The pin count of the GPU will also be reduced

Jan 14, 2015 09:06 GMT  ·  By

With the coming of the new year, all gamers and enthusiasts are now looking forward to the products and technologies that the big names in the industry have promised to provide. Needless to say, AMD is one of the main stars here.

We'll start by operating on the assumption that the sudden and unexplained departure of three major executives hasn't affected the roadmap.

The next best graphics card from Advanced Micro Devices is currently going by the codename Fiji, being part of the Volcanic Islands series.

It will be the best single-GPU video board in history, unless NVIDIA launches its GM200/GM210-based board at the same time, which is likely. Even then, performance will probably be matched.

The specifications of the video cards are still mostly unknown, since even the GPUs themselves haven't been detailed by the companies.

Something about the Fiji graphics board has made it to the web, however, courtesy of the folks at The TechReport.

The AMD Fiji will have HBM

HBM is an acronym for High-Bandwidth Memory, a technology that involves the use of stacked DRAM chips while reducing the number of pins on the graphics processing unit.

This effectively reduces the die size without negatively affecting the bandwidth of the video board, or so it is presumed.

It won't affect designs much, since the Fiji will still be a full-height PCI Express 3.0 x16 adapter card with a dual-slot cooler.

However, it should allow for more space where high-endurance components could be installed, as well as room for heatsinks to stretch.

Both of those things will be important because the TDP (thermal design power) of the Fiji might end up at around 300W. A pretty high mark, in need of a strong cooler, but something AMD is unlikely to compromise on.

According to all sources so far, reliable or otherwise, the Sunnyvale, California-based company is going all out in the design of this product, in order to counter NVIDIA's Maxwell family.

Availability and pricing

Sadly, we know neither, save for the vague ETA (estimated time of arrival), which is “in 2015.” You've got twelve months, so take your pick.

The GPU at the heart of Fiji (Radeon R9 390X) will be made on demand by Globalfoundries according to the latest developments in the industry, on the 20nm fabrication technology. AMD has broken ties with TSMC, which never got around to ramping up 20nm and has proven slow in moving to 16nm.

AMD didn't want to have yet another chip architecture relegated to 28nm, so late last year it made a pact with Globalfoundries to produce all its chips: CPUs, GPUs and APUs.