xkm1948 2GHz Polaris core with 2304SP. There ya go hype train started again!



Seriously i am kinda sick of seeing rebrands after rebrands. First the entire 290X to 390X VS, now this shitty rebrands of RX480, which is not even that good to begin with.

Rebrands are what happens when their is no new node that offers greater transistor density / die shrink etc. Why should AMD waste cash to make you happen redesigning a chip from the ground up for a process node they are already wringing out everything they can on with GCN.Fact of the matter it used to be every gen got a new Node. now we get 2-3 gens per node as foundries fail to keep up with Moore's law.AMDHD 2900 = 80nm 420 mm2 Huge die bad performanceHD 3870 = 55nm 192 mm2 die shrink with changes cost effective performanceHD 4870 = 55nm 256 mm2 scaled up design with knowledge from 3k series.HD 5870 = 40nm 334 mm2 new node design scaled up again good performanceHD 6970 = 40nm 389 mm2 same node new design scaled up againHD 7970 = 28nm 352 mm2 new node similar die size exceptional performanceR9 290X = 28nm 438 mm2 same node design scaled up design is costlyR9 390x = 28nm 438 mm2 reused design due to cost effectiveness add tweaksR9 FuryX = 28nm 596 mm2 new design extreme die size very costly bad performanceRX 480 = 14nm 232 mm2 back to small manageble die size profitable design.Notice the pattern?When their is no new node with which to shrink the design. AMD has to scale up the die size to be competitive. This is because Nvidia stripped their GPUs of computational abilities and focused on gaming. Where as AMD has a general usage design thats good at alot of things but not great. As such AMD GPUs are more expensive to produce ie larger die sizes vs Nvidia for the same performance. AMD in order to move forward with GCN needs new nodes so they can shrink the design and add more to it. With no new node AMD is stuck playing the waiting game. As such they tend to utilize rebrands with higher clock speeds and tweaked designs. As it allows the usage of older GPU dies and is more cost effective. But then again people with half a brain should know this already. AMD is worth 1/3 of what NVIDIA is let along needing to design CPUs and compete with Intel. They are also an asset light company meaning they have to pay others to produce anything they make. Which means they fight for fab time. All of which drives up costs and hurts there profitability in certain situations. Example in terms of a profitable GPU Fury series was a giant flop. Large Die / lower yields etc. for every Fury they made they could have produced nearly 2x R9 280x or 380x gpus which tended to sell well. They also had much higher yields per wafer meaning greater profitability.RX 500 rebrand means AMD will likely reuse the chips they have with a few tweaks and higher clocks with similar power targets. Meanwhile Vega will be like Fury a seperate enthusiast line that targets upper crust of consumers. If it performs well AMD will make alot of money if not it will be another failure. However AMD has already placed most of their emphasis on the entry to mid range markets which have the largest sales volume and thus builds their market share. Market share that makes investors happy and by extention their stock price.