By: Gabriele Svelto (gabriele.svelto.delete@this.gmail.com), May 8, 2014 9:24 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
I found the article quite interesting and it got me thinking about the potential impact this might have on GPUs and made me remind about one datapoint we have on this topic.
Back in the RV7xx days when AMD introduced the RV790 XT (aka Radeon HD 4890) they added a large ring of decoupling capacitors to the existing RV770 XT design to boost its maximum clock speed. The RV770 was originally released at 750MHz and the RV790 started at 850MHz but was widely available in overclocked configurations up to 1GHz. Interestingly the die-size increased significantly from 256 mm² to 282 mm², a >10% increase.
While those chips are now relatively old and the techniques used in GPU design might have improved, they still give us an idea of how much benefit could be reaped by getting rid of decoupling capacitors. Current high-end GPUs sport both higher power consumption and larger dies than the RV7xx family so the benefits might be very tangible.
Back in the RV7xx days when AMD introduced the RV790 XT (aka Radeon HD 4890) they added a large ring of decoupling capacitors to the existing RV770 XT design to boost its maximum clock speed. The RV770 was originally released at 750MHz and the RV790 started at 850MHz but was widely available in overclocked configurations up to 1GHz. Interestingly the die-size increased significantly from 256 mm² to 282 mm², a >10% increase.
While those chips are now relatively old and the techniques used in GPU design might have improved, they still give us an idea of how much benefit could be reaped by getting rid of decoupling capacitors. Current high-end GPUs sport both higher power consumption and larger dies than the RV7xx family so the benefits might be very tangible.
| Topic | Posted By | Date |
|---|---|---|
| New article: Adaptive Clocking in AMD’s Steamroller | David Kanter | 2014/05/06 01:33 PM |
| New article: Adaptive Clocking in AMD’s Steamroller | itsmydamnation | 2014/05/06 11:12 PM |
| New article: Adaptive Clocking in AMD’s Steamroller | Xi Yang | 2014/05/07 12:08 AM |
| Decoupling capacitors on GPUs | Gabriele Svelto | 2014/05/08 09:24 AM |
| Decoupling capacitors on GPUs | Ben | 2014/08/27 11:56 PM |
| New article: Adaptive Clocking in AMD’s Steamroller | Poindexter | 2014/05/10 06:06 PM |
| New article: Adaptive Clocking in AMD’s Steamroller | Rob Thorpe | 2014/05/12 05:42 AM |
| New article: Adaptive Clocking in AMD’s Steamroller | David Hess | 2014/05/12 10:02 AM |
| New article: Adaptive Clocking in AMD’s Steamroller | Rob Thorpe | 2014/05/12 10:46 AM |
| New article: Adaptive Clocking in AMD’s Steamroller | Ricardo B | 2014/05/13 03:15 AM |
| New article: Adaptive Clocking in AMD’s Steamroller | Rob Thorpe | 2014/05/13 06:30 AM |
| Multiple PLLs wouldn't work, but DLL jitter is no problem | Robyn Henry | 2014/05/14 12:58 AM |