KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
It has been some time since AMD were able to punch Intel on the chin at product launch — and this year Nvidia have been left to dominate the graphics industry. Their Nvidia's GTX980, GTX980 Ti and Titan X simply have no competition whatever way you look at it. The bad news is that without serious competition both Intel and Nvidia have been able to charge whatever they feel like for many of their products. There is a silver lining in sight – AMD are set to release new graphics hardware in the coming weeks. We all hope they will have a answer to Maxwell, but what will happen?
Much of the attention has been on the flagship Fiji- Fury X card. This new flagship board is due for release soon and anticipation has reached fever pitch, with many news sites publishing updated information on the 300 series architecture. Behind closed doors KitGuru has discussed many aspects of the upcoming AMD launch and while many publications are just focusing on the flagship board, there are other topics to discuss. Many of the new R9 300 series cards are likely to be re badged editions of current gen hardware, with possibly small core clock boost enhancements. If this is the case, will the only truly exciting card AMD launch be the £400+ flagship Fiji model?
AMD are not the only company to release rebadged hardware, but I remember reviewing the (then) just released R9 280X and realising that it was basically a rebadged HD7970 GHZ Edition – even the bios at the time was 2 years old. AMD failed to mention this to me when the reference samples were sent and reviewers guides were handed out (see this page for MORE). Surely this can't happen again?
While Leo may have a slightly different view, I personally don't feel that AMD will rebadge everything in the 200 series … but the R9 285 and R9 290/x are a distinct possibility.
Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.
Kitguru says: We will know soon enough, but will you be annoyed if AMD are releasing a range of rebadged cards from this generation with modest clock bumps and perhaps only a few minor tweaks?
Have to agree, AMD’s re-badging is getting a little out of hand esp with this current series. I’m guessing they just can’t afford to totally refresh the line-up…
I think it will trade blows with the Titan X and GTX 980Ti depending on the game but with the amount of time it has taken to get here, It dam sure better be able to blend to
I cannot help but wonder of the real reason for this video. I’m totally disappointed.
This whole video looks like a HUGE nVidia-Intel ad. Or a major AMD rant because you were denied entrance to the NDA room.
You talked about re-badges. Well, everyone has done it in the past.
When Intel re-branded atoms to core processors did anyone speak?…..
When nVidia re-brands their gpus does anyone speak?….
I can answer pretty fast. No.
But i guess it’s easier to pick on the little guy, right?
You’re talking about being conned but i do not remember you making a video about nVidias’ GTX970 3.5 + 0.5 gigs of ram issue.
You say we need AMD to be competitive but with this video it’s like you try (too much maybe) to make people change their minds.
You’re talking about the new memory system and how people need to learn about the it. Like T&L existed from the VESA Local Bus days. Or when 3Dfx first showed anti-aliasing. Or when the different shader models were released…. And let’s not speak about multiple core and threading…
So what? We are going to be educated about it, learn about it and move on. I don’t understand how a new technology should not be released because people need to be educated. This is (excuse the word) lame.
And let’s not forget that Pascal will use HBM too. Or should nVidia not release the card because of it?
(being sarcastic here) Oh wait, AMD will have taught us all. That does it.
And as for the consoles…. You are right. Sony and Microsoft should have asked Intel to provide them the tech… Oh wait, Intel is waaaaaaaaay back in the graphics section. (i know, am being sarcastic again. i do apologize)
The bottom line is that this video is totally unnecessary. You were denied entrance to the NDA room. So what? Move on. In the end of the day, you could easily have missed that room and all would be awesome.
AMD is caught between a rock and a hard place this year and if re-branding some gpus buy them time to survive and be a competing company again, so be it. I prefer this than your suggestion that Samsung should buy them, or the games Intel did to AMD back in the days or what Gameworks does.
Am I a fanboy? I came to become one because I realized how dirty the others can be. I truly hope AMD survives these troubling days and comes back full speed to compete with the…… other guys 🙂
Cheers !!!
