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2016 nMP
- Thread starter ManuelGomes
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Yeah, there comes pretty good time for GPU fans.
About AMD, lets look at what AMD staff says about Polaris.
First things first: Efficiency. So we look at die shrink that brings 50% better power consumption. So a GPU that had 250W TDP will have 125W TDP, thats to shrink itself. But, there is another bit of information...So not only die shrink brings efficiency, but architecture itself. We are looking at 65% better efficiency overall for the GPUs. Lets think about it for a second. 200W R9 280X on 28 nm from TSMC, but with new architecture would draw around 170W at max. Without the shrink. After shrink it would be 85W, if we take 50% lower power consumption, and not account best case scenario.
Here is a link: http://www.overclock3d.net/articles/gpu_displays/amd_has_two_polaris_gpus_coming_this_year/1
Now density: https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/3884-who-will-lead-10nm.html On the bottom there is table which shows that density ration between TSMC 28 and GloFo/Samsung 14 nm FF is not 2x. It is 2.2x. So the same R9 280X without advancements in architecture on 14nm would be... 144mm2 die(60% smaller die). And we do not know how will new architecture affect the die sizes, it can be optimized for it, from ground up, and it looks like that is the case.
Lets get back for a second to previous rumor about the die size of one of GPUs from AMD: 232mm2. If Fiji would be ported to 14 nm without any advancements in architecture it would be 250mm2 die. Coincidence? I may be wrong here, of course, but what better way to bring VR into much lower price/performance brackets than by bringing that kind of performance here?
Third thing: Performance. If Mahigan from Anandtech forum is right it looks like we might be pretty surprised with performance of Polaris GPUs. http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=38026437&postcount=357
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=38026062&postcount=355
I will not be surprised if my calculations and best case scenario are true, and we are looking at Titan X performance at a fraction of power consumption and cost.
Unfortunatelly I cannot bring anything for Pascal, because... there is no rumors. There is no silicon, we do not even know if the new arch from Nvidia will bring improved Asynchronous Compute(second engine) or even Hardware Scheduling. If the slides from Nvidia are true, and Pascal is only Maxwell on 14 nm with FP64 - the chances for both of them, which would make GIGANTIC difference, are almost null.
Ok, I'll buy it. This 232 mm2 GPU (most likely Polaris 11) probably has performance better than Hawaii with lower power consumption. This would be a suitable GPU for the mac pro, but it doesn't make me as excited if a > 300 mm2 GPU was going in there. Then you would see something that would hands down beat Fiji.
If all this is true and we are getting ~100mm2 and 232 mm2 GPUs from AMD this year then its pretty clear what their strategy is. Get to market first with 14/16 nm GPUs and make sure you own the GPU space that retails for < $400. Whether this succeeds or not probably depends on how long it takes Nvidia to get a consumer version of Pascal out there, how much they charge for it and how fast it is.
Keeping in mind that Apple often gets early access to components what are the odds of any of this showing up March 15?
Or are we still stuck with WWDC on June 6 as a potential release date, which would be fairly horrendous.
Or are we still stuck with WWDC on June 6 as a potential release date, which would be fairly horrendous.
You can pick any court you like. Nvidia's Mac drivers have always been problematic. The Metal drivers aren't any exception.
Some of that lands at Apple's feet. They came up with their own standard and wanted drivers written for it. But Nvidia's OpenGL drivers were pretty poor in stability and bugginess too.
I don't know if the 232 nm2 is the top end, but I think it will have no problem beating the top end Fiji.
My guess is AMD will still ship a card with a TDP similar to Fiji that will crush Fiji in performance, but that top end probably won't make the Mac Pro. You might see something clocked down a bit, but something that's still a extremely big advancement past what Apple ships now.
That all assumes Apple goes with Polaris and not Fiji. Which is hopefully what they are doing.
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If that's true it's a little disappointing, but it means Nvidia is going to be GDDR too, as they had worse sourcing than AMD.
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March 15th is possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
If Polaris 10 and 11 are not HBM and top out at 232 mm2 then I think it points to another high end GPU coming from AMD.
Despite the shrink and some architectural gains in Polaris, its tough to imagine a 14 nm 232 mm2 GPU beating out a 28 nm 600 mm2 GPU (Fiji). The performance gains should be good but not that good.
Perhaps this high end chip is the rumored Greenland/Vega. Its tough to imagine AMD not being the first company with a HBM2 chip out the door. The question of course is when would such a chip be ready. Rumors also point to HBM2 not being quite ready yet so its tough to tell.
I think WWDC is probably the earliest possible. Intel's Broadwell-EP isn't supposed to launch until early June and AMD's GPUs are rumored for the summer.
Despite the shrink and some architectural gains in Polaris, its tough to imagine a 14 nm 232 mm2 GPU beating out a 28 nm 600 mm2 GPU (Fiji). The performance gains should be good but not that good.
Perhaps this high end chip is the rumored Greenland/Vega. Its tough to imagine AMD not being the first company with a HBM2 chip out the door. The question of course is when would such a chip be ready. Rumors also point to HBM2 not being quite ready yet so its tough to tell.
I think WWDC is probably the earliest possible. Intel's Broadwell-EP isn't supposed to launch until early June and AMD's GPUs are rumored for the summer.
You make some good points about the GPU. I think the next Mac Pro is purely waiting on Intel and not AMD. At this point in AMD'S life,I don't think even Apple is waiting for their Hail Mary shot at winning back the GPU market. They will use what's currently available.
