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AMD’s partners cannot get enough Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards – report

Apparently, the problems of Advanced Micro Devices with its latest Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards may be significantly more serious than whining cooling system or limited overclockability. If a new media report is to be believed, then the company cannot supply enough boards to its partners.

It is not a secret that the launch of AMD’s latest Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards was not very easy for AMD. The company delayed the product for a number of times and while its performance is high, it cannot beat its direct rival in all applications. Moreover, while AMD’s decision to use innovative high-bandwidth memory allowed the company to make its new graphics cards significantly shorter, its choice to use liquid cooling did not really pay off and resulted in a rather noisy cooler. However, all the challenges that AMD faces today may be considered as insignificant as the chip designer simply cannot deliver enough Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards to all of its partners.

Advanced Micro Devices has over 10 add-in-card partners, who officially buy graphics processing units from the company. Virtually all allies of AMD currently ship top-of-the-range Radeon R9 Fury X graphics solutions. However, only Asustek Computer and Sapphire Technology will offer AMD Radeon R9 Fury products initially, reports Hardwareluxx. Eventually companies like Gigabyte Technology, MicroStar International, PowerColor and other will also offer AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards, but at first, such products will only be available in limited quantities from two of AMD’s partners.

amd_radeon_r9_fury_card

According to the report, yields of AMD’s code-named “Fiji” graphics processing unit are rather low. Insufficient yields are not something surprising: with 8.9 billion transistors inside, the “Fiji” is the most complex chip ever produced. While the IC [integrated circuit] is not as large as Nvidia Corp.’s GM200, it is considerably harder to produce because of higher transistor density. Moreover, since “Fiji” uses all-new high-bandwidth memory (HBM) as well as a special interposer to connect memory to the GPU, testing and packaging process of the chip is extremely complex.

The exact yield rate of AMD’s “Fiji” is uncertain and it is unclear how many chips Advanced Micro Devices can get from its partners at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Moreover, since cycle times of TSMC’s 28nm fabrication process are over two months, it is clear that AMD cannot solve all of its problems quickly.

AMD and its partners did not comment on the news-story.

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KitGuru Says: If AMD’s yields of “Fiji” are considerably lower than those of Nvidia’s GM200, then AMD will not be able to significantly lower the price of its Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics adapters to better compete against Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti.

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27 comments

  1. Rumors are green.

  2. Graham Culleton

    Launch shortages are not a new thing but the norm in tech industry.

  3. mean = more advanced chip ever done , glad to see AMD did it

  4. Ole fra trondheim

    AMD can`t do anything right. The Fury cards are not the fastest. Or the best bang for the bucks. The cards had big problems with noise issues with the pump they use. Now its supply and yield issues. Even 390X offer similar performance as Fury and have much better value.
    AMD is already on an alltime low in stock value, almost down to 1990 level.

    Die already AMD. So that we can get a new company that knows how to run a business.

  5. Isaura C. Wells

    I check up on draft that aforesaid 19958$@mt4

    bj…

    http://www.WorldCareersDevelopersBlue/blog/cold...

  6. I got my GTX980 Ti ordered a week after the launch and delivered a couple of days later without any problems.

  7. I find this surprising. There is simply no good reason to start to produce a IC that has low yields. You delay the production while the development team fine tunes the lithographic process or reroutes the troublesome areas. The reason a company does this is that making a 300mm wafer with low yields is EXPENSIVE. One is all the wafer space wasted, another is that every single die coming out will have to be tested with a semi-conductor test system, a slow process. It is also extremely hard to fix an issue with the chip yields while you are running production on it at the same time. After all this, the chip and the substrate with the HBM chips have to be tested once again.

    Low yields completely suck any profit out of manufacturing the IC before it even leaves the FAB. Why would AMD even consider doing this? So they lose face and some sales, but that is already occurring the longer they go without being able to meet demand.

    Then the obvious pump whine should have been never allowed to be shipped in the first place. Are they even bothering to do a burn in test? Of course, due to the water cooler radiator that is more difficult to do, but still the QA department should have picked up on that, the reviewers certainly did.

    AMD had a good chance here to get some market share back and they are frittering it away, one delay after another.

  8. Jonathan D Brown

    So….maybe I missed something but doesn’t your own review of the fury, which was a Visiontek, totally disprove this rumour you have posted as nonsense?

  9. One of the AIB source partners posted that their company was considering not even to bother with trying to sell the Fury X card. The reason? AMD told the AIBs that the MSRP of the card was going to be substantially higher a couple of months before the launch. AMD surprised them with a much reduced price they announced on the day of the launch without even bothering to tell them beforehand. They were not happy. Most of the profits went away with the change in price. And then the post simply… disappeared a day later, heh.