P.S. excuse my poor English, I’m only Greek 🙂
An Intel ad? really? Nvidia has rebadged parts in the past and was picked up for that fact. I certainly have not suggested that HBM should not be released. When Pascal comes I suspect we will have moved beyond 4x1GB of HBM. My point about consoles is that TVs are moving from Full HD to Ultra HD while the console hardware is stuck at HD. We have laptops with better GPUs than Xbox One and PS4. As for the NDA room, as I stated my problem is that the Press are excluded from seeing Fiji and I wonder why. My main problem is not Fiji but the rebadging of the rest of the product stack.
People with money – come on in. Whingy journalists that are qualified as JOURNALISTS and not some buyer stay OUT. Sound butt hurt. Sound like most forums of whinge and whine. Besr you can do is report on actuasls. 10,000 forums of spec and most sites are for click bait to survive. If you’d turned up to my stanbd, your demeanour and your arrogance – I’d have sent you away.
‘AMD is preparing to launch a 8GB edition of the Fury X sometime in August (take with a pinch of salt).’
I agree with you 100% sound like this guy is holding a grudge!!!
The weak Gpu and Cpu that’s in Ps4 and Xbox one has nothing to do with Amd, their customer asked for a Gpu /Cpu to place in their systems Amd supplied them with weak components you know why,because thats what they asked for(Microsoft/Sony) could of order high end Gpu/Cpu then folks would of bitch about paying $700/$800 for a gaming.system.I would of paid that type of money for a high end console,but most would of bitched!!!
Fiji needs to be significantly better than 980 Ti, at the same or lower price. Or maybe way better than 980 Ti at a somewhat higher price. If it’s way better but at a way higher price, it’s just a niche product for the rich and won’t get the high sales volumes AMD desperately needs to regain market share. If it doesn’t have some serious edge over 980 Ti, AMD is left looking like their best effort after years of intense work at the expense of letting the rest of their line languish is just barely good enough to keep up (and god help them if it can’t even do that). They need to show some kind of superiority, to improve their image as being the cheap option you settle for when you haven’t the budget for a top-end card (or CPU).
I don’t understand why you had to use slurs and slang terms to refer to AMD products. That in of itself will give the vibe, and what others who have listened to your rant are already thinking, is that you’re down playing AMD and advertising Nvidia. If you wanted to stay unbiased, you should’ve chosen your wording more carefully. Aside from everyone thinking you’re being a bit frustrated for not being able to get into the NDA room, your speculations and rants are all in everyone’s head. The only new architecture in the line up is Fiji and also Tonga/Antigua. You have to put into account that AMD was/is facing financial crises so they’d want to get rid of as much old GPU resources as much as possible before launching the Artic Island architecture next year.
You are right, let me remove Intel from the equation and rephrase.
This whole video looks like a HUGE nVidia ad.
I’m supplying a wikipedia link of all the nVidia gpus, rebranded or not. You have to agree that they have been doing it for so long… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_900_Series
You said that “if you’re explaining, you’re not winning” but you have to agree that AMD drives the evolution forward with HBM like it did with GDDR5. So, maybe their goal is more focused on evolving rather than winning per se. When anti-aliasing first came into play, it crippled performance but evovled graphics quality so much and look where 3Dfx has taken us 🙂
HBM is the next step in graphics memory and I’m glad that someone started it.
Like directx 12. Thank god AMD explained and created Mantle.
When pascal comes out we may need even more memory than 8GB. Should Pascal not be released and wait for HBM to be able to support 16GB? Evovling starts from low and picks up. You have to make a 1st step to start walking.. 🙂
As for consoles, Sony for example, started discussing PS4 back in 2008. 4K was practically nonexistent back then. Microsoft must have started the same period since developers had Xbox One (back then it was called Xbox 720) in May 2011. My point is that your point about 4K in consoles is totally off. 🙂
The reason that the Press was excluded from seeing Fiji is obviously for AMD to answer but, it’s their “baby” and they treat it the way they want.
Now, maybe AMD thinks that Fiji is the “Big Gun of graphics” and “maybe” they think that all the other products are really inferior to it, so re-branding a whole series to have a low-end product doesn’t sound to bad. :))
Playing dirty is bad for the industry and thank god AMD are more open to standards than anyone else. Look where Gameworks take us, look how much Intel’s influence to the developers has cost us. If it wasn’t for AMD, things would be even more stagnant.
So please, don’t pick on the “little guy”. Give them some space to breathe because if the “little guy” dies, it’s going to literally cost us too much! 🙂
Cheers !!!
