General Discussions

[kingfish]

There have been rumors that AMD might launch a refreshed Polaris GPU in the fall for a few months now, and it looks like those rumors may be accurate. Benchmark data from the Final Fantasy XV scoreboard shows the RX 590 Series listed, just ahead of the GTX 1060 and a whisker below the GTX 1080. The results below are from the 2560×1440 resolution, at Lite quality.

It’s actually interesting to see daylight between the GTX 1060 and GTX 980 as well since in our previous tests the two cards have proven to be nearly identical. Granted, the gap here is still small, at only 1.08x. The FFV data set doesn’t have the RX 590 in every resolution or detail level — 1080p isn’t included at all, and 4K is a bad test point for midrange cards, but by 2560×1440 at High quality, the 1060 has retaken a very narrow lead. This appears to be a bit of an oddity to this result, however, as THG makes clear — overall, the RX 590 has a lead in this test.

Assuming AMD is planning an RX 590, we’re thinking it could be a 12nm spin or 14nm respin of Polaris with a subsequent clock bump and almost certainly still built at GlobalFoundries. Introducing a new Polaris GPU now lets AMD put a refresh on the board for 2018 and the first part of 2019, but it isn’t a part that Lisa Su mentioned in her analyst call. Then again, AMD really isn’t talking publicly about its consumer GPU plans at all right now. While GPUs were frequently mentioned this week during the conference call, all of the discussion focused on data centers and the 7nm Vega ramp. If AMD is ramping an RX 590 now, it implies Navi will either be focused in a different market area (at least initially) or won’t arrive for quite some time — long enough not to collide with this product in the market.

What’ll be interesting is to see if the upcoming GTX 1060 with GDDR5X can match it. We now know Gigabyte is launching one such card, and that the GPU inside is supposedly a cut-down GP104 identical to that used for the GTX 1080, GTX 1070 Ti, and GTX 1070. The new GTX 1060 with GDDR5X should have a faster RAM clock, but Gigabyte is playing coy on that front right now, claiming that the bandwidth is still the same as the original card — 192GB/s. That seems extremely unlikely, given that the entire point of incorporating GDDR5X would be to improve overall bandwidth, but Gigabyte is giving itself room to adjust core clocks and memory frequency without disclosing that information just yet

[black_zion]

It's been all but confirmed Navi isn't going to be on shelves until this time next year as it's tied to the next generation consoles, especially when taking into account the "leapfrogging design teams" meaning 7nm Vega will not be a concurrent release with Navi...Sadly...

[kingfish]

I wonder how much the lose of some top tier AMD employees to Intel has to do with this?

[black_zion]

I doubt very much. If you remember this all started with Raja not doing things right, leading to his resignation, the Vega "debacle" (massive power draw, slower and more expensive than the competition, a repeat of the HD 2000 series essentially), and putting Navi way behind which also led to next generation consoles being pushed back to next year. Judging by the 7nm Vega performance leak showing 70% performance gains on current Vega per clock, I would say none of those people will be missed.

[leyvin]

Futuremark doesn't list the correct Core Clocks on Unknown Devices., instead Defaults to 1000MHz if it doesn't know / can't detect the Frequency, which most use the Driver Exposed process instead of Hardware Level Querying.

It's almost certainly operating at an identical frequency., so "Less Impressive" looking at just the benchmark results; but given this particular Vega is the 7nm version of the 14nm version., intended for Radeon Instinct (Server Accelerator) as I've covered in the past... expect it to have a much more static Boost Frequency, Lower Heat Production and Substantially (~40%) Lower Power Draw., they might increase the clocks if they consider the Power / Heat Cost Efficiency worthwhile; but remember it's the Cost Per Hour Per FLOP that's important to Professional Business NOT Gaming Performance.

[black_zion]

IF you read the articles, that's not what 3DMark does:

[leyvin]

Navi being a Q3/Q4 2019 Release is entirely inline with the speculative predictions I made over a month ago now.

