Radeon 4000-series in June?

[thilanliyan]

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14162

 

[apoppin]

The burning question on everyone's lips now is probably, "When will these cards be out?" Hartware.de warns that its information is unofficial and should therefore be taken with a grain of salt, but it says its reader's roadmap pegs the release date at some time in June.

i have a suspicion it'll be May

 

[biostud]

for more info

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7356.html

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: biostud
for more info

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7356.html

*both* articles are based on this one

http://www.hartware.de/news_44085.html

 

[BFG10K]

150W TDP is quite good for the 4870 based on its specs. It's also interesting they're sticking to 256 bit memory.

 

[Quiksilver]

I thought no one was going to GDDR5 yet?

 

[Piuc2020]

What's the point of going to GDDR5 if you are keeping the 256 bit bus?

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
What's the point of going to GDDR5 if you are keeping the 256 bit bus?

The point of going to GDDR5 is to keep the 256-bit bus. With 2200MHz (4400MHz) GDDR5, it would be the same as the HD 4870 having a 512-bit bus and 2200MHz effective GDDR4. 256-bit bus reduces the complexity of the PCB and reduces cost. RV670 is a clear example - it is more advanced than the R600 and features DX10.1, yet is 666M transistors vs. 700M, because of the move to a 256-bit bus.

 

[tuteja1986]

ohh god ati still isn't increasing the rop still on 16 :!

 

[bryanW1995]

I don't think that this info is very reliable. It seems too much like a kid took the 3000 series and just extrapolated the entire thing into r700. It would be very nice to see amd actually release the next gen in a timely manner, however, so I hope that june time frame is accurate.

 

[Foxery]

Originally posted by: apoppin

*both* articles are based on this one

http://www.hartware.de/news_44085.html

Nice. I love how easily readable all of the details are, even with no understanding of German

I'm intrigued that the article includes an X2 model. Wasn't the 3870X2 more of a bonus/surprise?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Foxery

Originally posted by: apoppin

*both* articles are based on this one

http://www.hartware.de/news_44085.html

Nice. I love how easily readable all of the details are, even with no understanding of German

I'm intrigued that the article includes an X2 model. Wasn't the 3870X2 more of a bonus/surprise?

no ... it appears that the 'x2' is AMD's new direction

 

[bryanW1995]

exactly. this is pure speculation on someone's part.

using this same logic, I feel that I should tell you guys something. I know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows jen-hsung huang. my friend ^6 told me once that nvidia has big plans for their g200 chips. here's the skinny: they're going to wait for amd to release r700, then bump up their clocks enough to handily outperform the competition. Unfortunately, they aren't going to have adequate cooling solutions in place and will have to go to a 3 slot cooling fan. Some people will say that "it's the size of rhode island". whatever, it'll be neat and really really fast. they're going to call it the...dum dum duhhhhhhhhhh... 9800gt. It's going to have, um, 144 sp's, and, uh, run at a base core speed of 800 mhz. You guys get the idea.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
exactly. this is pure speculation on someone's part.

using this same logic, I feel that I should tell you guys something. I know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows jen-hsung huang. my friend ^6 told me once that nvidia has big plans for their g200 chips. here's the skinny: they're going to wait for amd to release r700, then bump up their clocks enough to handily outperform the competition. Unfortunately, they aren't going to have adequate cooling solutions in place and will have to go to a 3 slot cooling fan. Some people will say that "it's the size of rhode island". whatever, it'll be neat and really really fast. they're going to call it the...dum dum duhhhhhhhhhh... 9800gt. It's going to have, um, 144 sp's, and, uh, run at a base core speed of 800 mhz. You guys get the idea.

Yeah ... May
-before June

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Foxery

Originally posted by: apoppin

*both* articles are based on this one

http://www.hartware.de/news_44085.html

Nice. I love how easily readable all of the details are, even with no understanding of German

I'm intrigued that the article includes an X2 model. Wasn't the 3870X2 more of a bonus/surprise?

no ... it appears that the 'x2' is AMD's new direction

and a stupid direction it is unless they profile every major pc game upto date :!~

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Foxery

Originally posted by: apoppin

*both* articles are based on this one

http://www.hartware.de/news_44085.html

Nice. I love how easily readable all of the details are, even with no understanding of German

I'm intrigued that the article includes an X2 model. Wasn't the 3870X2 more of a bonus/surprise?

no ... it appears that the 'x2' is AMD's new direction

and a stupid direction it is unless they profile every major pc game upto date :!~

it is what they are doing ... and it seems to be succeeding ...

make cheap upper-midrange GPUs, slap 'em together and spend a LOT of time writing and updating drivers .. i bet it is cost effective

you have to remember, games before '04 will run perfectly on just one core .. so they don't have to go very far back

 

[AzN]

It feels like 3870 was just released yesterday.

