AMD Ellesmere And Baffin “Arctic Islands” GPUs To Enter Production In 2016

Megalith

Megalith

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Here’s a little information on what AMD has up its sleeve for next year.

Greenland will be AMD’s next generation flagship GPU, while Ellesmere and Baffin will address the performance and mainstream segments of the market. The Arctic Islands family will debut with the three aforementioned GPUs in a variety of SKUs which will address the entire discrete GPU market top to bottom. We’ve seen this three GPU strategy before with AMD’s first 28nm GPUs code named “Southern Islands” in the form of the HD 7900 series, HD 7800 series and HD 7700 series.
 
The bigger question is will there even be an AMD next year.
 
You people are too much doom and gloom. You better hope AMD is around or else Intel and nVidia prices will skyrocket and they will slow down their development even more.
 
cyclone3d said:
You better hope AMD is around or else Intel and nVidia prices will skyrocket and they will slow down their development even more.
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Wishful thinking.

Intel has had no competition from AMD, yet prices haven't "skyrocketed".
 
Its hilarious how a few frames per second according to most reviews equates to the end of AMD. Everyone is starting to get ridiculous with the garbage they spew and the fanboyism.

Who cares about AMD anymore? El oh el. In the part of the video card market that matters, the mid to low range, AMD more then competes. What a crock of shitake mushrooms.
 
Tengis said:
Its hilarious how a few frames per second according to most reviews equates to the end of AMD. Everyone is starting to get ridiculous with the garbage they spew and the fanboyism.
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It's not a few frames per second difference that's AMD's problem. It's that no one but fanboys will pay the same price for second best. And there just aren't enough fanboys to keep the company afloat.

Also, try reading AMD's quarterly financials some time.
 
DPI said:
Wishful thinking.

Intel has had no competition from AMD, yet prices haven't "skyrocketed".
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captain hyperbole much against the maker of console CPUs? Why would Intel increase prices now and give AMD shot at becoming profitable?
 
Parmenides said:
Why would Intel increase prices now and give AMD shot at becoming profitable?
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If I'm not mistaken Intel will keep their prices (artificially?) low right now until AMD does finish finally drowning then Intel would raise them a lot higher after to make up the difference, plus some. So Intel prices today might not reflect what you'd see in world without AMD around. AMD doesn't compete with Intel on the top end but AMD does sell cheap shit (at almost no profit) to companies so they can stuff it into cheap computing device and sell for cheap.
 
xJ321x said:
If I'm not mistaken Intel will keep their prices (artificially?) low right now until AMD does finish finally drowning then Intel would raise them a lot higher after to make up the difference, plus some. So Intel prices today might not reflect what you'd see in world without AMD around. AMD doesn't compete with Intel on the top end but AMD does sell cheap shit (at almost no profit) to companies so they can stuff it into cheap computing device and sell for cheap.
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Intel has to compete again ARM devices.
 
Parmenides said:
captain hyperbole much against the maker of console CPUs? Why would Intel increase prices now and give AMD shot at becoming profitable?
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Stopped reading at "console CPU's".

Please check AMD's financials ever since the PS4/Xbone launched to see how much benefit they've received from giving those away at cost.
 
DPI said:
Wishful thinking.

Intel has had no competition from AMD, yet prices haven't "skyrocketed".
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Skyrocket? No. But they do jack the price $30 or so with each new generation, at least for the i7 "K" CPUs.
 
Reus said:
Skyrocket? No. But they do jack the price $30 or so with each new generation, at least for the i7 "K" CPUs.
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Let's not forget no competition massively slows down speed improvements from one generation to the next also. I don't look forward to days of Nvidia's newest cards only being 10% faster than the previous ones.

DPI said:
Intel has had no competition from AMD, yet prices haven't "skyrocketed".
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It doesn't help when you're using the hyperbole as the basis of your argument. Of course Intel has competition from AMD. They don't have STRONG competition from AMD. If somebody wants to build an APU system at a low price that can still handle a lot of games, AMD's actually a better choice than Intel. If somebody wants to put together a mid-range system that uses a lot of course, some of AMD's FX lineup still isn't a horrendous choice, depending on the usage. Just because AMD is flailing, doesn't mean we're seeing the full effects of a desktop CPU monopoly. You want to see what an ACTUAL lack of competition looks like, look at ISPs in areas they have a regional monopoly.
 
DPI said:
Stopped reading at "console CPU's".

Please check AMD's financials ever since the PS4/Xbone launched to see how much benefit they've received from giving those away at cost.
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Then your hangup caused you to miss my other point, and this lesser comment about "console CPU's". Profitability is irrelevant to that comment. PS4/Xbone kept intel out. When when competing companies wine and dine the same business partners, that's competition. If AMD were gone, Intel could have taken the console business at a much higher rate.

This is just common market sense here. I've never bought an AMD CPU, but they need to be around whether you like them or not.
 
ymer said:
Who cares about AMD anymore, yawn
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You do of course.
Why else would you come and post in an AMD thread about their next gen road map. There has to be some serious fanboi built up inside you, that compelled your post. :eek:
 
Should be awesome! My setup will easily last until then! :)
 
These articles are completely useless when all they do is give a year. It will make a HUGE difference if they are available in January, vs if they are available in December.


