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June 15th, 2012

Alleged AMD Radeon HD 7990 Design Pictured

Alleged AMD Radeon HD 7990 Design Pictured radeon 7990
Here are some interesting news from 4Gamer.net website. During the AMD Fusion Developer Summit 2012, Mark Papermaster (a Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of AMD) has showcased a new professional FirePro graphics card, which appears to be more like the alleged Radeon HD 7990 design.

Papermaster has shown brand a new FirePro W9000 professional card, which is more or less Radeon HD 7970 X2 or HD 7990 if you like. We were all expecting HD 7990 to be released during Computex, but only two manufacturers have presented their HD 7970 X2 variants instead. What is more, those cards will be released in very limited quantity, and as some rumors say, one of them is not even ready for release (PowerColor’s card is actually only a prototype).

From the slides we learn some interesting thing — those present completely different design (than showcased card), which looks more like HD 7970 card. Therefore, we have this dual-gpu card shown during the event, which is holding three fans (with FirePro stickers). So did AMD just made their Radeon HD 7990 a FirePro card? Rather not.

W9000 can operate with 4 TFLOPS for single-precission computing, and 1 TFLOPS for double-precision. This model can fill 264 million pixels per second. When you look at this table, you will learn that this FirePro W9000 card is actually a single Tahiti XT chip, only clocked around 1 GHz.

Computing powerAMD FirePro W9000AMD Radeon HD 7970
Core Clock:
925 MHz		AMD Radeon HD 7970
Core Clock:
1000 MH
Single-precision4.096 TFLOPS3.790 TFLOPS4.096 TFLOPS
Double-precision1.024 TFLOPS0.947 TFLOPS1.024 TFLOPS

So, when we look at the specs of FirePro W9000 and HD 7970, and it’s computing power, we learn that it is obviously a single-gpu card. On the other hand, we have this dual-gpu card which is probably featuring 4096 Stream processors, along with 6GB of GDDR5 memory. It’s reference design is equipped with triple-fan (90mm low-noise) solution, which looks pretty decent. It is also possible that this card is using different GPUs, like Pitcairn. This would explain such a weak computing power with two GPUs. But as BestJinjo pointed out in comments, it has a different double precision floating point computing power – 1/16 instead of 1/4 like Tahiti. But why would AMD show two different designs?

Well, it all appears that this is actually our eagerly awaited dual-gpu card’s design. By the way, you will notice only two 8-pin power connectors on the card’s side, this would probably mean that “HD 7990″ is less power hungry than HD 7970 X2 cards (those use three connectors). We will update this article when new information surfaces.

Alleged AMD Radeon HD 7990 Design Pictured radeon 7990 Alleged AMD Radeon HD 7990 Design Pictured radeon 7990 Alleged AMD Radeon HD 7990 Design Pictured radeon 7990 Alleged AMD Radeon HD 7990 Design Pictured radeon 7990

  • BestJinjo

    The math points to W9000 being a single HD7970 with 1000mhz clocks:

    1) Single Precision = 2048 SPs x 2 Ops / clock cycle x 1000mhz clock = 4.096 Tflops single precision performance
    2) Double Precision = 2048 SPs x 2 Ops / clock cycle x 1000mhz GPU clock x 1/4 FP64 = 1.024 Tflops

    The math for double precision in your table for Pitcairn is off I believe. Pitcairn is gimped in double precision (FP64). Pitcairn can only do 1/16th of Single precision performance in double precision.

    So 1280 SPs x 2 Ops x 2 GPUs x 1000mhz clocks x 1/16 FP64 = 320 Tflops
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/5625/amd-radeon-hd-7870-ghz-edition-radeon-hd-7850-review-rounding-out-southern-islands

    Unless they have a special version of Pitcairn GPU with full double precision performance.

    Maybe the slide meant to say that the card has 2 of each 1000mhz HD7970s? From what I read, it looks like there is a shortage of PLX PCI-express chip and AMD won’t be launching consumer HD7990 until August. By that time most people who wanted a dual-gpu single card would have already purchased a GTX690. Also, 1000mhz HD7990 will at best match a stock GTX690 in performance. AMD should have released a 925mhz 7970 last quarter and priced it for $850-900. Instead they are going to be 8 months late since 7970′s launch with this GPU.

