Support NeoGAF

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

http://wccftech.com/amd-directx-12-vr-pc-8-times-faster-than-consoles/
https://twitter.com/Roy_techhwood/status/700745825681428480

It was later confirmed that the systems you see above are “Tiki” models from Falcon North West. A system builder who has collaborated with AMD to put the world’s fastest graphics card, AMD’s dual Fiji board, inside a compact – console sized – DirectX12 and VR ready powerhouse.

“Last time I was here I also promised you that we would make the world’s most powerful small computer for developers. We promised you we would take two of our highest end GPUs and put it inside that tiny box and if you go downstairs we actually have a demonstration of a dual GPU, 12 TeraFlops, fastest GPU solution in the world, inside of Tiki. It’s a feat of engineering we are delighted with.” – Roy Taylor, AMD Corporate Vice President of Alliances at VRLA Winter Expo

While not all specs for the system in question have been revealed just yet. Roy unveiled that it packs a dual Fiji graphics card with 12 TeraFlops of compute, nearly 9 times that of the XBOX One, 7 times that of the Playstation 4 and double that of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX Titan X.

A single Fiji XT GPU found in AMD’s Radeon R9 Fury X2 flagship graphics card is rated at over 8 teraflops, two would easily amount to over 16 teraflops. However, it seems that the version employed in the Tiki is a custom designed affair with modest air cooling so it can fit inside this very compact form factor.

Fiji is AMD’s largest ever graphics processing unit and the very first in the world to feature 3D structured, 2.5D stacked High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM for short. A standard that AMD and SK Hynix, one of the world’s largest memory makers, co-invented. Because vertically stacking dies enables much greater densities and because HBM chip are smaller than GDDR5 chips to begin with there are immense area savings on the printed circuit board of the graphics card as a result. Allowing for the creation of far more compact form factors.

Also unlike GDDR5, HBM is packaged alongside the host processor, in this case the GPU, on a single interposer. The closer proximity to the GPU enables significantly wider memory interfaces and reduces latency. The smaller, shorter connections also enable greater power efficiency. This means that HBM will also require less voltage to operate allowing for even more power savings.

AMD’s Roy Taylor hints that these Tiki systems may be given away to developers of virtual reality platforms as well as DirectX 12.

wow, wow, wow

i'm genuinely interested in this and will move from nvidia to amd if this is an acceptable price when and if this is made available to the public. a small form factor, VR ready pc with a card more powerful than a titan x? yes please

though i'd prefer to see the system painted white or black, instead of red

however, giving this away to developers of VR games is a really smart move in terms of getting proper optimization for AMD products. good job, AMD

 

[Man]

12 Teraflops? Nice.
However: Not a single AMD CPU is above the single-threaded performance required by Oculus Rift. I guess this is a new CPU?

https://twitter.com/DShankar/status/701300676102520834

 

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

12 Teraflops? Nice.
However: Not a single AMD CPU is above the single-threaded performance required by Oculus Rift. I guess this is a new CPU?

https://twitter.com/DShankar/status/701300676102520834

Zen is due to release this year, so I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Alcoholikaust]

Incoming "Only $3000" price point.

It is Falcon Northwest- :/

 

[sammyCYBORG]

Xbox Two and PS5 like these please, we need more power in the console market!

 

[bobbytkc]

Xbox Two and PS5 like these please, we need more power in the console market!

they wont be able to reduce the price enough to reach 400 in 3 or 4 years.

 

[sammyCYBORG]

they wont be able to reduce the price enough to reach 400 in 3 or 4 years.

Yeah of course, but a man can dream!

 

[Mivey]

they wont be able to reduce the price enough to reach 400 in 3 or 4 years.

Sony will simply eat the difference. It's for the players, after all.

 

[Nostremitus]

Xbox Two and PS5 like these please, we need more power in the console market!

I hope you're joking. There's no logistical way to put that much power into a console at a price point that is marketable. Not in time for the next round of consoles, at least... Unless Polaris and Pascal are true paradigm shifts in terms of GPU performance.

 

[johntown]

Eh I will wait for Pascal. I keep reading issues with AMD drivers and how games run on them. Mainly from here.

I am sure with Falcon this will run like $3000+

 

[mrklaw]

Palmer said VR doesn't yet work well with dual gpu and needs significant support on a per game basis.

Hope they gey that issue solved though.

both AMD and Nvidia are working on VR drivers. SLI should potentially be better for VR than standard gaming as they will be using each GPU to render each eye, so both GPUs will work on the same frame, rather than alternate frames that is the model for current gaming.

 

[Real_Madrid]

Xbox Two and PS5 like these please, we need more power in the console market!