Question is, which will hit first, Pascal or Greenland?
 
Zarathustra[H];1041929764 said:
These articles are completely useless when all they do is give a year. It will make a HUGE difference if they are available in January, vs if they are available in December.


Question is, which will hit first, Pascal or Greenland?
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Breaking news, company may release new products next year.

In other news the internet is now available on computers.

We've known about Artic Islands nearly as long as Pascal. As always until there is actual product on the shelf, get ready for months and months of clickbait rumors.
 
Looking forward to the AMD video card release next year. (Smaller manufacturing process, faster, less expensive cards. :) ) I hope they have a competitive card that costs about the same when the R9 290 non X was released. :) I will go with that one since Nvidia has nothing in that price range that is better than my R9 290 and I don't really want to upgrade to the 390x since it is not really significantly better.
 
DPI said:
It's not a few frames per second difference that's AMD's problem. It's that no one but fanboys will pay the same price for second best. And there just aren't enough fanboys to keep the company afloat.

Also, try reading AMD's quarterly financials some time.
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You got a point there, it still baffles me how the 970 is still being sold.
 
Remon said:
You got a point there, it still baffles me how the 970 is still being sold.
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I'd buy a 970 over a 390 any day.

They are priced the same, and perform similarly but the 970 uses ~120W less power and has more features.

The only exception would be if I were shopping for 4k gaming, in which I'd need lots of VRAM, but if that were the case, I wouldn't be looking at either of these GPU's in th efirst place, as they are not fast enough.

People make a big deal about the 3.5GB VRAM thing, but the truth is, nothing that's under the hood really matters. Gameplay results matter, and unless you up the resolution too high and get into that last half of a gig, the 970 performs beautifully.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041929929 said:
I'd buy a 970 over a 390 any day.

They are priced the same, and perform similarly but the 970 uses ~120W less power and has more features.

The only exception would be if I were shopping for 4k gaming, in which I'd need lots of VRAM, but if that were the case, I wouldn't be looking at either of these GPU's in th efirst place, as they are not fast enough.

People make a big deal about the 3.5GB VRAM thing, but the truth is, nothing that's under the hood really matters. Gameplay results matter, and unless you up the resolution too high and get into that last half of a gig, the 970 performs beautifully.
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A little OT, but in regarding the 3.5GB VRAM issue on 970, I installed and started playing GTA V yesterday on my OC R9 290X at 1080p resolution. Without even turning up everything to max, GTA managed to require 3.9GB of video memory. I'd expect a lot more games will exceed the 970's 3.5GB barrier if one wants to play with all the eye candies.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041929764 said:
These articles are completely useless when all they do is give a year. It will make a HUGE difference if they are available in January, vs if they are available in December.


Question is, which will hit first, Pascal or Greenland?
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They will come out very close together, because they have to. Both are going to double the performance of their flagship cards, because they need to start delivering on single-card 4K performance. Both are waiting for the same parts - 16nm FinFET and HBM 2.0.

Pascal is strongly rumored to come out in June, so AMD will have to release then too, whether or not they're ready.

Offering products that perform at half the speed of your competitor's is a position in which you spend as little time as possible, whichever side you are on.
 
nomas said:
A little OT, but in regarding the 3.5GB VRAM issue on 970, I installed and started playing GTA V yesterday on my OC R9 290X at 1080p resolution. Without even turning up everything to max, GTA managed to require 3.9GB of video memory. I'd expect a lot more games will exceed the 970's 3.5GB barrier if one wants to play with all the eye candies.
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Interesting.

I wonder if all of that RAM is being actively used, or if it's just offline buffered textures so that it doesn't need to transfer them from RAM/Disk again.

I have had 6GB video cards now since early 2013 and have never seen VRAM usage go above 2.5GB or so, even at 4k.

That being said, I don't play the latest titles.
 
Back to the topic.

Personally, I'll probably buy the first single GPU card that can give me the coveted "never drops under 60fps for even a millisecond" performance, with eye candy on in the games I play.

I hate multi-GPU so much, that getting rid of the two GPU's and going with a single one will be a blessing.

Seeing that my GPU's are rarely loaded at above 60% in SLI, it would probably take only ~20% or so of a performance bump over an overclocked 980ti will do it.

First to market with a single GPU that accomplishes this, and I will make every attempt to buy it on launch day, AMD or Nvidia (or even another maker, however unlikely that may be)
 
It's a never ending cycle though. That state of nirvana can only be true for a short period of time for a given resolution, until the game devs jack up the graphical details again. We are far from photorealism 3D rendering in 4K, 8K, 16K, etc... :D
 
Tengis said:
Its hilarious how a few frames per second according to most reviews equates to the end of AMD. Everyone is starting to get ridiculous with the garbage they spew and the fanboyism.