HBM2 already is in mass production, only at Samsung. Micron will start Mass production in April if I remember correctly, and GDDR5X which will go to GP104 will start in summer. So no High-End HBM2 chips before late Q3, the same goes for every chip that will use GDDR5X.
Polaris 10 is supposed to go out in march(my guess - before Apple presentation
). I think Polaris 11 will go out in April. The chips are ready right now, even the high end Vega10 dies are shipping on Zauba.Edit:
Polaris 10 - ~115 mm2. Less than 75W TDP, performance between GTX960 and R9 380. 192 Bit memory bus. 3 and 6 GB of VRAM(My predictions
)Polaris 11 - 232 mm2. 125W TDP, performance between R9 390X and Fury. 384 Bit bus. 6 GB of VRAM(My predictions
)Vega10 - ~350mm2. Less than 200W TDP. At least 50% faster than Fury X. Minimum 8 GB of HBM2.
Edit: One More Thing: http://abload.de/img/45452wree.jpg Polaris 11 is a dual Graphics Command Processor GPU? AMD doing much more on VR than they say officially?
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Think rather about that Polaris 11 will be most likely the next D310 FirePro in Mac Pro
Ahh, yes, that's part of the "Vapourware 5000" line, yes?
Tahiti went public at end of 2011, got announced by Apple as part of 2013 nMP in June of 2013, and finally shipped in Dec of 2013, a full 2 years after it launched for PCs. (And amazingly STILL SHIPPING TODAY in their "Flagship" product)
Are we really to believe that after epic foot dragging of that sort that Apple will introduce a GPU for 7,1 WHEN IT LAUNCHES FOR PC, or are you saying we can expect it 1-2 years after launch, per usual?
Don't you think it is likely that the nascent Hawaii and Fiji drivers we see in OSX already might be more likely as watered down versions of those cards? They fit much better into Apple's typical GPU scheduling.
Sounds like GPU Porn.
Got any data to back this up or just some electronic assembley grease?
Where is the 5000?
If you discard the bull of the usual suspect, and considering that most of the engineering work is done for the nMP (considering there will be no major change to the overall design), I'm confident we'll see Polaris inside. Still, not as soon as we would hope for. It's what makes sense in what I believe is the Apple vision for the nMP.
If not, and that is in fact a possibility, then it might not be much of an upgrade anyway.
As much as I'd like to see cards with 16GB I find it hard to happen, if not only for the power consumption of the extra mem, since it's already on a tight budget.
However, and considering that the 2 high end cards are HBM2 Polaris cards, they would have to be either 8 or 16GB in fact. Who knows...
If not, and that is in fact a possibility, then it might not be much of an upgrade anyway.
As much as I'd like to see cards with 16GB I find it hard to happen, if not only for the power consumption of the extra mem, since it's already on a tight budget.
However, and considering that the 2 high end cards are HBM2 Polaris cards, they would have to be either 8 or 16GB in fact. Who knows...
I suppose MVC have spoken, but I do not care to put his words out of ignored content...
Manuel, The best way for Apple to get revenue is to bring best possible updates to their computer lineup. Remember, Apple knows that their growth of Mac sales stalled a bit, because of lack of updates. So they have to update them ASAP.
Manuel, The best way for Apple to get revenue is to bring best possible updates to their computer lineup. Remember, Apple knows that their growth of Mac sales stalled a bit, because of lack of updates. So they have to update them ASAP.
Yeah, but updating just for the sake of it, and without having much to update to, or going again with older tech doesn't seem what people are expecting.
Still, an update is in order but it now must be a worthwhile one, or they'll have the same ol haters going about how still it's old tech and it won't do what they want/need for whatever reason.
I believe Apple wants to go all out and that's why the long wait, for the right parts to be available. Or not :-(
We'll see how it turns out.
Still, an update is in order but it now must be a worthwhile one, or they'll have the same ol haters going about how still it's old tech and it won't do what they want/need for whatever reason.
I believe Apple wants to go all out and that's why the long wait, for the right parts to be available. Or not :-(
We'll see how it turns out.
I meant, all that is coming but how much of it is available just now?
BDW-EP is to be announced yet this quarter, Polaris/Vega might be coming after the summer, the rest is available of course but the bulk of the upgrade (CPU and GPU) are still not here yet. I wouldn't count on a new nMP rolling out before late Q3 or even Q4.
Hope I'm wrong though.
Even more, TB3 displays are not abundant, much on the contrary. Apple hasn't provided one yet, if they will ever. Should one be counting on HSMI only, if it still remains, for display output? Or depend on adapters? Really?
Doesn't sound like Apple.
BDW-EP is to be announced yet this quarter, Polaris/Vega might be coming after the summer, the rest is available of course but the bulk of the upgrade (CPU and GPU) are still not here yet. I wouldn't count on a new nMP rolling out before late Q3 or even Q4.
Hope I'm wrong though.
Even more, TB3 displays are not abundant, much on the contrary. Apple hasn't provided one yet, if they will ever. Should one be counting on HSMI only, if it still remains, for display output? Or depend on adapters? Really?
Doesn't sound like Apple.
It makes sense to be skeptical. You are right that just because the hardware is available doesn't meant that Apple will release new hardware. However, I am sure Apple is well aware that most of the mac line is stagnating, mostly due to delays by Intel (and perhaps AMD in the case of the mac pro). If there was ever an event for Apple to release a mac pro it would be WWDC. Its so old at this point it probably wouldn't hurt them too much to announce it and ship it a month later. I don't think they would ship it 6 months after an announcement like in 2013 though.
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