• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

They are COMING!!

ChronoDetector said:
That 4GB of VRAM is quite disappointing if its true, was expecting at least 8GB, but time will tell.
Click to expand...

This is a trade off with HMB deployment at this stage due to the limitations on die density and stacking. Hynix's roadmap for gen 1 HBM tops out at 1GB for a single for 4hi stack, so a 4x4hi config would be 4GB of VRAM. Gen 2, late 2015/2016 time frame, will scale up to 8GB a stack with up to double the speed.

So yes the 290/290x can actually theoretically (and does have products out) that support more memory capacity at up to 16GB.

trick0502 said:
What if the 4gb has 512+ gb/s bandwidth?
Click to expand...

The issue with insufficient VRAM is you can't store your entire dataset within the confines of the videocards internal memory which has access to those high memory speeds. The slowdowns occur because you are bottlenecked by much other slow points of access when you need to swap data in.
 
I expect to see 8GB cards when this rolls out. Maybe not across the board, but available at least.
Logic being:
A) 8GB 290s exist.
B) Newer products are harder to sell if the numbers are smaller
 
You forget, guys: the 285 managed to get a big performance boost from its compression algorithms, allowing a 2gb 256bit card to compete with a 3gb 384bit card. Maybe the same sort of improvement, combined with the ludicrous increase in bandwidth will make that 4gb sing.
 
i was referring to the post above mine who was on the fence about purchasing now.

Since AMD has said 390 isnt coming until the 1st half of 2015, id hardly call it mindless specuation.
 
This is great, can't come out fast enough. Hurry up and release it already and force nvidia release
 
I don't get what all the fuss is about over the cards being 4gb.

first gen HBM is lower capacity, you will see 8gb cards with the second gen HBM, along with double the speed.

4gb is fine even for 4k. The memory is so much faster I doubt it will be a problem.

I don't have a need to replace my 290 right now, but i can certainly see some appeal down the road ie, when I actually decide to go 4k. But more along the lines of 3x4k or 11520x2160 resolution. When I replace my current Samsung MD230x3 with 4k panels.
 
Last edited:
8gb are becoming a norm due to console can access/use all ram.
then again not so sure Ultra settings actually add that much more visual fidelity to games vs high.
and we are going to 4k then later 8k.
one day we will see 32gb card and think darn only 32gb?
 
Flopper said:
8gb are becoming a norm due to console can access/use all ram.
then again not so sure Ultra settings actually add that much more visual fidelity to games vs high.
and we are going to 4k then later 8k.
one day we will see 32gb card and think darn only 32gb?
Click to expand...


I was gonna say that people need to clarify consoles aren't using all the extra VRAM from last generation for anything beneficial, but then you finished it so touche. They are being lazy and pushing uncompressed textures/audio and now they've maxed the hardware. Like before, we'll see games 4 years from now that look much different/better than what we see now because it'll force the developers to learn the hardware and program for it.

The jump from 2GB to 4GB being the standard is already pretty fast and we'll probably hit 8GB as the standard within a year or so. The VRAM/Console debate will then be over thankfully. It's starting to get annoying hearing how consoles with more memory are XY moar leet than a PC. Shows people don't understand A) How GPU's and memory is used and B) How much data there is involved with gaming. Last thing they want to deal with is compression. Can't blame them, but even with stacked memory it'll just get worse. You give a developer 10TBps 1TB memory chips they are going to get worse, not better.
 
The Mac said:
i was referring to the post above mine who was on the fence about purchasing now.

Since AMD has said 390 isnt coming until the 1st half of 2015, id hardly call it mindless specuation.
Click to expand...

I don't mind picking up a card to use for a year but only holding on to it for 6 months and reselling is too much of a hassle to me. More importantly, I really don't play too many things that warrant the increased GPU right now so waiting is not too much of a problem.

I am hoping the new cards will be more power efficient as I like to keep my computer a quiet as possible.
 
Why can't they sell empty cards and we add our own VRAM? I may need 4gb someone else 2 someone else 8... why is this NOT doable on video cards?
 
I don't know anything about this, but my personal hope is that the next GPUs use at least the updated Tonga GCN architecture, i.e. the third iteration of GCN.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/09/02/msi_radeon_r9_285_gaming_oc_video_card_review/

There are compelling technologies included in the third iteration of GCN, such as the delta color compression, improved tessellation, new multimedia engine, updated ISA, etc.....

If it is "just" Hawaii, that would be the second iteration of GCN, missing the additions of the third iteration brought forth.

That to me is important.
 
Last edited:
Hawaii is the second iteration...
Tonga seems to be a test vehicle for some of what they were doing with Fiji and I think is a likely candidate to be shrunk to 16FinFet in 2H '15.

