PowerTune is used to adjust frequency and voltage in real-time to keep the card performing as best as possible within its power and temperature limitations, while ZeroCore can disable unused GPUs entirely in a CrossFire configuration for lower idle power consumption. The Mantle API is of course supported too, as is FreeSync, AMD's answer to Nvidia's G-Sync, and a technology which aims to eliminate tearing and stutter in games. The TrueAudio DSP is included, enabling enhanced audio processing in games and software that support it. The R9 285 supports a host of AMD's latest audio and display technologies. As with the Hawaii-based R9 290 cards, this allows CrossFire to run solely over the PCI-E lanes without the need for an external connection. Tonga is also equipped with the latest CrossFire XDMA controller. The UVD now supports high framerate 4K H.264 content, alleviating CPU load when such content is played, while the VCE is now faster when it comes to transcoding video, and again supports 4K resolutions. The Eyefinity display controllers, UVD (unified video decoder) and VCE (video coding engine) have also received upgrades. The instruction set has also been updated, with benefits to be felt mostly in the areas of low power GPU compute and media processing. For example, it's now using lossless compression for colour data in the frame buffer, which it claims results in a far more efficient use of the memory bandwidth, which helps to negate the impact of it being cut by over a quarter. The memory is clocked at 5.5GHz, so the card has a total memory bandwidth of 176GB/sec.ĪMD refers to the R9 285 as having third generation GCN technology, as it comes with a number of hardware-level improvements.
Again, this is likely a result of AMD wanting Tonga to have a power of two design at the high level. The onboard memory has also been reduced, from 3GB to 2GB of GDDR5, though AMD says 4GB SKUs will also be available. Having six would require them to be shared between shader engines unevenly, which is harder to optimise for. This reduction is most likely a result of AMD wanting or needing to keep the memory controller count in line with the scaler engine count.
The memory controller count has been reduced from six to four, giving Tonga a 256-bit interface.
0 kommentar(er)
