AMD Teases Next Enthusiast GPU: Still 28nm, 23% Smaller Than GK110
by Ryan Smith on September 18, 2013 11:00 AM EST
Rumors aside, after AMD’s unexpected preview of their 2013 GPU plans back at the start of this year the company has been mum-as-usual on the matter of their future GPUs. At the time AMD announced that they would have a new GPU microarchitecture by the end of this year, and as 2013 slowly winds down the launch of that new microarchitecture draws near. Normally in these situations we would see AMD continue to stay quiet until they’re ready to fully unveil their products, but with the launch of that new microarchitecture already confirmed, AMD has unexpectedly unveiled a couple of details about one of their forthcoming GPUs in an interview with Forbes.
Interviewing the Corporate VP & GM of AMD’s Graphics Business Unit, Matt Skynner, Matt offered up a couple of basic but important details about AMD’s future plans. First and foremost, AMD’s next enthusiast GPU – already strongly implied to be the launch vehicle for their forthcoming microarchitecture – will be a 28nm product. Explaining why, Matt specifically states that “at 28nm for an enthusiast GPU, we can achieve higher clock speeds and higher absolute performance.” With traditional AMD GPU fab TSMC still ramping up for 20nm anyhow this doesn’t come as a great surprise, but it does put to rest any rumors of a 20nm product launch one way or another.
More interesting perhaps is that Matt also gave Forbes a ballpark number on the die size of their new GPU: GK110 is still 30% bigger than the new GPU, or inverted the new GPU is 23% smaller than GK110. While AMD’s small die strategy has been dead for some time, the company has still shied away from large GPUs for various reasons, their largest GPU since the ill-fated R600 (HD 2900 XT) being the 389mm2 Cayman GPU at the heart of the HD 6900 series. 23% smaller than GK110 would put the die size of AMD’s future GPU at around 425mm2, making it slightly larger than Cayman, or roughly the same size as R600. These are ballpark figures of course, so we’ll know more once the GPU formally launches, including of course how well that large die and new microarchitecture translate into performance.
The full interview can be found over at Forbes. Along with teasing AMD’s next enthusiast GPU, Matt also briefly discusses AMD’s software/driver plans, game bundling, the Radeon HD 7990, and more.
Source: Forbes (via Beyond3D)
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nathanddrews - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Any indication that they are moving toward some sort of modular design with each tier getting more GCN "cores"?Perhaps all this investigation into stuttering and such has led to a better method of on-PCB Crossfire, perhaps a method that makes the process transparent to the application? Combined with HSA, that would be sweet...
MrSpadge - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
GPUs have already been highly modular since a long time. If you need more performance you essentially simply scale the number of building blocks.nathanddrews - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
For lack of better terms to describe it, I'm referring to building up to a larger chip rather than scaling down from a larger chip.Cow86 - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
For this to be really as exciting and efficient as AMD is touting, this has to beat GK104 in performance/die size...and also performance/watt. I'm wondering however if they just mean they come close to Titan with 23% less die size...There are still far too many unknowns though, like how much compute Hawaii would have (GK110 is a compute monster afterall, which is also a big reason for the large die size). Here's me hoping AMD wins this round, even if it isn't by much...Can't imagine it being a huge win if they're staying on 28 nm afterall, but I'll take a marginal one.
The Von Matrices - Friday, September 20, 2013 - link
Remember, some of Titan and GTX 780 is disabled from the full GK110 die, so just comparing die sizes isn't the full story. You need to consider the amount of die space that is actually enabled on those chips, and then you'll find that AMD is comparable.HighTech4US - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Why is AMD only comparing die size and not performance?Who cares about die size it performance that counts.
Ortanon - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
I doubt they'd be comparing the die size if performance wasn't comparable.JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
I think that's a stretch. AMD and NVIDIA always have different strengths in terms of gaming, but I don't think AMD is really planning on eclipsing Titan. More likely is that they're aiming at the GTX 780, which of course has 384 fewer cores (two disabled SMXes) than Titan and at stock speeds ends up being about 10% slower. The law of diminishing returns is of course in full effect, so getting that last 10% (e.g. with Titan) costs a lot, and I don't think AMD is planning on going after the $1000 GPU market. Hopefully AMD comes in at around $500 again and brings NVIDIA's GTX Titan/780 prices down to a more reasonable range.superjim - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
A second coming of the 5870 (or even 9700 Pro) would be nice. $380 for current-$500 performance.imaheadcase - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Do you guys have one in house yet? Or do you normally get them just a few days before release?