I expect Fiji to be an improved and much more balanced chip than Tonga, likely a 4th iteration.
 
LordEC911 said:
Hawaii is the second iteration...
Tonga seems to be a test vehicle for some of what they were doing with Fiji.

I expect it to be an improved and much more balanced chip than Tonga.
Click to expand...

I mean second, whoops. Still, I hope the next ones are at least based on Tonga, or maybe even better.

The color compression alone will help alleviate some of the concerns in this thread about memory bandwidth and capacity.
 
Brent_Justice said:
I mean second, whoops. Still, I hope the next ones are at least based on Tonga, or maybe even better.

The color compression alone will help alleviate some of the concerns in this thread about memory bandwidth and capacity.
Click to expand...

I'm going to offer some speculation. Not to put you in a shady position, Brent, but the fact that you don't know anything, and are ALLOWED TO SAY that you don't know anything tells us a lot about the timeline. Don't hardware reviewers get NDAs and setup review dates at least 1.5 months in advance? Usually longer? So that means AMD has not even contacted you guys YET on more info on these cards, or an event or discussion involving cards at all. If you were under NDA, you wouldn't really be allowed to say 'I know nothing'. Unless there is some loophole. That would put the card at least being revealed no earlier than late Jan, release late Feb, into March. Maybe I'm just overthinking.


TL:DR: cards are at least 1.5 months off, more than likely feb.
 
KazeoHin said:
I'm going to offer some speculation. Not to put you in a shady position, Brent, but the fact that you don't know anything, and are ALLOWED TO SAY that you don't know anything tells us a lot about the timeline. Don't hardware reviewers get NDAs and setup review dates at least 1.5 months in advance? Usually longer? So that means AMD has not even contacted you guys YET on more info on these cards, or an event or discussion involving cards at all. If you were under NDA, you wouldn't really be allowed to say 'I know nothing'. Unless there is some loophole. That would put the card at least being revealed no earlier than late Jan, release late Feb, into March. Maybe I'm just overthinking.


TL:DR: cards are at least 1.5 months off, more than likely feb.
Click to expand...

You are overthinking things.
 
Brent_Justice said:
I don't know anything about this, but my personal hope is that the next GPUs use at least the updated Tonga GCN architecture, i.e. the third iteration of GCN.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/09/02/msi_radeon_r9_285_gaming_oc_video_card_review/

There are compelling technologies included in the third iteration of GCN, such as the delta color compression, improved tessellation, new multimedia engine, updated ISA, etc.....

If it is "just" Hawaii, that would be the second iteration of GCN, missing the additions of the third iteration brought forth.

That to me is important.
Click to expand...
This is just me speculating but my guess is that Tonga was a test for the new architecture before a 20nm die shrink, and that the 390 series will most definitely be Tonga based.
 
delita said:
I would be really happy if they launched these prior to the current speculation of Feb of next year. That being said, with the release of 8GB 290x cards this month it seems doubtful that they would go through the effort of making a refresh at the end of the game just to push out new cards a couple of weeks later. I am dying for an upgrade but spending money now and then again in Feb seems excessive. First world problems.

Not to mention 290x's were on sale for $299 literally a couple of days ago and now they have been pushed back up to HIGHER prices than the 970s to get more in line with the new 8GB cards to make them look worth the money. BLAH.
Click to expand...

i'd say the price increases are meant to make black friday sales look way better when they hit. not as common with online sales but wouldn't surprise me none the less..

KazeoHin said:
I'm going to offer some speculation. Not to put you in a shady position, Brent, but the fact that you don't know anything, and are ALLOWED TO SAY that you don't know anything tells us a lot about the timeline. Don't hardware reviewers get NDAs and setup review dates at least 1.5 months in advance? Usually longer? So that means AMD has not even contacted you guys YET on more info on these cards, or an event or discussion involving cards at all. If you were under NDA, you wouldn't really be allowed to say 'I know nothing'. Unless there is some loophole. That would put the card at least being revealed no earlier than late Jan, release late Feb, into March. Maybe I'm just overthinking.


TL:DR: cards are at least 1.5 months off, more than likely feb.
Click to expand...

i bet brent wishes he got them a month and half early, lol.. i think the last few release reviews they've only had 1-2 weeks tops to do their review before launch.
 
ToddW2 said:
Why can't they sell empty cards and we add our own VRAM? I may need 4gb someone else 2 someone else 8... why is this NOT doable on video cards?
Click to expand...
Well with stacked memory that's definitely not possible at all because the memory chips are literally stacked on top of each other. But in general, it's because the timings and design of video RAM are much different from your general system RAM and sockets to accept them would inherently be slower than directly soldering them to the PCB.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top