Recently there have been many rumors surrounding AMD’s next gen GPU architecture codenamed “Polaris“ 10 and 11 as we are approaching launch which should be happening sometime in mid 2016, likely around July. Today we’ve seen what are the possible specifications for 2 SKUs that are theoretically known about. These specs appeared and were reported on by folks at TechPowerUp.
Polaris 10 and 11 specs still point towards the lower to mid-range market segments
Polaris 11, codename “Baffin“, is the smaller chip targeted for lower end market segment and mobile segment. This chip is rumored to have 14 Compute Units with 896 Stream Processors, a rumored clockspeed of 1395MHz with up to 4GB GDDR5 and a TDP of 50W. This rumor is consistent to what we’ve seen at CES this year, with around a 50W power draw for the GPU. Except the clockspeed rumored here is much higher compared to the 850MHz sample that we’ve seen running at CES.
Polaris 10, codenamed “Ellesmere“, is the bigger of the chips and is being targeted for the high-end laptop segment and also the mainstream, or mid-range, desktop market. It is rumored to have 32 Compute Units with a total of 2048 Stream Processors and working at a clockspeed of 1350Mhz. Ellesmere is also rumored to have up to 8GB GDDR5 or GDDR5X with a TDP of 150W.
The rumor about the Polaris 10 chip is a bit odd because there have been leaks/rumors about 2304 Stream Processor Polaris 10 chip from numerous sources. The latest rumor pointing at 2304SP count is the new Playstation Neo which is rumored to have a GPU with 36CU with 2304SPs that’s based on AMD’s new 14nm Architecture. So it looks like what today’s rumors showed might actually be cut down version of a full Polaris 10 chip. Which is not surprising considering that AMD has always had a massive die chip and then various cut down versions of the same chip, historically with a Pro or XT moniker attached.
VideoCardz also added to this rumor that those supposed specifications are actually for mobile chips and that we may see a variety of different configurations at much higher clockspeeds for the desktop markets.
Please take this new rumor with a very healthy serving of salt. Over the past few weeks we’ve had too many conflicting rumors with some more negative rumors surrounding production having been summarily debunked. All things considered, Polaris is on track for it’s release, and all signs point towards a healthy competition in the upper mid-range. Any more than that is pure speculation based off of incomplete knowledge.