ATI 4xxx Series Thread

[bryanW1995]

AMD has publicly stated for months (since well before 3870x2's release) that their high end offerings going forward are going to be multi gpu. That was one of the main selling points for many of us on the 3870x2, even with the 9800gx2 on the horizon at the time. I personally don't need that kind of gpu horsepower (or anything faster than a 7600gt for that matter) so I just stayed with my 3870, but it does seem extremely likely that in 6 mos, a year, 18 mos, etc the 3870x2 will be competitive with and perhaps even beat the 9800gx2. By then they will both be reaching eol, however, so nvidia doesn't give a crap.

 

[Rusin]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: phexac
If this new card indeed offers better performance than NVIDIA's 8800 Utlra and 9800GTX and proves better than the GT200 series, it may be my first ATI video card.

RV770 at $300 isnt going to outperform nvidia's $600 gt 200 flagship. 3870x2 and 9800gx2 performance is a good guess for 4870 and gt200 respecitively, however, where does that put 4870x2? If nvidia is forced to come out with an x2 card again then we'll be able to hear bfg's screams from here

With those rumoured specs I highly doubt that there would be HD 4870 X2 before they move in to 45nm or better yet 40nm. They are making RV770 with same 'old' 55nm architecture; adding 50% more SP-units, adding 100% more TM-units, adding 40% to clock frequency..Single HD4870 should already have HD3870 X2's theoretical performance numbers on that single GPU and should be pretty hot card with high power consumption. Putting 2xHD3870 X2's performance numbers on single card and doing it with that same 55nm architecture..no way

 

[allies]

Originally posted by: woolfe9999

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: allies

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I'm glad this will keep ATi afloat but realistically my next card will probably be a GT200.

What basis is this claim made upon?

Knowledge of past products, release cycles, release tendencies, market knowledge, & accurate guesswork?

Obviously, i'll let BFG answer that himself, but i'm with him.

I look forward to this new series from AMD, but i'm all but certain it will be beaten by nV's next series lineup.

Of that i have no doubt...you can mark these words

Or some of us are running on nforce platforms and will either want to SLI from the get-go or at least have the option open.

Sometimes the simple, non-nefarious explanation is sufficient.

- woolfe

Ha, the most accurate answer I received Thanks :thumbsup:

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: phexac
If this new card indeed offers better performance than NVIDIA's 8800 Utlra and 9800GTX and proves better than the GT200 series, it may be my first ATI video card.

RV770 at $300 isnt going to outperform nvidia's $600 gt 200 flagship. 3870x2 and 9800gx2 performance is a good guess for 4870 and gt200 respecitively, however, where does that put 4870x2? If nvidia is forced to come out with an x2 card again then we'll be able to hear bfg's screams from here

mmm, interesting point. I wonder how it will compare to the G100, the more budget oriented core.

 

[Munky]

So far the recent rumors suggest about 400SP, 32 TMU's, and maybe beefed up ROP's. I don't expect this thing to compete with Nvidia's next high end gpu, but the more interesting question is what will Ati do for the X2 version if they want to compete in the high end. If they manage to create a multi-gpu solution with unified memory, I have a gut feeling it will go a long way towards improving Crossfire scaling in modern games.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: munky
So far the recent rumors suggest about 400SP, 32 TMU's, and maybe beefed up ROP's. I don't expect this thing to compete with Nvidia's next high end gpu, but the more interesting question is what will Ati do for the X2 version if they want to compete in the high end. If they manage to create a multi-gpu solution with unified memory, I have a gut feeling it will go a long way towards improving Crossfire scaling in modern games.

If RV770 is 480SP/32TMU as seems almost concrete at this point, and runs at 1.05GHz, then I think it will definitely compete. That would give it over 2x the shading power and close to 3x the texture power of RV670. With GDDR5, the memory bandwidth is doubled as well. As long as RV770 hits those frequencies at launch, I would expect 4870 to have at least 2x the performance of the HD 3870, if not more because RV670 is bottlenecked by texture performance. So a single HD 4870 should be more powerful than the 3870 X2 even when Crossfire scales perfectly, with the 4870 X2 being 2x as fast as the current 3870 X2 or more as well.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Rusin

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: phexac
If this new card indeed offers better performance than NVIDIA's 8800 Utlra and 9800GTX and proves better than the GT200 series, it may be my first ATI video card.

RV770 at $300 isnt going to outperform nvidia's $600 gt 200 flagship. 3870x2 and 9800gx2 performance is a good guess for 4870 and gt200 respecitively, however, where does that put 4870x2? If nvidia is forced to come out with an x2 card again then we'll be able to hear bfg's screams from here

With those rumoured specs I highly doubt that there would be HD 4870 X2 before they move in to 45nm or better yet 40nm. They are making RV770 with same 'old' 55nm architecture; adding 50% more SP-units, adding 100% more TM-units, adding 40% to clock frequency..Single HD4870 should already have HD3870 X2's theoretical performance numbers on that single GPU and should be pretty hot card with high power consumption. Putting 2xHD3870 X2's performance numbers on single card and doing it with that same 55nm architecture..no way

They'll probably knock the clocks down a little bit, but keep in mind that they could always do the "sandwich" solution of the 9800gx2. If these rumored specs are true and they DO figure out a way to make a 4870x2 then this next round could be a little bit more competitive.

 

[BFG10K]

What basis is this claim made upon?