16 ROP, 32TMU with 480SP doesn't sound too powerful at all. Sure it's better than 3870 but it won't be too dramatic for sure compare to 8800gt. A 8800gts is 16/64tmu and 128SP that is more power than AMD's 320SP shader.

Good thing about this is that the mainstream parts are finally moving to 256bit memory bus.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
What's the point of going to GDDR5 if you are keeping the 256 bit bus?

The point of going to GDDR5 is to keep the 256-bit bus. With 2200MHz (4400MHz) GDDR5, it would be the same as the HD 4870 having a 512-bit bus and 2200MHz effective GDDR4. 256-bit bus reduces the complexity of the PCB and reduces cost. RV670 is a clear example - it is more advanced than the R600 and features DX10.1, yet is 666M transistors vs. 700M, because of the move to a 256-bit bus.

Wider bus does more than a smaller bus even if it equates to same memory bandwidth.

Just like 16 ROP high clocked card is weaker than a 24 ROP card with lower clocks even if they equate to same pixel fillrate.

Cards with 16 pixel pipes don't really need a big bus to be efficient. It should be fine on a 256bit bus.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

its actually a pretty good decision since they're getting it to work quite well. my next top of the line card purchase might just be an x2 card. i've always relied on single-gpu cards up until the x1900xt/8800gt. never even thought of sli.

the next gen x2's should be even better than this gen's 3870x2

 

[Killrose]

The best thing about this card is you will be able to mate it with a 3850/3870/X2 3870 in Xfire and go. That is the part about ATi's Xfire that has nvidia really worried.

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: Azn
It feels like 3870 was just released yesterday.

16 ROP, 32TMU with 480SP doesn't sound too powerful at all. Sure it's better than 3870 but it won't be too dramatic for sure compare to 8800gt. A 8800gts is 16/64tmu and 128SP that is more power than AMD's 320SP shader.

Good thing about this is that the mainstream parts are finally moving to 256bit memory bus.

Well, mathematically speaking, you're going to have 50% more hardware (with twice as many TMU, which is good) and a 50% (ish) higher clock, so around 225% the performance of a single 3870. not bad for a simple mainstream part. Now, you put two of these together and you have crossfire on a stick for the highend.

It sounds absolutely impressive but, IMO, it's impossible. I mean, it's the same process as the 3870 but they were able to cram 50% more logic and increase the clockspeed by a massive 50% while only increasing power draw by something like 30W... yeah right. If the R700 truly has 480 "shader processors" (aka 96 SIMD units) then I'd guess it will run at more pedestrian clockspeeds.

 

[Sylvanas]

I wonder the difference in power consumption between GDDR4 and GDDR5.....some reviews back when the 1GB 2900XT was released stated that the difference on the GDDR4 version of the 2900 consumed 50 watts less than the GDDR3 version, that'd be pretty sick if they could do that again for this next gen .

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Furen

Originally posted by: Azn
It feels like 3870 was just released yesterday.

16 ROP, 32TMU with 480SP doesn't sound too powerful at all. Sure it's better than 3870 but it won't be too dramatic for sure compare to 8800gt. A 8800gts is 16/64tmu and 128SP that is more power than AMD's 320SP shader.

Good thing about this is that the mainstream parts are finally moving to 256bit memory bus.

Well, mathematically speaking, you're going to have 50% more hardware (with twice as many TMU, which is good) and a 50% (ish) higher clock, so around 225% the performance of a single 3870. not bad for a simple mainstream part. Now, you put two of these together and you have crossfire on a stick for the highend.

It sounds absolutely impressive but, IMO, it's impossible. I mean, it's the same process as the 3870 but they were able to cram 50% more logic and increase the clockspeed by a massive 50% while only increasing power draw by something like 30W... yeah right. If the R700 truly has 480 "shader processors" (aka 96 SIMD units) then I'd guess it will run at more pedestrian clockspeeds.

HD 3870 power consumption is ~100W, this theoretical HD 4870 would have a power consumption of 150W, 50% more.

