5830 Delayed... AGAIN

[edplayer]

fixed

that's a good one

I was going to write:

due to the "AMD wanting more money" issue

 

[Kuzi]

Wake up guys!

ATI has no reason to launch a 5830. They would be silly. 5770s and 5850s are selling well. Nvidia has nothing to compete. Why offer another card?

PCB issues my arse... They are just holding it back...

Why offer the card? Because the 5770 is selling for $170 and the 5850 for about $300, they need something in between.

The way I see it, the best thing to do for anyone that wants to buy a card now is to wait a little more till Fermi is released, even if you intend to buy an ATI card. Because ATI will most likely drop the prices of their DX11 cards, which are a bit overpriced now. Below are the prices I expect to see in about two months:

5870 ~ $350
5850 ~ $250
5830 ~ $200
5770 ~ $150
5750 ~ $120

The dual GPU 5970 may or may not go down in price much, depending on whether it loses to Fermi or not.

 

[konakona]

So a mere $20 drop for 5850. Not totally trivial, but not earth shattering either. If you need a 5850 now I guess you should go for it.

 

[fffblackmage]

Below are the prices I expect to see in about two months:

5870 ~ $350
5850 ~ $250
5830 ~ $200
5770 ~ $150
5750 ~ $120

You don't have to wait two months for the $350 5870. (BCB @ 15%, link to slickdeals.net)

 

[heyheybooboo]

Wake up guys!

ATI has no reason to launch a 5830. They would be silly. 5770s and 5850s are selling well. Nvidia has nothing to compete. Why offer another card?

PCB issues my arse... They are just holding it back...

I'd say this ^^^^^^ .

AMD has a series of 7(?) Radeon 5XXXs that range from <$100 to "GTFO'a here" -- LOL

The 'harvested' remains of 5XXX chips can be binned as a wedge against the DX11 'GT-wtfs' at different (lower) price points. And as we all know, since AMD is competing against themselves, they also have a good bit of room to lower existing prices in the series.





--

 

[Cook1]

Guess I'll wait longer to get a quadfire setup of 5830s going /sigh

 

[GodisanAtheist]

The 'harvested' remains of 5XXX chips can be binned as a wedge against the DX11 'GT-wtfs' at different (lower) price points. And as we all know, since AMD is competing against themselves, they also have a good bit of room to lower existing prices in the series.

-I don't understand this logic. What would ATI GAIN from waiting? If they release the 5830 now they'd just soak up more folks before Nvidia even fires its first shot, and when Nvidia releases their new cards (mid-range Fermi isn't going to see the light of day till JUNE) ATI can just price/performance them.

If the 5830 is a harvested Cypress (which it almost certainly is), then the longer those chips sit collecting dust, the more they depreciate in value. They can be worth $230 now, $190 later or $0 so long as they're unreleased.

All this without even taking into account all the "refresh" talk that was being thrown around.

 

[Arkaign]

-I don't understand this logic. What would ATI GAIN from waiting? If they release the 5830 now they'd just soak up more folks before Nvidia even fires its first shot, and when Nvidia releases their new cards (mid-range Fermi isn't going to see the light of day till JUNE) ATI can just price/performance them.

If the 5830 is a harvested Cypress (which it almost certainly is), then the longer those chips sit collecting dust, the more they depreciate in value. They can be worth $230 now, $190 later or $0 so long as they're unreleased.

All this without even taking into account all the "refresh" talk that was being thrown around.

The reason is that people that would have otherwise bought a 5850 would just buy this instead and then overclock it.

The other people that can't afford the 5850 and get a 5770 are up for a repeat sale later on anyway, either for another 5770 or for a higher-end GPU. Profits on the much simpler 57xx design are probably pretty good, and the PCB is a ton simpler.

It's entirely conjecture how many dies are usable as a hypothetical 5830, but not as a 5850/5870. 2 SIMDS disabled, Same PCB, cooling and connectivity as 5850, 625 Mhz GPU clock, 800 Mhz DDR5 memory, 1280 shaders.

Look at the lifespan of the 4830 for an example of why ATI doesn't like doing this, making high-end GPUs available for dirt cheap. It drives down the sales of the full cards, and causes stress on those ASPs.

It wouldn't surprise me if 5830 gets shelved completely, as the performance spot could probably be filled by a 5790 type part without the added costs of production.

 

[cbn]

The reason is that people that would have otherwise bought a 5850 would just buy this instead and then overclock it.

The other people that can't afford the 5850 and get a 5770 are up for a repeat sale later on anyway, either for another 5770 or for a higher-end GPU. Profits on the much simpler 57xx design are probably pretty good, and the PCB is a ton simpler.

It's entirely conjecture how many dies are usable as a hypothetical 5830, but not as a 5850/5870. 2 SIMDS disabled, Same PCB, cooling and connectivity as 5850, 625 Mhz GPU clock, 800 Mhz DDR5 memory, 1280 shaders.

Look at the lifespan of the 4830 for an example of why ATI doesn't like doing this, making high-end GPUs available for dirt cheap. It drives down the sales of the full cards, and causes stress on those ASPs.

