SFF.Network [SFF Network] AMD reveals some details of Polaris, their next GPU architecture

The slide deck emphasizes the benefit of the smaller process node for power efficiency and performance/watt but one thing I noticed is several different slides specifically call out SFF as a beneficiary of this, with phrases like "Enables incredible form factors", "The GPU design for Small Form Factors", and my favorite: "Discrete cards with less power connectors". As someone using two splitters in order to get the necessary number of connectors to run my dual GPUs off a SFX PSU, that is welcome news indeed.

Read more here.

 

[jeshikat]

"Discrete cards with less power connectors"

This. Please let this be a thing.

 

[confusis]

AMD seems to really be targeting SFF as of late - this, the R9 Fury, the R9 Nano, socket AM1, consoles.. I like it

 

[zillatron]

AMD seems to really be targeting SFF as of late - this, the R9 Fury, the R9 Nano, socket AM1, consoles.. I like it

Love it! I haven't even built in my Metis and I'm already excited by (ahem...planning) the idea of rebuilding with whatever follows the Nano and whatever is coming with Zen.

So much potential!

 

[BirdofPrey]

I wonder with the die shrink and HBM how far off we might be from having low profile graphics cards that aren't so cut down as to not be worth it vs integrated graphics

 

[Phuncz]

Some people speculate this is the reason Nvidia hasn't put much effort into low-end cards and it is assumption Nvidia will launch a new naming/numbering scheme with Pascal to stretch out it's mid-range to high-end cards over a new scheme.

 

[EdZ]

Not unlikely. After the 9xxxGT(X) series they had a nomenclature reset to avoid a 10xxxGT(X) series rollover. We're already at the GTX 9xx series, so Nvidia would either have a GTX 10xx series or switch numbering conventions again.

 

[iFreilicht]

AMD really knows how to enthuse us. The rumors about mITX AM4 boards for high numbers of cores or strong APUs (and DirectX 12 allowing us to use the latter in tandem with ITX GPUs to reach even higher performance), the R9 Nano as the strongest ITX card on the market and now specifically mentioning SFF as a benefit of Polaris are all the things I want to hear from them.

Hopefully they can deliver on all of that and avoid another faux-pas like the R9 Nanos power management.

 

[Phuncz]

The R9 Nano's power management is not really a real issue or faux-pas, it just came to the attention when using laptop PSUs, which I find is unfair to blame on the GPU, since both are being used out-of-spec anyway. We should be glad it's nearly possible to drive this much CPU and GPU power over a reasonably-sized power brick.

 

[iFreilicht]

Not sure whether I fully agree with that, but you do certainly have a point.