AMD Radeon Fury graphics card and recently specs of the device were confirmed once again.

According to database of CompuBench benchmark, a test suit used to compare parallel compute performance of CPUs, GPUs and accelerators, AMD’s code-named “Fiji” graphics processor has 64 compute units, reports VideoCardz. Since every GCN compute unit has 64 stream processors, the total amount of SPs in the new GPU is 4096, as reported a number of times before. The chip is expected to feature 256 texture mapping units.

AMD’s Radeon Fury will be the first graphics card to use SK Hynix’s stacked high bandwidth memory (HBM). The new type of DRAM is expected to provide unprecedented memory bandwidth of 640GB/s thanks to 4096-bit memory bus and 1.25GT/s transfer rate. The graphics boards will be equipped with 4GB of HBM memory.

amd_radeon_artwork_angle_new

AMD’s upcoming flagship graphics card will use hybrid liquid cooling solution and will be physically shorter than today’s high-end graphics adapters.

Pricing of AMD’s Radeon Fury X remains unknown. It is expected to be formally introduced on the 16th of June, 2016.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: The main intrigue about AMD’s Radeon Fury X remains its actual performance. The graphics card is expected to demonstrate excellent results in high resolutions, but it is completely unclear how it will compare against Nvidia Corp.’s GeForce GTX Titan X. According to CompuBench, the new graphics processor from AMD is considerably faster than the Titan X. However, actual performance in games depends not only on pure compute performance.

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AMD teases ‘Fiji’, but refuses to reveal ‘Fury’ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-teases-fiji-but-refuses-to-reveal-fury/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-teases-fiji-but-refuses-to-reveal-fury/#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2015 07:30:34 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=252659 At a press conference at the Computex trade-show Advanced Micro Devices has officially demonstrated its first graphics processing unit with high bandwidth memory (HBM) code-named “Fiji”, which is set to power AMD’s next-generation flagship graphics card known unofficially as the Radeon Fury X. But while the company did show its “Fiji” chip, it did not …

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At a press conference at the Computex trade-show Advanced Micro Devices has officially demonstrated its first graphics processing unit with high bandwidth memory (HBM) code-named “Fiji”, which is set to power AMD’s next-generation flagship graphics card known unofficially as the Radeon Fury X. But while the company did show its “Fiji” chip, it did not want to show the “Fury” card, reports Leo Waldock, a KitGuru editor, from Taipei.

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AMD “Fiji” graphics processing unit is held by Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD. Photo by WccfTech

Leo arrived at Nangang at 9am and was told the floor was closed to the Press until 9:30am. He took the opportunity to head up to Sapphire, who were in a separate room, so he could say hello and grab a chair. At the Sapphire booth, Leo bumped into Ron Myers, Corporate Vice President of Corporate Marketing at AMD. Ron is a big guy in every sense of the word and only slightly intimidating.

Earlier AMD waved a “Fiji” chip around on stage. They refused to give its name but the unnamed chip had four stacks of HBM so it was “Fiji”, no question.

AMD is showing a running and apparently fully working version of “Fiji” to customers but not to the Press, so Leo asked Ron if he might relent. They both knew the other side of the Sapphire NDA door was the card Leo wanted to see, so Leo asked if he could see the card and take photos.

“How about static without performance?” Leo asked.

“No,” said Ron, and that was the end of that.

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The closed door

While it was impossible to take photos of the AMD Radeon Fury X, Leo tried to discuss some aspects of the flagship graphics card that only features 4GB of memory (compared to 12GB on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX Titan X). His question about the 4*1GB limit was side-stepped so it is unclear whether AMD could install 8GB of HBM if they choose. A natural guess is they cannot. Ron Myers assured that 4GB of high bandwidth memory is plenty for 4K gaming so it is not just a question of the amount of memory, but also the speed and bandwidth. Put it another way, the requirement for 8GB (or whatever) is in combination with the current, slower bandwidth.