The existence of the RX 590 also isn't surprising., given as I pointed out in regards to the Early Polaris 30 Rumours (driven primarily by a Linux Driver number., which has since been confirmed as the WX5100, again EXACTLY what I was saying at the time) that is frankly obviously a re-branding of the PlayStation 4 Pro GPU as Sony are almost certainly currently winding down production of the PS4 Pro in-favour of PS5 Hardware Devkit… why didn't AMD simply "Ramp Down" Production?

Maybe they did, it's not exactly a big secret that the PS4 Pro has only marginally sold better than PSVR., which arguably at only 1.6M Units is somewhat of a Failure for Sony... something they can't actually really afford. AMD instead of forcing Sony to "Honour" their original Agreement, likely bought them out of their Contract under the condition that they could repurpose said Hardware (say as a Discreet GPU and APU).

This means it filled a Market Gap they've had (especially for Professional Workstations) … and the premium they can charge for such almost certainly will mean they'll be VERY profitable.

What does this have to do with the RX 590? Well, it makes sense for AMD to also offer a similar deal to Microsoft for the Xbox One X GPU; which is perfectly capable of the same Clocks as the RX 580 (up to 1560MHz) … plus it has 40CU instead of 36CU., which on either the TSMC 16nm or Global Foundries 14nm+ would be an exceptionally cost effective GPU to produce (as cheap as the RX 570 / 580) while providing 15-20% better performance.

If this will be a Discreet GPU., I don't think so... I'm still standing by the fact we'll have 7nm Vega '20' as the RX 600-Series in Late Q1 / Early Q2 2019., as AMD / TSMC can do this due to GCN having better yields on 7nm than Zen+ / Zen2.

It makes no sense for them to release a new RX 500-Series (590) as a Discreet Retail Product., instead I'd heavily wager this will be an OEM Product under the RX 500X-Series Branding. Why? Well because of how these rumours have come to light... primarily from one AIB Partner., which then led to the assumption the new ID in the Linux Drivers was said Device; but further more then the expansion of said claim to a Series Refresh., which makes no sense as the current RX 500-Series aren't selling particularly well with the market now oversaturated with Mid-Range Hardware (excess GTX 1060 and RX 570/580., hence why the RX 570 are an absolute bargain right now) … yet still not selling well.

In fact what we might even see is this could potentially be an Asian (China / Vietnam / Korea / etc.) exclusive Discreet Product; hence the (re) introduction of the RX 570 as the RX 580 (2048) … as this would mean the RX 580 at 32CU / RX 590 at 40CU., and possibly we'll see the WX5100 also rebranded as the RX 570 at 24CU., with them removing the RX VEGA 56 / 64 from said Markets (as they're literally not selling) moving them to the Western Markets where they are selling.

The GTX 1070 basically doesn't sell amazingly well in said region due to the price., and is for all intended purposes the "Highest End" that does... so AMD REQUIRE sometime Sub-$350 that will compete to some degree. And this product makes sense., where-as for the West; well we have the RX Vega 56; which is just a better product for only a little more.

I mean the other element of this that should stand out is "Why are the Benchmarks we have for Final Fantasy XV?" … seriously think about that for a second.

It'd be cruel to say that no one in the west really cares much about the game., but in a way that's somewhat true. Popular at Launch but now., isn't a game that people are still really playing., it isn't even popularised for Benchmarking (for somewhat obvious reasons).

Yet it IS popular in the Asian Markets.

…

Another element is the fact it wasn't even mentioned in the Q3 Fiscal Report / Investors Meeting by Lisa Su., which would be unusual for a Western Product; as they DID talk about Vega for Radeon Instinct; they DID talk about Epyc 2nd Gen; they DID talk about 7nm GPUs being "On-Track" … but nothing about the RX 590, or Polaris Refresh., despite it being touted for Pre-2019 Release.

What is normal however is for them to not reference any of their Asian Specific Products / Launches.

Following what happened surrounding Polaris and Vega launches., I guarantee AMD is determined this time to keep the Hype and Information pretty Low-Key for as long as they can; which means NOT involving AIB Partners until the last possible minute.