P.S. excuse my poor English, I’m only Greek 🙂
Nvidia received positive words from me purely because GTX 960, 970, 980, 980 Ti and Titan are very good. I want AMD to have a product stack that forces Nvidia to reduce prices. When it comes to rebadging products I am not interested in ancient history but in the here and now. I don’t like rebadging but the idea AMD is rebadging products that have already been rebadged is simply horrible. When Sony started planning PS4 the plan for Japanese TV was 8K. Look back to the Cell processor used in PS3 – one of the developers was Toshiba and they wanted to use the chip in HDTVs, primarily for the Japanese markets. Do not fool yourself that Xbox One and PS4 fall into a TV roadmap – they are clearly a backward step.
Yes clearly that is the case. Sony and Microsoft had the choice of installing a compact and low power APU, higher end more expensive hardware or developing new hardware. They chose the cheap option and that has crippled the consoles. This is a side show to my main point about rebadging of products.
When did I slur AMD? Provided I am correct about AMD’s rebadging strategy then I might be accused of attacking their corporate behaviour. In fact the way I see it is that rebadging is intended to deceive customers so I am highlighting a dubious practice. If AMD was selling HD 7970 as HD 7970 that would be fine by me. Why does it need to be rebadged? The only explanation is to make end users think it is something new.
Cant help but feel that most people agree with this story and the only people complaining are possibly amd staff or associates. Why would anyone be happy about getting a third generation hd7970 again? Why would anyone feel this practice is acceptable? Renaming products in this way is simply a means to resell the same architecture to the public who dont really understand that even though the new 380 card is ‘a new number’ it is basically a product from 2011.
The focusing on leos point about press not being able to see the fiji card is a most clever deflection of the real topic at hand, and i cant help but feel this is amd staff here trying to dismiss the main points made in this video. I simply wont accept that the enthusiast audience who read this site are so idiotic that this is all that merits discussion.
We all want fiji to be great, but its likely to cost over £400. What about the rest of amds fan base? Are they forced to still buy hardware from 2011? Clearly a few of their fans are fine with this, which is probably why they get some sales on their processors – fanboy fantastism can even force common sense and wise decision making into the background.
Let us hope that there are enough amd fanboys to keep the company afloat because everyone i know with more than a few hundred brain cells will not be buying any 7000 series hardware again from 2011, in 2015. No matter how amd might market it.
So, it’s all down to time then?… nVidia is lucky enough to have dodged your criticism only because they re-branded their gpus in the past and not in the present? And how can facts that have happened one year ago be considered ancient history?
Do you think that this is a reasonable statement?
Then you surely do not have a problem with Intel’s practices in the past. Nor the whole lack of game multi-threading. And i’m sure that you seriously do not care about Crysis 2 absurdly provocative water tesselation underneath the city.
It’s a pity that you only care about what happens now but forget what happened some time ago. Facts are there and should be remembered.
I don’t disagree that re-branding is a not-ok thing BUT it should be a not-ok thing for everyone. Having double standards is not cool at all. I’m really disappointed by your attitude and your lack of objectiveness. Being dogmatic is surely not a way of discussing matters.
I am not going to continue discussing this matter any more with you because it’s more than obvious that you are not objective. All you care is AMD making a competitive product so nVidia lowers their prices (your own words) and could not care less about technology progress.
As for the whole consoles matter, it’s not AMDs’ problem that Sony and MS went for the specific hardware. Obviously they wanted to have a slim and stylish device instead of putting extreme hardware in a gigantic box that the customers would need to hide behind a sofa.
I’ve been a reader of your webpage for about 4 years now but this is going to stop since I prefer to visit webpages that promote objective opinions and have the proper attitude to acknowledge mistakes.
Cheers !!!
P.S. excuse my poor English, I’m only Greek 🙂
We’ll see in 3 days what AMD’s doing for sure. Even if they release re-badges (which Nvidia also does all the time), as long the price/performance is good, I don’t mind -too- much. Honestly, people who don’t need to upgrade right now are probably better off waiting for next year, and the 16nm die shrink.
