ATI 4xxx Series Thread

[Rusin]

Well that would be a suprise if it were 75% of GTX280..... 75% of GTX 260 would be big suprise. I don't know about those price figures. If HD4870 sells with price of $350 then it could mean that GTX280 would be more expensive than rumoured $500

 

[Avalon]

Yeah I'm gonna wager on 75% of the performance of the GTX260 for $100 cheaper. June can't come quicker.

 

[AshPhoenix]

Fudzilla

More RV770PRO details

We finally have a screenshot that confirms most of the things that we said about RV770PRO, here. Our sources suggested that ATI is talking about a Radeon 4850 512MB name for this card.

The card at its top frequency works at 900MHz as we wrote yesterday and the GDDR3 memory works at 1000MHz. ATI uses power play, a power saving technique that can drop the GPU clock to 500MHz or 625MHz depending on the power state.

At the same time, the memory also works at three states. The top one is 1000MHz (2000MHz effectively), the second is 993MHz (1986MHz effectively), and the slowest one is 750MHz (1500MHZ effectively).

You will need 1.123V to make the chip work.

 

[bryanW1995]

I love fuad... It's a good thing he was right about the jensen huang thing, otherwise I'd say that he's 0-for-lifetime.

 

[taltamir]

fudzilla... i can make up more accurate info then what you read there (they are just not as good as me at making up random stuff)

 

[Nemesis 1]

I have read most of the threads on this subject. I haven't said much . I am so proud . Because I am a bigger ATI fanboy than I am an Intel fanboy.
I tell you this . If the specs that are given are correct. I don't care what NV does. The 4870x2 is going to be great. I will love it even if its at the lowend of all the fud in the forums/articles. A lot of people hung up on the number of rops. Lets just wait and see shall we. Exciting times were in.

 

[Quiksilver]

If you ask me ATI will be the real winner after the dust settles when all these cards launch due to: less power consumption(not to mention less power cables to plug in), more frequent driver updates, more flexible crossfire (vs sli), overclockability (maybe not so much on memory, but their prototypes were over 1Ghz), and price point.

 

[Kuzi]

Originally posted by: Avalon
Yeah I'm gonna wager on 75% of the performance of the GTX260 for $100 cheaper. June can't come quicker.

I'd guess the performance of the 4870 will be very close (90%) to the GTX260. And the 4870x2 (whenever it gets released) will be faster than the GTX280 by a good margin.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Kuzi

Originally posted by: Avalon
Yeah I'm gonna wager on 75% of the performance of the GTX260 for $100 cheaper. June can't come quicker.

I'd guess the performance of the 4870 will be very close (90%) to the GTX260. And the 4870x2 (whenever it gets released) will be faster than the GTX280 by a good margin.

I highly doubt that. GTX 280 is 240 stream processors that are supposedly each 50% faster per clock than current G80/G92, and will have 32 ROP / 512-bit / 1GB of memory. Given that it should certainly be 2x+ the speed of the 8800 Ultra.

My guess is GTX 260 will be around 30-40% faster than the HD 4870, with the GTX 280 being 10-20% (very slightly) faster than the HD 4870 X2.

 

[Rusin]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Kuzi

Originally posted by: Avalon
Yeah I'm gonna wager on 75% of the performance of the GTX260 for $100 cheaper. June can't come quicker.

I'd guess the performance of the 4870 will be very close (90%) to the GTX260. And the 4870x2 (whenever it gets released) will be faster than the GTX280 by a good margin.

I highly doubt that. GTX 280 is 240 stream processors that are supposedly each 50% faster per clock than current G80/G92, and will have 32 ROP / 512-bit / 1GB of memory. Given that it should certainly be 2x+ the speed of the 8800 Ultra.

Well it has 87.5% more SP units than 8800 Ultra (SP units that are 50% stronger than in 8800 Ultra), 150% more TMU's + higher memory bandwidht and more vram. That 2x speed is realistic and it could be more than that.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Kuzi

Originally posted by: Avalon
Yeah I'm gonna wager on 75% of the performance of the GTX260 for $100 cheaper. June can't come quicker.

I'd guess the performance of the 4870 will be very close (90%) to the GTX260. And the 4870x2 (whenever it gets released) will be faster than the GTX280 by a good margin.

I'd be even happier with that, but we'll just have to see how far GT200's advancements take it with actual performance.

 

[bryanW1995]

the paper specs look awesome, but I think that the clocks could be limited by heat output.

 

[Kuzi]

Well ATI/AMD did a clever thing by keeping the memory bus at 256bits, and using fast GDDR5, which should keep power efficiency high. And the fact that ATI is already at 55nm, means that they can release the 4870x2 within the next few months if needed.