  10. Try to find a Fury X for sale at the MSRP price ready for immediate delivery anywhere on the web. I will wait.
    And the Fury’s chip is a cut down version of the Fury X’s chip, so perhaps they can turn off the parts that fails and still sell the chip in the Fury.

  11. AMD is in a whole wack because of this… hypes.. failed expectations… inhouse graphs when compared to reviewers does not tally at all.. and that Titan X killer they say? wow… AMD is in deep shit 🙁

  12. the cards with whines were never really shipped to consumers, and were replaced almost instantly, so not sure what you’re complaining about there. As for the low yields… yeah it sucks, but in recent times it’s come to be expected. usually the yields get better after the first batches, but it’s absolutely nothing new for them to be pretty bad when it comes to the forerunners… just comes with the territory of making something so ridiculously complex.

  13. Reports of low yields were swirling months before this GPU was ever released. At the first of this year as a matter of fact. Anyone paying attention to this should have been able to see this coming. I actually thought the prices were going to be much higher for this GPU because of these low yields, (if the GPU were to actually perform as well as it was hyped to have performed). And I was saying that several months back when these low yield reports first surfaced.

    What surprises me is that most people were overlooking all these red flags and instead jumping behind AMD’s “leaked” specifications and giving in to all the hype. Boasting about how cheap and powerful the GPU would be without having any concrete evidence to back any of it up. AMD’s history of massive expenditure leading to loss, stocks showing this, chip manufacturers early reports of low yields and all of this being overlooked because of some “leaked” info that wasn’t even close to being correct. When will people learn?

  14. That’s because the 980 Ti is a salvage part of a chip that was already out for 6 weeks. Isn’t that something you should know about given your claimed knowledge of the industry?

  15. Shillov still writing shit about AMD. How’s xbit coming along?

  16. I think it’s more the fact come a certain point in time they had little choice.

  17. PC Perspective went out and bought 2 Fury X cards, BOTH had the pump whine. So, yes, they did make it into the retail chain.

  18. They had plenty of cut-downs that were ready to package and ship. Plus to you good sir.

  19. They should’ve waited to implement HBM at a later date, let the technology mature, and then release it. Even if they didn’t have something to fight the 980Ti (not then and not now), it wouldn’t put them in such a tight spot.

    At this rate, they’d be losing more clients than they could be winning, and that means less income. It’s a shame really.

  20. There won’t be anything new. Once AMD dies Nvidia can do all what they want with the pricing and that will be the next topic you’ll whine about.

  21. That might not have crossed his ‘currently’ biased mind, I guess?

  22. Where exactly are you seeing 390x offering a similar performance to the Fury X? Every benchmark that I have seen has the Fury X offering around 50% higher frame rates then the 390X at 1440p and above (if you are buying a Fury X to run at 1080p then you are wasting your money, get a 390 or an offering from Nvidia instead).
    As for bang-for-buck, in Australia the Fury X are going for around $1000 +/-$50 (all places other then those attempting to make a profit on the limited availability) while 980ti are going for $1000+ for reference and $1100+ for custom. This means that the Fury X has a similar bang for buck as the 980ti i.e. cheaper with a win/loss depending on the game.
    As for AMD’s stock price, I think there is some manipulation going on there with certain new agencies reporting rumours as facts. A little nitpick though, how can it be at an all time low if it isn’t the lowest it has ever been?

  23. That is where most of the chips for the Fury are (should be) coming from. It is the same story with the 980ti, most of the chips in the 980ti were destined for Titan Xs until they failed part of the validation process leaving them binned for the 980ti.
    To be quite honest, if they are having this much issue with yields then it wouldn’t surprise me if we were to see a half-strength Fury X (Fury Lite?) come out sooner or later…

  24. florent trepanier

    it was the first edition and both were made by amd retail by aio and never touch by saphire xfx etc the teksindicate both one and no noise at all

  25. florent trepanier

    that why i try to support amd but zen cpu are so far away

  26. I generally don’t support big companies but you have NO IDEA what you are talking about AMD is the only company forcing competition with GPU’s and CPU’s. Have you ever heard of the intel compiler patch? Nvidia pays game companies to add gameworks which cripples AMD gpu’s infact it actually negatively impacts their older products like the 780 ti but they don’t care so long as it makes AMD worse. In crysis they were tesselating water under the map so AMD performs worse. With that being said AMD has made some mistakes but I’m suprised they are still in bussiness with all the foul play from their competitors 😐

  27. If they didn’t contest the 900 series their gpu market would be dead. I doubt they had any other choice 🙁