Who cares about AMD anymore? El oh el. In the part of the video card market that matters, the mid to low range, AMD more then competes. What a crock of shitake mushrooms.
Click to expand...

While I believe AMD will still be around next year, their future has got nothing to do with how many fps their GPU can render. It has everything to do with their financial performance, which is still in the negative.

Doesn't matter what difference in fps you chose to believe, or how competitive do you believe they are in what segment. Every company needs to make profit, not bleed money instead. Therefore, people would be less confident in the future of a company if they are not able to stop losing money, let alone turning a profit. Nothing to do with fanboyism.
 
AMD has a prototype finally of their next gpu, Nvidia had their's 5 months ago. If AMD is 3+ months behind in releaseing their next gpu til say least q3 if nivida releases early q2. AMD will take a major hit cause people won't want to wait that long.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041929929 said:
They are priced the same, and perform similarly but the 970 uses ~120W less power and has more features.
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Which features?
 
DPI said:
Wishful thinking.

Intel has had no competition from AMD, yet prices haven't "skyrocketed".
Click to expand...

No prices, not skyrocketed. But performance gains stopped almost completely. You could get a 4 core 8 thread unlocked I7 for 250 in 2010. Now you can get a 4 core 8 thread unlocked I7 for 300, that is maybe 50% faster than the one you got 5 years ago. Intel could do better, but they don't have to.
 
M76 said:
No prices, not skyrocketed. But performance gains stopped almost completely. You could get a 4 core 8 thread unlocked I7 for 250 in 2010. Now you can get a 4 core 8 thread unlocked I7 for 300, that is maybe 50% faster than the one you got 5 years ago. Intel could do better, but they don't have to.
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Aye. Because of this, many are holding on to older CPU without any impetus or incentive to upgrade. Instead we upgrade our phones and tablets more often - a trend that is not favorable to Intel.
 
Parmenides said:
Then your hangup caused you to miss my other point, and this lesser comment about "console CPU's". Profitability is irrelevant to that comment. PS4/Xbone kept intel out. When when competing companies wine and dine the same business partners, that's competition. If AMD were gone, Intel could have taken the console business at a much higher rate.

This is just common market sense here. I've never bought an AMD CPU, but they need to be around whether you like them or not.
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Getting involved in consoles is a major headache for the hardware vendor. There is no glory or real profit in it. No one wants to do it anymore on a large scale.

AMD only got the gig because they were the cheapest and they were already bent over a barrel. Plus AMD knew if they tied themselves in to supplier contracts with the likes of Microsoft/Sony and Nintendo that gives them leverage with their creditors and banks to allow them to live on a little longer.

Basically AMD are doing the homework for three bigger kids in return for them making sure they don't get beat up in the playground.
 
M76 said:
No prices, not skyrocketed. But performance gains stopped almost completely. You could get a 4 core 8 thread unlocked I7 for 250 in 2010. Now you can get a 4 core 8 thread unlocked I7 for 300, that is maybe 50% faster than the one you got 5 years ago. Intel could do better, but they don't have to.
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And what has AMD done to solve this? they keep pumping out thrillion core CPUs with sht performance.
 
Remon said:
Which features?
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Shadowplay is the big one I care about, now that freesync panels have started to come out and AMD cards support backlight strobing. I'm sure other people have other preferences.
 
daglesj said:
Getting involved in consoles is a major headache for the hardware vendor. There is no glory or real profit in it. No one wants to do it anymore on a large scale.

AMD only got the gig because they were the cheapest and they were already bent over a barrel. Plus AMD knew if they tied themselves in to supplier contracts with the likes of Microsoft/Sony and Nintendo that gives them leverage with their creditors and banks to allow them to live on a little longer.

Basically AMD are doing the homework for three bigger kids in return for them making sure they don't get beat up in the playground.
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Someone had to supply the cpu and gpu for the consoles and AMD was the only one who have decent APU's that can be used. To go with Nvidia they would have to probably use a separately sourced cpu and the Intel cpu's are too expensive with lacklustre igpu performance. Arm was also an option but I think they don't make an all in one APU like AMD and the architecture is not x86.

It was the best choice to go for an x86 based cpu thus making it much better for developers since they can make games for all platforms easier.

AMD will be making a profit but a small one. No one would sell an APU at cost.
 
Remon said:
Which features?
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Nvidia also has more robust AA support. There are a LOT of titles that don't normally support AA, that you can enable via AA flags with Nvidia Inspector. Last time I checked, you don't have nearly the same compatibility on AMD's side.
 
fs123 said:
Someone had to supply the cpu and gpu for the consoles and AMD was the only one who have decent APU's that can be used. To go with Nvidia they would have to probably use a separately sourced cpu and the Intel cpu's are too expensive with lacklustre igpu performance. Arm was also an option but I think they don't make an all in one APU like AMD and the architecture is not x86.

It was the best choice to go for an x86 based cpu thus making it much better for developers since they can make games for all platforms easier.

AMD will be making a profit but a small one. No one would sell an APU at cost.
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As I said, the cheapest game in town and not in a position to argue.
 
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