In comparison the GTX280 that uses a 512bit bus with older GDDR3, and has more transistors and is much larger in size because NVidia is still at 65nm, meaning it will be a power hog. So we may not see a dual chip GTX280x2 till NV moves to 55nm process or smaller.

It's obvious that ATI designed the 4870 with dual GPU 4870x2 in mind to compete with NV at the high end. Now they should work on improving their Crossfire drives, which with the 3870x2 seemed pretty good overall.

 

[bryanW1995]

even at 55nm it would be VERY difficult for nvidia to do a dual-gpu card. have you seen the size of that monster?? The good news for nvidia is that they'll probably still beat 4870x2, and, if not, well...there's always the ultra 290...

 

[taltamir]

i am getting a feeling that both camps will completely annihilate current gen hardware with their next gen. And that they will be fairly competative, offering a variety of performance points (all of which higher then the best they offer right now)...
I might just be eating up the hype, but I hope I am not.

 

[allies]

I've had quite a few tastes form the same dish. I'll be abroad starting in August 'til December, maybe I can spoil myself with a refresh/Nehalem when I get back

 

[Kuzi]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
even at 55nm it would be VERY difficult for nvidia to do a dual-gpu card. have you seen the size of that monster?? The good news for nvidia is that they'll probably still beat 4870x2, and, if not, well...there's always the ultra 290...

Yeah it's huge, but you know, in my case, I'd rather buy a very fast single GPU card than a dual GPU card. Simply because some games don't benefit from the dual GPU card, and some only gain a little fps (10-20%). I've seen only a few games that gain almost 2x the speed on the 3870x2 compared to a 3870.

If ATI can get almost 1.8-1.9x the speed on their 4870x2, then I'm sure it'll beat the GTX280 in most games. It'll depend a lot on the drivers and the game itself, some games just love Nvidia hardware

 

[Rusin]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
even at 55nm it would be VERY difficult for nvidia to do a dual-gpu card. have you seen the size of that monster?? The good news for nvidia is that they'll probably still beat 4870x2, and, if not, well...there's always the ultra 290...

yep..higher clocked 55nm version could be reality..no dual card..

 

[biostud]

I think they will go directly to a 45nm 256-bit DDR5 refresh and skip the 55nm.

 

[Brunnis]

Originally posted by: biostud
I think they will go directly to a 45nm 256-bit DDR5 refresh and skip the 55nm.

I was just about to post the same. At the very least, they will probably go directly to 45nm even if they decide to keep the 512-bit bus.

45nm + 256-bit GDDR5 is probably the key to get this beast both reasonably affordable and reasonably profitable. I was debating whether I should get a GTX 280, but I don't really see this card lasting very long before a much cheaper refresh arrives.

 

[Kuzi]

If TSMC can get their 45nm process ready this year, then NVidia may be able to use it for the GTX280 refresh and bypass 55nm all together. But I don't see a GTX280 refresh based on 45nm released this year, it's highly improbable. Maybe Q1 2009 at the earliest. So NV can just jump to 45nm, but then the refresh will release +9 months from now. If NV does this they risk leaving ATI's 4870x2 with market lead for many months (depending on 4870x2 performance and when it's released ofc).

A better move would be to release the new cards this fall based on TSMC's proven (safe/more yields) 55nm process, and then move to 45nm next year.

 

[Grinja]

Originally posted by: Kuzi

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
even at 55nm it would be VERY difficult for nvidia to do a dual-gpu card. have you seen the size of that monster?? The good news for nvidia is that they'll probably still beat 4870x2, and, if not, well...there's always the ultra 290...

Yeah it's huge, but you know, in my case, I'd rather buy a very fast single GPU card than a dual GPU card. Simply because some games don't benefit from the dual GPU card, and some only gain a little fps (10-20%). I've seen only a few games that gain almost 2x the speed on the 3870x2 compared to a 3870.

If ATI can get almost 1.8-1.9x the speed on their 4870x2, then I'm sure it'll beat the GTX280 in most games. It'll depend a lot on the drivers and the game itself, some games just love Nvidia hardware

I feel the same , I would prefer to have a single chip card. However I suspect that developers will put more emphasis on multi GPU support in future titles and drivers will continue to improve. Even if Nvidia doesn't need to make another GX 2 they still support SLI.

 

[theAnimal]

4870 benchmarks

Edit: Sorry for reposting, didn't have time to read the whole thread.

 

[bryanW1995]

those have been posted before. they don't look very believable, but we'll see...

 

[Quiksilver]

Pic's of 4800 series coolers.