I still want to hear BFG though, if he has confirmed specs for either product I'd be more than happy to hear them

No confirmed specs, just rumors and extrapolation from current trends. Realistically I don't think the R7xx can beat a GT200 unless it's in an X2 configuration.

Of course I could well be surprised, but I doubt it.

 

[Sylvanas]

Throwing this into the pot.

Independent shader frequency :0 that could prove interesting.

 

[BFG10K]

Independent shader frequency :0 that could prove interesting.

If true they've taken a page out of nVidia's book and we all know how successful that was. Having only 16 ROPs might hold it back though.

I think it?ll be interesting to see what performance it eventually has.

 

[Rusin]

Intresting that HD4850 and HD4870 would have different core/shader-clockratio..Nvidia has pretty much "2.5x" ratio all the way.

850MHz for core..well that would be dissapointing. This card would still have only 63% of 9800 GTX's texture mapping performance and 26% bigger ROP-performance compared to 9800 GTX. Will there be enough "food" for that friekish SP-performance?

 

[nRollo]

On power: I'd note that the amount of power using a pc half the day consumes, it's pretty much a drop in the bucket on your electricity bill anyway.

On upcoming, I have a hunch you won't be surprised BFG. Good stuff coming from the Santa Clara team. (or so say the rumors anyway)

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
This NVIDIA loving without even having seen comparisons of both nVidia's and ATI's new cards is ridiculous. Maybe ATI can provide rocksolid performance at a much lower pricepoint? Haven't they allready said they are aiming for mainstream gamers, and not the utter high-end? Most profit can be made in the 150-250$ range anyways. And perhaps they'll also manage to put out something really high-end, who knows? Maybe they worked out the flaws and actually have a winner here? History tells us that it's very possible, nvidia hasn't always been on top :S

i hope so

i just don't think so

 

[batmang]

I hope the 4800 series destroys the 9800 series and GT200. Its time for ATi to take the power back!!! (RATM FTW.)

 

[BenSkywalker]

History tells us that it's very possible, nvidia hasn't always been on top :S

In the position ATi is currently in they would need another R300 style generational leap to get them back to competitive with nVidia, they would need a much larger jump to see the kind of dominance they had with that part. Maybe it will happen, but it is much like you don't see a lot of people expecting AMD to displace Intel anytime soon for top tier performance, they are so far behind and slipping further the more time goes on it is hard to reasonably assume they have some quantum leap part waiting in the wings.

 

[v8envy]

What worries me is several companies have taken the "the big money is in mainstream -- we'll can't compete at the high end so we'll stick to mainstream and low end" strategy only to become irrelevant even in that market nearly instantly. 3dfx, S3, Matrox come to mind in the GPU arena. You can find other examples with CPU manufacturers looking at Cyrix, NexGen, Trasnmeta, etc. There are tiny niches to hide in, but if the big boys decide to eat your lunch they can boot you out of your niche at will.

The halo effect cast by enthusiasts and general public desire for owing the "best" regardless of need should not be underestimated. Intel already owns the "don't care about performance" segment with their integrated video. Anything above that requires actively not sucking.

 

[ghost recon88]

Originally posted by: batmang
I hope the 4800 series destroys the 9800 series and GT200. Its time for ATi to take the power back!!! (RATM FTW.)

I love you man. Don't worry, not in that sense

 

[bdubyah]

heh, rage references in a video card thread. "The rage is relentless!"

but it would be nice if they deliver a solid lineup.

 

[reviewhunter]

More Radeon4800 Specs:

in German:
http://www.hardware-infos.com/news.php?news=2008

in English:
http://lly316.blogspot.com/200...eon-hd4850-hd4870.html

 

[Jax Omen]

Hot damn, if that pricing is true, ATI *should* have a hell of a winner on their hands, at least until GT200. That card should obliterate the 9800GTX.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Fudzilla link again...

512 bit memory bus, GDDR5. So, yea... lots of rumors all over the map.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: nRollo
On power: I'd note that the amount of power using a pc half the day consumes, it's pretty much a drop in the bucket on your electricity bill anyway.

On upcoming, I have a hunch you won't be surprised BFG. Good stuff coming from the Santa Clara team. (or so say the rumors anyway)

no, it isn't. It is a significant expense. Do the math and you will see for yourself.

 

[geokilla]

Who cares about how much shaders it'll have. I don't... The 3870 had 320 unified shaders compared to the 8800GTS 112 shaders. The 8800GTS was still faster than the 3870.

As long as it can outperform the other cards in it's price segment, I'm happy.

 

[Jax Omen]

taltamir, even if my entire 700W PSU was running at full-blast all day (presumably consuming 700W from the wall 24/7) it wouldn't be a significant chunk of my power bill. No more than $5-$10 a month. A GPU isn't even close to that.

With the amount of money people spend on Air Conditioning/heating (depending on climate) every month, electrical costs from PCs are practically nonexistant.

For me, that $5-$10 would be significant, 1/8-1/4 of my current bill, but that's because I live in a tiny apartment and use no heat/AC.

My girlfriend's parents, by comparison, live in a decent home and keep their heat cranked up (70F minimum year-round). Their power bill is over $300/month in the winter. PC operating costs are nothing to them.

Most people are somewhere in between. I bet most home owners spend $100-$150 a month on electricity. Ask them if they care that their videocard might be consuming another 100-200W of power. Go ahead, ask them.

 

[allies]

The only reason Nvidia is so ahead of ATi right now is because of the leap the 8800GTX provided. It was eerily similar to the 9700Pro leap. I bet next generation ATI is a similar leap.