I don't find it to be too impossible... the R600 core, on 80nm, was able to clock easily above 800MHz on air cooling and 900MHz-1GHz on water or very good cooling. The only things that limited AMD from releasing the HD 2900XT with an 800MHz+ core clock were the thermals and power consumption, which was already off the charts with the core @ 745MHz. Now @ 55nm, those things are no longer a problem and the clocks can be increased.

I think that AMD designed R600/R700 to be capable of very high clockspeeds (in terms of GPUs) and that now we will see that happen with R700. These could be completely bogus numbers, but they do seem quite possible and they make sense.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: Furen

Originally posted by: Azn
It feels like 3870 was just released yesterday.

16 ROP, 32TMU with 480SP doesn't sound too powerful at all. Sure it's better than 3870 but it won't be too dramatic for sure compare to 8800gt. A 8800gts is 16/64tmu and 128SP that is more power than AMD's 320SP shader.

Good thing about this is that the mainstream parts are finally moving to 256bit memory bus.

Well, mathematically speaking, you're going to have 50% more hardware (with twice as many TMU, which is good) and a 50% (ish) higher clock, so around 225% the performance of a single 3870. not bad for a simple mainstream part. Now, you put two of these together and you have crossfire on a stick for the highend.

It sounds absolutely impressive but, IMO, it's impossible. I mean, it's the same process as the 3870 but they were able to cram 50% more logic and increase the clockspeed by a massive 50% while only increasing power draw by something like 30W... yeah right. If the R700 truly has 480 "shader processors" (aka 96 SIMD units) then I'd guess it will run at more pedestrian clockspeeds.

How do you figure 50% faster clock speeds? Memory is whole lot faster but core clock speed is only 25% faster. HD 3870 currently runs @ 775mhz and the new RV770 is supposed to run 1050mhz.

Again 8800gts has same pixel pipes and double TMU as RV770. It will be faster than 8800gts but I doubt it will be noticeably faster. Maybe 25% faster than 8800gts and about 50% faster than 3870.

Never say impossible. You know how small 3870 chips are compared to 8800gts? 55nm was at its infancy when 3870 was made. Now that it has matured it can pump out better yields.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: Furen

Originally posted by: Azn
It feels like 3870 was just released yesterday.

16 ROP, 32TMU with 480SP doesn't sound too powerful at all. Sure it's better than 3870 but it won't be too dramatic for sure compare to 8800gt. A 8800gts is 16/64tmu and 128SP that is more power than AMD's 320SP shader.

Good thing about this is that the mainstream parts are finally moving to 256bit memory bus.

Well, mathematically speaking, you're going to have 50% more hardware (with twice as many TMU, which is good) and a 50% (ish) higher clock, so around 225% the performance of a single 3870. not bad for a simple mainstream part. Now, you put two of these together and you have crossfire on a stick for the highend.

It sounds absolutely impressive but, IMO, it's impossible. I mean, it's the same process as the 3870 but they were able to cram 50% more logic and increase the clockspeed by a massive 50% while only increasing power draw by something like 30W... yeah right. If the R700 truly has 480 "shader processors" (aka 96 SIMD units) then I'd guess it will run at more pedestrian clockspeeds.

How do you figure 50% faster clock speeds? Memory is whole lot faster but core clock speed is only 25% faster. HD 3870 currently runs @ 775mhz and the new RV770 is supposed to run 1050mhz.

Again 8800gts has same pixel pipes and double TMU as RV770. It will be faster than 8800gts but I doubt it will be noticeably faster. Maybe 25% faster than 8800gts and about 50% faster than 3870.

Never say impossible. You know how small 3870 chips are compared to 8800gts? 55nm was at its infancy when 3870 was made. Now that it has matured it can pump out better yields.

In terms of GFLOPS:

HD 3870 = (320*2)*.775 = 496~ GFLOPS
HD 4870 = (480*2)*1.05 = 1008 GFLOPS
HD 4870 = 2.03X HD 3870 in shader performance

Texture performance should be much more than doubled.

HD 3870 = 16 * 775MHz = 12,400
HD 4870 = 32 * 1050MHz = 33,600
HD 4870 = 2.70X HD 3870

Memory bandwidth should be just about doubled as well. So HD 4870 = 2.03X Shader, 2.7X texture, and 2X memory bandwidth compared to the HD 3870.