Entire GCN Lineup – HD 7000 series Specs and Price

[distinctively]

Originally Posted by Thrillseeker

Ok, I thought leakage was more a function of process than of design. What can they change on the design that would significantly affect leakage, and yet have about the same chip performance?

Leakage can be from both process and design. As far as what they can change? That's what R&D is all about at this stage. There's no magic procedure rather than study the problems and find solutions.

[Alexko]

Originally Posted by charlie

If they respin it, it will be for die area, not for speed. I would guess they can lop 50mm^2 off of the total.

-Charlie

But it will be for power, and power is speed.

Originally Posted by Thrillseeker

Ok, I thought leakage was more a function of process than of design. What can they change on the design that would significantly affect leakage, and yet have about the same chip performance?

As distinctively said, it's both. Exactly how you can reduce leakage through better design, I have no idea, but AMD claims to have done it for Pitcairn & CV.

[Thrillseeker]

Originally Posted by Alexko

As distinctively said, it's both. Exactly how you can reduce leakage through better design, I have no idea, but AMD claims to have done it for Pitcairn & CV.

Well, I guess I'm assuming that AMD is using some kind of standard FET cell that TSMC provided. If TSMC has a new tweaked cell, or if AMD is sufficiently advanced enough to work with TSMC to customize their own cell I guess I can see it.

[charlie]

Originally Posted by Thrillseeker

Ok, I thought leakage was more a function of process than of design. What can they change on the design that would significantly affect leakage, and yet have about the same chip performance?

Are there open spaces on the current layout? Are parts of the chip not being used that can be removed?

No, think of it more as incorporating learning about the 28nm process, and where they can do things better. Tahiti was the first 28nm chip, and a lot was learned from it.

-Charlie

[charlie]

Originally Posted by Alexko

But it will be for power, and power is speed.

As distinctively said, it's both. Exactly how you can reduce leakage through better design, I have no idea, but AMD claims to have done it for Pitcairn & CV.

Power can be speed, and speed can be power. Both are non-linear, and some times non-interchangeable. In this case, it wouldn't surprise me if they gained both, but that isn't the main goal.

-Charlie

[265586888]

AMD always does something on the GPU when it comes to smaller nodes.
If anyone could spot this on the RV770 story article from AnandTech...

[Guild]

AMD has beat Nvidia to a new process by ~6 months in the last 6-7 years at least. In fact this generation is the closest Nvidia has come, probably due to the whole 32nm mess.

[zomg]

Possible HD7790 or HD7830 chip found - Pitcairn with 768 stream processors in AFOX Radeon :



© thg via tpu

[Guild]

Makes sense... huge gap between 7770 $139 and 7850 $250 is begging to be plugged. With 768SP it looks more like a 7790 than a 7830, but on the other hand it has a bizarrely high memory bandwidth and 32 rop.

[kalelovil]

Originally Posted by Guild

Makes sense... huge gap between 7770 $139 and 7850 $250 is begging to be plugged. With 768SP it looks more like a 7790 than a 7830, but on the other hand it has a bizarrely high memory bandwidth and 32 rop.

With that clock rate its going to lose to the 7770 in a number of situations.

Presumably the clock rate is incorrect (presumably set as it is for the same reason the gpu has ended up in a 7850 branded product) and the true retail clock is around that of the 7870.

Not that the retail clock matters for these kind of salvage cards which often end up in all kinds of vender specific versions with different clocks, outputs and cooling systems. Based on the overclocking ability of the 7850 there should be plenty of leeway for vendors.

Based on past trends there is also a chance it will never be sold outside of China, but considering the large gap between the 7770 and 7850 it seems an obvious product to produce.
Unless AMD's yields on Pitcairn are so good there are practically no sub-7850 Pitcairn dies to sell.