And no one will buy it

 

[General Lee]

The price for the GPU only will most likely be in the $1500 territory just like the 295X2. The whole system will no doubt be super expensive, so I doubt all that many people will be interested. Also CF support needs to get hell of a lot better than what it has been lately to warrant a system like this. I feel like these expensive boutique builds are just made for fooling people with money but no real knowledge of the issues they'll end up with multiGPU.

 

[mrklaw]

12 Teraflops? Nice.
However: Not a single AMD CPU is above the single-threaded performance required by Oculus Rift. I guess this is a new CPU?


https://twitter.com/DShankar/status/701300676102520834

does it say anywhere that they're fitting AMD CPUs? The focus is very much on fiji and HBM. Hopefully they are quietly fitting intel chips in there.

 

[crazy monkey]

Incoming "Only $3000" price point.

It is Falcon Northwest- :/

this. Can't spend more then 500 on hobby. ( actually the highest i have spend on console buying is 199 haha)

 

[tuxfool]

both AMD and Nvidia are working on VR drivers. SLI should potentially be better for VR than standard gaming as they will be using each GPU to render each eye, so both GPUs will work on the same frame, rather than alternate frames that is the model for current gaming.

Except it requires developers to actually use these APIs. So he isn't wrong.

Doing it properly with SFR is totally worth it, instead of the AFR driver hacks of current Crossfire and Sli solutions.

 

[Teletraan1]

Xbox Two and PS5 like these please, we need more power in the console market!

These systems have been on the market for 3 years already and had to be finalized within the year prior to release. They also need to keep to a certain thermal profile and price. You will never get cutting edge power in a console with how fast technology moves and how much power and cooling you can throw at enthusiast PC hardware. I think these consoles were designed at a bad time in terms of where technology was or more concisely what AMD could offer. If they go the same route again no doubt AMD will have a better offering and hopefully a more robust CPU.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Eh I will wait for Pascal. I keep reading issues with AMD drivers and how games run on them. Mainly from here.

I am sure with Falcon this will run like $3000+

It should hopefully be a different case with Vulkan and DX12 though. The problem with amd's drivers are cpu overhead and next-gen apis are all about reducing cpu overhead.

 

[[Agent]ZeroNine]

Playing games on my PS4 sometimes leaves me with the question "what the hell are those specific posters talking about when they say the console market is 'under powered'."

A well. This looks interesting. I'd get one if the price is $700, which means I won't get this. Wish AMD luck though.

 

[The Janitor]

a small form factor, VR ready pc with a card more powerful than a titan x? yes please

It says "dual Fiji graphics card" which means crossfire. So it's not a single GPU.

 

[Poster#1]

Playing games on my PS4 sometimes leaves me with the question "what the hell are those specific posters talking about when they say the console market is 'under powered'."

Someone haven't played games on a decent PC before.

 

[Sulik2]

Xbox Two and PS5 like these please, we need more power in the console market!

Unless Sony or Microsoft is willing to sell at a loss in 2018 its not going to happen.

 

[SparkTR]

Playing games on my PS4 sometimes leaves me with the question "what the hell are those specific posters talking about when they say the console market is 'under powered'."

A well. This looks interesting. I'd get one if the price is $700, which means I won't get this. Wish AMD luck though.

Well, those people are probably already playing at 1440p+ resolutions these days alongside ~60fps. Multiplatform games with ~mediumish visual settings at only 1080p likely with sporadic 30fps performance issues, which seems to fit the bill these days, doesn't compare with the new high-end.

 

[DieH@rd]

12 Teraflops? Nice.
However: Not a single AMD CPU is above the single-threaded performance required by Oculus Rift. I guess this is a new CPU?

https://twitter.com/DShankar/status/701300676102520834

And who says they are using AMD CPUs? AMD rightfully used Intel when they created Project Quantum prototype. They are not stupid, they know that Intel is better [for now ].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RdISWkIUmM

 

[CyclopsRock]

You would think that SLI is actually ideal for VR, once they work out the kinks. Presumably if the two "eyes" have an almost identical load, and the GPUs have identical power, you would imagine that they could use one to render one eye and the other to render the other. I'm sure the implementation wouldn't be as simple as I'm stating here, but it seems to me that it's a fairly "ideal" scenario.

 

[jfoul]

Cool.

Slim designs in the future is going to awesome. I'll be going slim HTPC, or Corsair Bulldog when HBM2 cards release. I'll end up giving my i7 4770K/GTX980 setup to my wife.