That said, the rumored Fury X and the 380’s with 4gb of ram, or a 380x with full tonga, 384-bit ram and 3/6 gb of ram would also be a good spot to watch. Tonga’s pretty new, and has support for Freesync and more feature levels of DX12 and such, and isn’t ridiculously expensive either. I draw the line at buying a GPU that costs more than a console all by itself.
At that price, I may as well just buy another console for the exclusives I can’t get on PC.
KitGuru has criticised Nvidia in the past for rebranding and for the 3.5GB/4GB memory thing.
When you refer to Intel’s practices in the past I assume you mean the anti-trust legalities. I fail to see the relevance in the context of rebranding graphics cards in 2015.
I couldn’t care less about technology for itself – I am only interested in the results. If ARM (to step away from x86) were to deliver a 64 core processor my only interests would be performance, power and price.
It doesn’t matter what type of memory is in your graphics card – that is a means to an end in the same way as the lithography process is a means to an end. This should be so painfully obvious that I feel sad spelling it out to a tech savvy audience. Focussing on the technology distracts from the product. The only reason to care about technology is to explain ‘how did they do that clever thing.’
The Intel reference was just as an example for you saying that you don’t care about “ancient history”. I’m absolutely aware that it’s not related to the re-branding subject. Still, you totally missed the point.
As for the GTX 970 3.5+0.5GB, it’s a totally different thing making a video ranting about a re-brand than writing an article. If you were to make a video about nVidias’ practices, that would “balance” the significance of the “rant”. (let’s not refer to the whole NDA room incident because we’re going to discuss for a century) We all know how video has changed our perspective on some things.
And since you “couldn’t care less about technology” (your own words) maybe you should consider changing your webpage title to “Kitguru.net – Products news and reviews” (+ all the other about mobile software you mention) because the “Tech News – Technology Reviews” is totally different from your perspective. 🙂
Cheers !!!
P.S. excuse my poor English, I’m only Greek 🙂
When I say I don’t care about technology as an end in itself I was speaking as Leo Waldock and not as KitGuru. Anton cares deeply about tech. There are many voices on KitGuru. Right, so in your eyes, one person writing about Nvidia 3.5GB/4Gb and another making a video about AMD rebranding are two different things. And where was I ranting? I made a series of points that may be right and may be wrong but I really cannot see I was ranting.
You are right, maybe “ranting” was an unfortunate choice of words. My English is not perfect, a fact that I asked to be excused for time after time.
Still, the way you made this video is like a complain + criticism + your own thoughts of what will be performance-wise when Fiji is revealed in 3 days (which to your own opinion is not going to surpass Titan X). Claiming such a thing without having the hardware in your hands and tested it, puts you in a strange place. Firstly, it’s makes you look bitter about something that has happened between you and AMD and this is your response. Secondly, It’s like me saying that Zen is going to destroy IBM Power8 in multithreading applications. It’s utterly speculative and only my own opinion. From a subjective perspective it totally fails. 🙂
As for you speaking as you and not KitGuru, maybe the best way to address that is to remove the KitGuru logo from the start of a video so (how was it Jeff, idiotic?) people should not be confused with the websites’ opinions.
So, it would be best if you waited until all products are released and THEN do the video. This would put you in the most rightful position. 😉
And Jeff, i’m not a fanboy nor an Amd employ or whatever. It’s totally not PR since, as I just said, i’m totally not related to Amd. I’m just a computer user who, as my nickname suggests, try to be logical. And logic in this video is absent.
I understand the need to support each other, since we humans tend to do that. But there are lines that someone should not cross :))
Take care !!!
P.S. excuse my poor English, I’m only Greek 🙂
Your English may not be perfect but it is certainly very good and you obviously understand subtleties such as ‘ranting’ which suggests anger or acting unreasonably. Perhaps Fiji will match GTX 980 Ti – if it competes with Titan I shall be very happy. We shall know very shortly. I have said this a few times now but I’ll say it again which is that Fiji is one thing and a rebadged product stack is another.
As for technology would you honestly buy a new GPU purely because it uses HBM or a 19nm fabrication process or has 6,000 shaders or 24GB of memory? Surely any sane and rational person wants to see the application of technology and the benefit it delivers.