  • http://videocardz.com/ VideoCardz.com

    Yes, you are right. Forgot about 1/16 FP64 in those cards. But that doesn’t make things any clearer.
    “AMD should have released a 925mhz 7970 last quarter (…) ”
    You meant 7990? $900 for tahiti xt seems to be way overpriced :)

    If what they show is dual-gpu card, then how come it has single-gpu power, this doesn’t make any sense.

  • BestJinjo

    Ya, you are right, I did mean 7990. Corrected :)

    I think while Papermaster had the slide of W9000 and provided its specs, the 3-fan card is likely the HD7990 to be released later in the year. Not sure why he did the presentation in such a confusing way. In other words, the 3-fan card is not the W9000. So they are two separate cards.

  • BestJinjo

    More info on Tahiti Rev. 2 chip:

    http://www.ocaholic.ch/xoops/html/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5131&sel_lang=english

    HD7990 should use this new revision chip.

  • francmic

    I’m both confused and very excited. Can’t wait for the fog to clear, maybe get some benches and some dates.

  • francmic

    http://www.techpowerup.com/167711/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970-GHz-Edition-quot-Tahiti-XT2-quot-Detailed.html
    This article cites your ocaholic article, whether it be reliable or not, but offers a guess as to when shipping of the tahiti v2 should start reaching consumers. “late june, early july”
    I’m really digging for an article with similar info but a separate source.

  • francmic

    More thoughts:
    Has there ever been a workstation card with a triple fan cooling solution?
    Are there any close ups of the display ports for the card he was holding in his hand during the presentation?
    Edit/update: Doesn’t get more deffinitive than this.
    http://techreport.com/discussions.x/23114
    “On my way to the airport this afternoon, I asked AMD’s Dave Erskine for clarification. He told me the card Papermaster held up was actually a “dual-GPU product that will be released later this year.”
    The show cased card is your 7990.

  • BestJinjo

    Ya, but the specs for W9000 cannot be for HD7990 dual-GPU card unless it’s clocked at ~500mhz. That’s why the presentation was poorly done. He talked about W9000 but then showed this card. That would be like NV launching a GTX680 and showing GTX690 as “that” card.

  • BestJinjo

    If that chip is real, I hope to HD7970 V2 can overclock to 1300-1350mhz on air. What’s interesting is that this type of performance would put tremendous pressure on HD8000 series. How in the world will AMD deliver a significant update with HD8000 series still on 28nm in Q1 2013 if HD7970 V2 starts to approach 1300mhz overclocks? That would be an almost 30-35% faster GPU. Hmm….thoughts?

  • francmic

    Maybe marketing ploy to get ppl talking? Any sort of mystery solving is just going to get ppl more involved with the brand.

  • francmic

    Perhaps revisions indicate a longer generations and slower innovation in part to longer(here it is again) console lifespans.
    (I think hd8000 is gonna be pushed back)

  • http://videocardz.com/ VideoCardz.com

    If HD 8000 series will be made in 28 nm process, then there won’t be any delays. TSMC will be ready to create more advanced chips. AMD will only have to decide how many stream processors to add, and obviously do some work to full-load power consumption (the biggest problem of Radeon series).

  • Jerome

    They can always make bigger chip like Nvidia a 500+mm

  • BestJinjo

    No, they cannot. HD7970 on 28nm is already pushing the thermal envelope as it is with its 250W TDP and 365mm^2 die size. There is no way at all that AMD can manufacture a 500mm+^2 chip on 28nm process and retain any reasonable clock speeds at 1Ghz. NV has the exact same problem too which is why GK100 never launched and GK110 is delayed until at least Q4 2012, at which point it will likely launch with far lower clock speeds than GK104.

    Further, AMD’s GPU division isn’t as profitable as NV’s historically. They wouldn’t even attempt to make a 500mm^2 die GPU since it simply wouldn’t make any financial sense for them in the consumer space. If anything, AMD could remove double precision performance and make a more specialized gaming GPU and introduce a larger die series for workstations (much like NV did with GK104 and K10/K20 Tesla chips).

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