 

[Smushroomed]

Pretty cool if AMD positioned themselves as pre-built pc/console maker

Sell boxes with their own cards, using technology from their console chips/gfx cards, etc

 

[DieH@rd]

You would think that SLI is actually ideal for VR, once they work out the kinks. Presumably if the two "eyes" have an almost identical load, and the GPUs have identical power, you would imagine that they could use one to render one eye and the other to render the other. I'm sure the implementation wouldn't be as simple as I'm stating here, but it seems to me that it's a fairly "ideal" scenario.

That is a feature of DX12 and Vulcan. Devs can do much more with hardware [even use additional integrated/weaker discrete cards to handle game rendering processes].

 

[outunderthestars]

Pretty cool if AMD positioned themselves as pre-built pc/console maker

Sell boxes with their own cards, using technology from their console chips/gfx cards, etc

I would love to see more innovation in the prebuilt space.

 

[jfoul]

Pretty cool if AMD positioned themselves as pre-built pc/console maker

Sell boxes with their own cards, using technology from their console chips/gfx cards, etc

Could be a compelling proposition for most if Zen and Polaris are good products.

 

[Nokterian]

Incoming "Only $3000" price point.

It is Falcon Northwest- :/

AMD never learns.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Unless Sony or Microsoft is willing to sell at a loss in 2018 its not going to happen.

If microsoft does the whole windows 10 convergence thing, they could put out multiple skus with different horsepower and pricing if they wanted to. A 1080p SKU and a 4K SKU for example.

 

[Flai]

Zen is due to release this year, so I wouldn't be surprised.

I'm pretty sure that consumer Zen is planned to be released in 2017.

 

[Faith]

Still no word about Pascal?

 

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

I'm pretty sure that consumer Zen is planned to be released in 2017.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3024...irst-to-high-end-desktops-at-end-of-2016.html

 

[MutonCommander]

Playing games on my PS4 sometimes leaves me with the question "what the hell are those specific posters talking about when they say the console market is 'under powered'."

I feel the exact opposite. I watched a friend playing on his PS4 and I can't help but think "how is this sort of performance and quality still acceptable in 2016?". I think there's room for a line of beastly living room PCs.

 

[Cave Johnson]

I feel the exact opposite. I watched a friend playing on his PS4 and I can't help but think "how is this sort of performance and quality still acceptable in 2016?". I think there's room for a line of beastly living room PCs.

I can only surmise that budget, time and manpower are the biggest culprits here. Dropping down a console equivalent of a 3-way 980Ti SLI is going to bloat developers up to Ubi-open-world dev teams in order to guarantee the equivalent power usage of its predecessors.

 

[SlaughterX]

Incoming "Only $3000" price point.

It is Falcon Northwest- :/

Yeah... ,I've always wanted one but when getting an Alienware is a better value you know that shits expensive.

 

[Ushay]

I can see next gen consoles hitting in 2019, aiming at 10-12TF of processing power.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Unless Sony or Microsoft is willing to sell at a loss in 2018 its not going to happen.

PS5 is not coming in 2018. Try 2019 at the earliest. With all the new technology coming down the pipe like HBM, Zen, and Polaris, the hypothetical next gen consoles will have a lot to work with.

I still think a hypothetical next gen will be conservative, but they will have a lot of breathing room just by nature of having better architectural advancements than when PS4 and XB1 had to be on market.

6-8 AMD TFLOP GPUs, 16GB HBM2, 8-10 Zen CPU cores, 14-10nm Semicustom APU...$399.

By that time, i expect PS4 to be $199 and thoroughly minimized with a die shrink

 

[[Agent]ZeroNine]

Those replies lol. Happy that I'm able to be satisfied with today's console market's horrible visuals and horrible performance lol.

Looking forward to seeing this device torn down to see the internal engineering if it is actually the size of a PS4.

 

[Upinsmoke]

Impressive but it's probably 7 times the price as well as 7 times the power.

 

[outunderthestars]

I feel the exact opposite. I watched a friend playing on his PS4 and I can't help but think "how is this sort of performance and quality still acceptable in 2016?". I think there's room for a line of beastly living room PCs.

Agreed. I greatly prefer the user experience on consoles, but dear god I wish I could spend more money to have that same experience but with alot more horsepower under the hood.

 

[k4n3]

Impressive but it's probably 7 times the price as well as 7 times the power.

that would be about $2300 thats to low lol

 

[Bolivar687]

Regarding CPU, I would not be surprised to see AMD incorporating intel processors in more solutions like this. I wish I could find the link but there was one attendee at an early polaris showing event that noted, saying that he could not give more details but there was not a single AMD logo on any of the products or signage they had, it was all Radeon Technologies Group. I think they want to separate the brand or even spin it off so the CPU division won't bring down its perception, at least until Zen launches.

I'm just glad they're taking a more proactive stance with the development community with this and the open source graphics tools.