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)
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
49 Comments
View All Comments
Kevin G - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Good timing. I just had a Radeon 7970 die due to shipping issues (thank you TSA/US Customs).jljaynes - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
You have to remember that some of the most popular games currently are free to play/cheap that don't take top-notch hardware to run - think LoL or Dota 2ezjohny - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Hopefully this 28nm GPU could work with the latest AMD 7000 series graphic cards!ezjohny - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
This is not the APU, I'm wrong.Laststop311 - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Price is going to be the key thing here. It's pretty much a given its not going to beat the 1000 dollar titan But the Gtx780 is only a tiny step behind titan in performance and it's only 650-700 dollars. It's pretty safe to say this will not beat gtx 780 in performance either. I think AMD is going for a GTX 770 killer. At 400-450 for the GTX 770 if AMD can get a nice 10-15% boost over GTX 770 and price it at the same we will have a real winner on our hands. I don't think we are gonna see the GTX 780 topped tho even though that would be nice. I would love to see the prices fall.I'm on the cusp of purchasing a GPU for my silent PC build and was gonna pull the trigger on an MSI gamer N770 or MSI Gamer N780 for it's low noise larger fans. If AMD can price these right I may switch to team Red as long as they can get the power consumption under control the 7970 was a freakin hot as hell running hog that was loud.
gostan - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
still cant play GTA V :(Da W - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
If you look at bench there's not that much difference between 7870 Ghz edition and GTX 780, except in a few specific games like total war of Civ. Plus power consumption is alike, temp and noise is higher on Nvidia.Add to that that GCN is first gen architecture and Keppler is 2nd Gen architecture (fermi improvment). I think with GCN 2.0, smaller but undisabled die, maturing process and cranking up the clock beyong 1Ghz, AMD can beat GTX 780.
evolucion8 - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link
I am certainly sure that the new Radeon will beat Titan. Why? As like Da W stated, the HD 7970GHz offers around 10-15% of the GTX 780 in average scenarios while there are scenarios where it can even match or outperform Titan in games like GRID 2, Dirt Showdown, Splinter Cell Conviction etc. So a GPU that will bring over 37% more shaders, with architecture improvements, will be able to be at least 30% or more faster than the HD 7970GHz, putting it on Titan territory or more, specially on general purpose computing aka GPGPU where nVidia still lacking even today with Titan, plus more games are coming with a general purpose computing approach to calculate stuff like hair, which is more suitable with the computing oriented AMD's GCN.shinkueagle - Wednesday, September 25, 2013 - link
LOL! FANBOY SPEAK MUCH....YOU ARE SO WRONG....
- http://www.techpowerup.com/191453/amd-gpu14-event-...