Both companies didn’t want to lose money again on hardware so played safe by negotiating with one company instead of dealing with 2. Simple economics! Next you’ll suggest we pay 4k Laptop Gaming prices! Both MS & Sony have had previous dealings with Nvidia ending in disputes over cost less you forget http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/150892-nvidia-gave-amd-ps4-because-console-margins-are-terrible
Coincidentally Both companies also experienced relatively high failure rates adding to those hardware losses http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-360-failure-rate-237-ps3-10-wii-27-study/1100-6216691/
here is my future product stack for amd
1. R9 300 series gets replaced by Fury series mid next year (around january-june)
2. 14nm Fury HBM2 Cards replaces current fury series as high end (around january-june)
have anyone seen amds roadmap?
http://www.performancepsu.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/gpu-apu-roadmap-amd.jpg
so next year the amd lineup will look like
Fury Next X(14nm FinFET HBM2 8GB)
Fury Next (14nm FinFET HBM2 8GB)
Fury X (28nm Fiji HBM 4GB)
Fury X (28nm Fiji HBM 4GB)
R9 Hawaii/Tonga series…
why allocate resources to a smaller hawaii chip instead of working on getting 14nm out the door asap?, possibly before nvidia
Reset your job with kitguru Find Here
No, not quite. The economics of PS3 and Xbox 360 were harsh but effectively the consoles sold at a loss and the games made money. I am sure PS4 and Xbox One sell at a profit and those £50 games must make plenty. I just find it sad that technically these consoles do no favours for gamers.
Like I said both companies didn’t want to repeat losses of last couple of generations on hardware so compromised their hardware components for 1080p. 4k wasn’t gonna happen for the price they wanted to pay! High end 4k capable GPU’s alone certainly ain’t cheap & still require equally expensive CPU’s invalidating both Intel & Nvidia as suitable choices.
This man sounds realy bitter.
You should not do things like this based on your personal feelings as this whole video felt like some sort or revenge for not getting a candybar.
Ati/AMD have done great things and they battle on 2 fronts against 2 competitors with a budget that exceeds themselves in tenfold.
But even with their budget they innovate and bring new tech on the table while the others copy it.
Sorry but i think you went over the line here as a man of the media.
This isnt 4chan or foxnews here this is Kitguru.
The gtx960 is expensive crap, the 970 has problems that it didn’t need to have and the titan-x is a poor excuse for the original pro-titan. Nvidia also tries to lock you in and rape your wallet. And get you to upgrade by nerfing their old generation of cards with current drivers – that should be illegal. If I had spent a lot of money on a 780ti or a titan and I was treated that way I’d go out of my way to avoid nvidia.
Right now it’s not the right time to buy a gpu anyway. The 16nm die shrinks are coming, DX12 is coming, Windows 10 is coming. Buy a GPU at the end of the year or if you must, get a 290(x) or a 970. All the other models are not worth it.
Xbox One can generally only handle 700-720p with most titles and PS4 around 900p. the hardware in the consoles is not powerful enough to handle all the image quality at 1080p. We STILL don’t have consoles that can truly handle ‘true HD’. Its a shocking state of affairs, especially when companies are lazy and make no effort porting games over to PC and we end up with great graphics hardware from both AMD and Nvidia running crap console ports. Do we blame AMD for the graphics hardware in consoles? No, but it would be nice to have consoles with even mid range graphics power by todays PC standards.
well if AMD release 300 series hardware and its rebadged 200 hardware – is that Leo’s personal feelings as well – are we all living in LEO’s head or is this actually the real world? There is a link in this article showing the R9 280X is the HD7970 – bios shots – 2011 hardware masquerading as 2013 hardware. I would imagine the R9 290X will be rebadged again as a 380X or 390X with a clock enhancement. I dont think he went over the line at all, I think its great to see sites unafraid to preempt shoddy tactics by billion dollar companies set out to fleece customers with merely number enhancements.
Agree with you, but think both companies are @ fault 2ghz Jaguar cores are Laptop parts @ best. Even Carrizo will probably outperform them using fewer cores & less Watts!
i see all amd fanboys have been informed about a just critic of zero development and reselling superold shit as a new stuff.
well, i certainly admire that amd cow herd members are capable of producing a written response on the internet discussion thread, but let me notify you that nothing will prevent you from being milked!!! (by amd)
Rebadging a rebadge from the year 2011? So, the AMD R9 390X performs no better than an HD 7970? …