[Olivon]

Quote:

Now stating Taiwanese sources SweClockers AMD placed the launch window in late August to early September. First up is the circuit Tonga Pro and XT, which with 256-bit memory bus and 2GB of GDDR5 memory stepping in as new members of the upper middle class.

Source

Translated

 

[CasualCat]

Why does it translate Radeon to Geforce?

 

[CynicalUnicorn]

Yes, because less VRAM and a smaller bus than Tahiti is better than Tahiti, right? 275X made more sense. Eh, at least SweClockers is fairly reliable.

 

[Yungbenny911]

Hmmm... With the V-ram wars going on, and people saying 2gb is not enough anymore, i wonder why AMD is supposedly making this switch from their regular 3gb to 2gb

 

[geoxile]

I'm beginning to think we won't be seeing a new series until Q2 2015

 

[8800GT]

I thought the 280x already got updated to xtl? I doubt somehow that the 280x will have 3 revisions on the exact same node. I can imagine new cards coming out with tonga but updating cards doesn't seem extremely plausible. Then again, who knows right...

 

[Roaches]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yungbenny911

Hmmm... With the V-ram wars going on, and people saying 2gb is not enough anymore, i wonder why AMD is supposedly making this switch from their regular 3gb to 2gb

I'm guessing there's a good chance it has an improved memory controller, especially seeing how GK-104 puts up a good fight against Tahiti with a narrower bus and faster memory IC. If true, it makes sense to place it one tier above the 280X.

 

[TopicClocker]

Reminds me of what Nvidia did with the 660 TI.

 

[Artikbot]

Less memory and narrower bus, but if the core is more powerful than Tahiti... Why not?

 

[CynicalUnicorn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopicClocker

Reminds me of what Nvidia did with the 660 TI.

660Ti was a 670 with a gimped back-end. This is supposedly similar to Tahiti with a gimped back-end... So it's a higher model number?

 

[Roaches]

660, 660 TI, and 670 were nothing more than rejected chips of the same GK-104 die. Tonga is likely a new silicon die based off GCN, likely with improvements and lessons learned from Hawaii architecture. I don't see how that is the same as this.

 

[Artikbot]

I agree, it looks like AMD took Tahiti (or Hawaii even), trimmed down the die, made it fitter, and now we'll have something at least as fast as Tahiti but with less power consumption and potentially a lower price.

 

[CynicalUnicorn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Artikbot

I agree, it looks like AMD took Tahiti (or Hawaii even), trimmed down the die, made it fitter, and now we'll have something at least as fast as Tahiti but with less power consumption and potentially a lower price.

This is intended for laptops. So yes, that makes sense. GK104 and Tahiti might be competitive, but AMD can only cram Pitcairn into laptop chips. This should narrow the gap until GCN 2.0, but if the 880 can manage 200W TDP, then it too is going in laptops.

 

[t00sl0w]

can i turn my 770 into a radeon card?

 

[Hattifnatten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CasualCat

Why does it translate Radeon to Geforce?

Because some Nvidia-fanboy kids found it hillarious to change Radeon into GeForce going from Sweedish to English in google translate. OP simply copied the translated title without looking at it

 

[TopicClocker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CynicalUnicorn

660Ti was a 670 with a gimped back-end. This is supposedly similar to Tahiti with a gimped back-end... So it's a higher model number?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roaches

660, 660 TI, and 670 were nothing more than rejected chips of the same GK-104 die. Tonga is likely a new silicon die based off GCN, likely with improvements and lessons learned from Hawaii architecture. I don't see how that is the same as this.

It reminded me of it because both the 660 Ti and the 285 have a gimped memory bus and the same core count over their closest counterparts, however the thing which sets them apart is the 285's higher model number over the 7970GHz/280X which may or may not be an indication of the level of performance.

660 Ti, 192bit, 670, 256bit, less memory bandwidth however with same core count.
285, 256bit, 7970, 384bit, same core count however with less memory, I'm not sure about the memory bandwidth. (Is it directly affected by the bus width?)

If the higher model number is a measure of performance for this card, it could mean that there's been some performance improvements in the architecture, or maybe it's clocked higher than the 7970?

 

[Seronx]

*4 GB GDDR5 or 8 GB GDDR5
+ 2 GB HBM.

 

[iamhollywood5]

Why are AMD and Nvidia spending their time and resources making new 256-bit cards??

 

[Mand12]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamhollywood5

Why are AMD and Nvidia spending their time and resources making new 256-bit cards??

Because bus width isn't the sole determinant of memory performance, let alone full card performance.

 

[ZealotKi11er]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamhollywood5

Why are AMD and Nvidia spending their time and resources making new 256-bit cards??

256-Bit is more cost efficient, smaller die and lower power consumption.

The card will probably be 4GB and be clocked higher then 280X.