It wouldn't surprise me if 5830 gets shelved completely, as the performance spot could probably be filled by a 5790 type part without the added costs of production.

hd5790? What kind of part could this be?

 

[Arkaign]

hd5790? What kind of part could this be?

Just a higher-clocked 5770, perhaps with some better ram. With the relatively meager cooling offered on stock 5850/5870, rock-stable overclocks of 10-20% aren't uncommon, and with binning and better stock cooling, I can't see why it wouldn't be an option.

Of course, if it were too good, it would begin to threaten full 5800-series sales if priced low enough.

The name of the game of ATI and Nvidia is NOT to offer the consumer a full-fledged perfect lineup. It's just to make money. To some extent, they need competitive products, but when there's no competition, there's no reason to compete against themselves.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I don't think the 4830 serves as a particularly good example of ATI shelving a card because it was eating into their upper crust. The 4830 disappeared because the yields on the 48xx series matured to a point where there weren't enough defective cores to justify maintaining the line. Also, ATI went through a lot of trouble to release the 4770, which nipped at the 4850's heals at stock and overtook it when properly OC'ed.

While the number of viable 5830 dies is purely conjecture, the sheer volume of dies combined with the obscene yield rate TSMC put out (and somewhat continues to put out) lends itself to the theory of a cut down 58xx core (in all likelihood an 1120SP/960 SP core to catch as many failed dies as possible). Seeing how the majority of a GPU's surface area is occupied by SPs, it is not unreasonable to conclude a number of 58xx series dies go unused because 3 or 4 SP's demonstrated defects instead of the threshold of 2.

As of right now, a lot of people are not upgrading from hugely popular 4850/4870/8800GTS/GTS250/9800GTX because ATI either offers them a side-grade or asks for too much money. This is the market the 5830 would target, and it wouldn't even have to do it forever, just until the 58xx yields improve and ATI can drop the price of the 5850/70 cards like a hammer.

Lastly, what added costs of production? Crippled 5830 dies are (presumably) waiting in the wings, the 5850 PCB already exists and ATI can get away using lower quality components for capacitors etc. A 5790 would be using highly binned, functional dies (removing them from the sweet 5770 supply) while the 5830 would be using otherwise worthless crippled cores.

 

[Arkaign]

Yeah, but making a 5830 that uses 256-bit PCB and high-end memory and selling it for less takes away sales from 5850 and above, a lot of people have/are biting the bullet and dropping a lot of $ on those parts. Giving them a cheaper alternative just lowers their ASPs. Remember, every potential 5830 sale could have been a 5850 sale. ATI's main worry is $ and winning vs. Nvidia as much as possible. As Nvidia currently has nothing worth buying for the most part, 5830 is a waste.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see it, but I don't see how it does ATI any good. I see it selling INSTEAD of 5850, not in ADDITION to. I think a lot/most of the people that bought 4830 did so to save $ instead of buying 4850.

 

[quadomatic]

Remember, every potential 5830 sale could have been a 5850 sale. ATI's main worry is $ and winning vs. Nvidia as much as possible. As Nvidia currently has nothing worth buying for the most part, 5830 is a waste.

I suppose that's true, but those are only potential sales. HD5830s are real sales.

On top of that, by selling the HD5830, they're making money by selling chips that would otherwise be tossed because they weren't up to snuff. That's some big bucks in savings.

I feel like they might just wait a bit though, holding on the HD5850/HD5870 defects until nvidia drops some new cards. Then they'll put the defective chips to use.

 

[Arkaign]

I suppose that's true, but those are only potential sales. HD5830s are real sales.

On top of that, by selling the HD5830, they're making money by selling chips that would otherwise be tossed because they weren't up to snuff. That's some big bucks in savings.

I feel like they might just wait a bit though, holding on the HD5850/HD5870 defects until nvidia drops some new cards. Then they'll put the defective chips to use.

Could be, particularly if Nvidia can compete on price!

 

[nonameo]

Hmm, you know, they could do like nvidia did for a while and make the 5830 192 bit. I wonder how that would work out?

 

[Arkaign]

Hmm, you know, they could do like nvidia did for a while and make the 5830 192 bit. I wonder how that would work out?

That'd be interesting, and a little safer for ATI, as the 5850 would remain viable at it's ASP with that. Of course I'd prefer to see a full 256-bit 5830 for cheap

Probably would need a pretty significant amount of engineering to make that work though (I'm out of my element in just how complex it would be to take a GPU intended for 256-bit memory access down to 192-bit).

 

[cbn]

Just a higher-clocked 5770, perhaps with some better ram.

I think HD5770 could benefit from better GDDR5 like the 7 Gbps version. This would increase bandwidth 40% over the standard GDDR5 5 Gbps. However, buying these upgraded memory chips is going to be a heck of a lot more expensive than just using Leftover Cypress cores that would have otherwise been thrown away.

To be honest, the only Video card I would expect 7 Gbps memory to show up would be Eyefinity versions of HD5870 and HD5970.