Apparently, AMD wants to build the marketing impetus for the 16th of June, when the first reviews hit the Web, or the 24th, when the graphics cards hit the stores. The problem is, many aspects about the graphics board are already known: it has 4GB of memory, it has short printed circuit board, it requires two 8-pin PCI Express power connectors, it is power hungry (may consume up to 375W of power), it uses hybrid liquid cooling system, etc. The main intrigue about the AMD Radeon Fury X graphics board is its performance. Obviously, a static image of the product cannot reveal any performance details. Moreover, an image of the graphics card itself was recently published by Johan Andersson, technical director of Frostbite at Electronic Arts, in a Twitter post.

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Image of AMD Radeon Fury X published by Johan Andersson

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KitGuru Says: It is hard to understand why AMD is not prepared to show “Fiji” to the Press. During the conversation Leo called the chip both “Fiji” and “Fury” and Ron did not blink, so we know that it is the correct name.

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The name of flagship AMD Radeon revealed: Fury is back https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/the-name-of-flagship-amd-radeon-revealed-fury-is-back/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/the-name-of-flagship-amd-radeon-revealed-fury-is-back/#comments Sat, 30 May 2015 00:50:24 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=251878 AMD’s next next-generation flagship Radeon graphics card will be the world’s first add-in-board to use stacked high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that will ensure unprecedented performance and will open a number of new doors for graphics adapters. It is rather ironic that for a graphics card that shows the future of GPUs, AMD has reportedly decided to …

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AMD’s next next-generation flagship Radeon graphics card will be the world’s first add-in-board to use stacked high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that will ensure unprecedented performance and will open a number of new doors for graphics adapters. It is rather ironic that for a graphics card that shows the future of GPUs, AMD has reportedly decided to use a name from the past.

In a bid to emphasize that its next-generation flagship Radeon graphics adapter based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processing unit is a very special product, Advanced Micro Devices plans to assign a special name to it, not a model number. The new top-of-the-range graphics board from the company will reportedly be called AMD Radeon Fury, which should imply how furiously fast the new GPU is.

AMD’s flagship Radeon Fury “Fiji XT” graphics processing unit is reportedly based on the revamped GCN 1.3 architecture and integrates 4096 stream processors (64 compute units), 256 texture units as well as all-new memory controller to support vertically stacked high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips with 1024-bit input/output interface. The top-of-the-line Radeon graphics adapter is expected to carry 4GB or 8GB of HBM memory with up to 640GB/s of bandwidth (thanks to 4096-bit memory bus and 1.25GT/s transfer rate). The Radeon Fury graphics card will feature a hybrid liquid cooling system and will require two 8-pin PCI Express power connectors.

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The AMD Radeon Fury reminds of ATI Rage Fury, a popular graphics card for gamers from ATI Technologies in 1998. The add-in board was among the first graphics adapters to feature 32MB of SDRAM, but it was not nearly as popular as 3dfx Voodoo or Nvidia Riva TNT. While it did demonstrate great performance in 32-bit colour mode, it was not a dream graphics solution and certainly was not a legend.

It is interesting to note that the dual-chip Radeon Fury Maxx launched in 1999 introduced the alternate frame rendering multi-GPU technique to the consumer market, but received a bad reputation for poor drivers and lag issues. Nowadays all multi-GPU sub-systems use AFR method of multi-GPU rendering.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

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KitGuru Says: The Radeon Fury is definitely a nice name. Moreover, many experienced gamers will clearly remember good-old days of 1998 – 1999 as well as the ATI Rage Fury and the ATI Rage Fury Pro graphics cards (which were actually manufactured by ATI in Canada back then!). But the key to success of AMD’s new flagship is not nostalgia. They keys to success are actual performance in video games, price and availability. Will AMD Radeon Fury deliver? Let’s wait and see! In the meantime, let's think, what variations of AMD Radeon Fury we can expect from Advanced Micro Devices. The dual-chip could be called Radeon Fury Maxx, whereas a slightly slower version could carry the name Radeon Fury Pro…

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