Two 8 pins. I don't see that as a problem.
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Did the signs mention if the entry 490 card would be more powerful than 2x CF Polaris?
Referring to possible deliberate castration of the new Vega at the low end.
Entry 490? Are you referring to the 500 series?
I don't think they would launch a cut down Vega this year because amd seems very firm on hbm2 being a core component of the package for Vega. Hbm2 just started shipping so I don't see it happening. Now the 490 as mentioned does have a very good chance of being a dual GPU card. Amd has much more experience with this than Nvidia. Being plausably a dual GPU it would be limited to crossfire support in software but the addition of MCM could negate this and make it scale as "one" GPU as the dies would be connected via on die bridge making for an FX CPUlike configuration. Now as mentioned before the 490 could be a refresh of the fury given better yields and could give clock tweaks/power deliver tweaks to give the fury a modest boost in performance. Now this to me makes sense as the yields seem better now then at launch and the added time and have had to tinker around with it but this is all jus speculation ATM. Right now a dual GPU seems just as likely and despite short comings of a dual GPU card amd has had a lot of practice and refinement with it and the past 295x2 performed very well so it could happen but again this is just speculation.
Now given technicalities of this GPU are rumors what is the best guess we have for a reveal this year? I read around the internet that October this year might be the target. What do you think?
Yes, you're right.
I totally screwed up my question it should be : "Did the signs mention if the entry 500 card would be more powerful than 2x CF Polaris?"
Doesn't have to be this year. RX 480 or GTX 1060 will do for now.
can a GTX 1060 SLI ?
No. And the 2x CF RX 480 was just to give a level of speed to compare Vega to. Check YT for CF RX480 benches.
I don't want to CF or SLI.
Its all good. So you mean like will the 560 be more powerful than 2x 480x? If that's you question than no. That has never really happened over the course of graphics card releases. The top end (580?) should outperform the 480 by a pretty significant margin and will probably outperform 2x 480s due to the 480s budget nature, but no the low end cards in the 500 series wont be better than the 480. In fact the lower tier cards in the 500 series will most likely be based off of polaris is AMD follows its historical trend.
Yes, 560 (if that's the entry model) being faster than 2x CF RX 480 is what I meant.
Because I'm not really impressed with the overclock ability of RX 480, that I see in reviews. It's already at its ceiling.
So I thought that a castrated low end Vega would possibly be faster ( through overclocking if necessary).
Oh no!. They're still pulling off that shaite?
Here I was, planning on going back to the red camp after years. Hmmm!
i speculate an increase of 80% over the ref 480
You have to remember that the 480 is a mid range card. It competes with the 1060. The new flagship vega would perform (theoretically) better than the 1080. But that we wont really know for awhile.
This should not be an issue. Yes it isn't the shiny new stuff, but if it competes and wins at its price bracket there is no reason for amd to waste resources as they are in a pretty tight financial situation.
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I do realise that. And the flagship Vega can be as fast as AMD wants it to be.
But I was hoping for slower Vega GPUs which are still faster than 2x RX 480.
Weird. More resources are wasted when castrating Vega to somewhere above RX 480, then reintroducing previous gen RX 480 tech, which hardly can be tickled to go faster. Both GPUs will exist. And in my opinion making a GPU slower is far easier than making a GPU, which is already at its ceiling, faster.
Or is AMD artificially inhibiting overclocking attempts of RX 480 to allow them to do this rebranding to entry Vega?
First off remember this is purley speculation AMD could very well come out with a totally new lineup base off of vega. That said however, the 14nm process is new to AMD so as that node matures and becomes more efficient, it is possible that you will see performance gains over the previous generation through higher clock speeds.
The rebranding practice is not consumer friendly. Frankly it needs to stop.
If they want to rerelease the same chip they need to keep the name(number) the same. Call it the r9 290v2 or something.
New model numbers for the sake of "keeping up with Nvidia" IS lying to your customers.
A new process node, +20% improvement in clock speed, meaningful feature improvements(not software or drivers that come to the old version); those are worthy of a new model number.
Shameful.
Oh boy I see where this is going....
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Well, nowhere of course. Have you read the title?
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I had hope...;|
No man. I'm just expressing what I expected. I'm still on AMD's boat. Disappointed because of RX 480's low overclock ceiling though.
I remember that Nvidia used to do the exact same rebranding. But not with GTX 7xx and up I think. Not that I'm aware of.
I just assumed that both camps had stopped doing it. Until you mentioned it.
to speculatively answer your question, maybe. The Vega chip and any chip AMD used as it bases have at this time capabilities which are unknown to us consumers/enthusiasts. To say a lower tier card from an upcoming unproven unreleased product will out perform 2 of AMD current mid tier cards is an incredible stretch but we can dream cant we ;)
To be clear, or at least as clear as AMD on the thread topic at hand, Vega is not reasonably expected to launch this year. This is mostly due to the solid fact that SK Hynx(the manufacturer of HBM memory) just reported recently that they have just begun shipping HBM2 modules so production really wont be up to par until at leas beginning 2017. So its highly unlikely we will see Vega this year but with all things in the universe who know you might get a surprise but again doubtful. This leaves us with 3 very possible options for a potential Rx 490.
1)ATM the current fury line up is slower (generally speaking) than the 1070/80 with the exception being vulkan titles which is well documented. The possibility of a fury refresh is there and the fury can be competitive with refinements and tweaks and AMD has had plenty of time since its release to tweak it and refine the manufacturing for that silicon. BUT the possibility of a dual GPU is also very strong and at the current rumors if true is likely to be the case.
2) If a traditional dual GPU it will surely be more refined than even the pro duo which is a hell of a card. It will be a more mature implementation for sure but the most interesting prospect is it being MCM or multi-chip-module. This is were the individual IC components are packages in the same die which bypasses complex software scaling and PCB designs allowing for more readily available access to RAM cache ect and for both GPU modules to effectively work together as one. AMD and Nvidia have both demonstrated the capability to do this in the form of prototypes.
Seeing a dual 480 gpu using essentially two modules on the same die would be both a leap forward in design and just kick ass in general. Being a more forward thinking MCM design or a more traditional dual gpu card are both very possible.
Or
3)The most far fetched one. A GPU from AMD that is not known at this time. It wouldn't be Vega in the true sense but we could see something using GDDR5X something the FIJI chips cant do without significant redesign and since Vega is HBM2 exclusive is seems any GPU using GDDR5X would be something all together different from Vega but not out of 100% possibility. Given that GDDR5X is already well proven by Nvidia and available now and in quantities for manufacturing at somewhat seasonable prices.
Now all that being said all of this is just rumor/speculation until we see more from AMD we will never know but the performance of such a GPU could be reasonably expected to challenge the 1070 at the least and at the most hopeful/wishful end the 1080.
These are exciting times for the consumer as the great GPU tech wars of 2004 from crysis era are happening again. I for one am excited and would love to hear your thoughts.