[Vr-Zone] New RV700 (ATi 4XXX) series info - Overclock.net

i_ame_killer_2 · 02-18-08

Quote:

The ATI Radeon HD 4000 series is slated for late Q2. Information about the high-end RV770 has been leaking onto the web, from here and there, but the exact specifications has remained in the shadows. German hardware site Hartware.net has gotten their hands on what seems to be pretty authentic information. As far as we can tell, it looks believable and matches the rumors going around. We're still far away from the launch and the figures are subject to change. We also have some information on our own to share with you.

If you're into extreme single-core GPUs you may want to stop reading now. ATI's future is value-oriented and if you're longing for that 1 billion transistor megachip, you can stop doing it right now. ATI isn't into that. We should have told you this sooner. ATI is focusing on bang for the buck and if you want more performance you should get a second card, or get the card with two cores.

Considering the flexibility and scaling that CrossFireX offers, we're not exactly saddened by AMD's decision to steer ATI toward focusing more on the price/performance ratio than on raw performance. It is harder to write drivers for a multi-GPU, but when you make sure that you have a good foundation, such as CrossFireX, it might be worth the risk.

The information published elsewhere suggests that ATI will use GDDR5 to a great extent, which surprise us a little. On the other hand, ATI may know something about GDDR5 that we don't (we would be surprised otherwise). RV770 has GDDR5 support, but whether ATI will actually use it remains to be seen. GDDR4 with most of the high-end cards is a highly likely scenario. The frequencies suggested here are actually lower than what good GDDR4 chips are capable of.

RV770 will break 1TFLOPS, while the R700, with two RV770, should be capable of twice that, more than 2TFLOPS. This is higher than what he had expected, but then again the core frequencies are also higher than expected. All cores are made by TSMC and their 55nm process. We're still trying to hunt down more reliable information on the design of the "core".

On top of the information Hartware.net published we've completed the tables with some additional information, among others the target price points. AMD/ATI's goal is to keep the prices at a point where they are first of all affordable, but also a thorn in the side of NVIDIA. The prices in the table are the not the final MSRP, but the price ATI aims to stick below. Meaning that the retail prices should end up lower than what the tables shows.

When AMD/ATI, unveiled the Radeon HD 3000 series they had added a nifty feature called PowerPlay. PowerPlay dynamically controls the power consumption and will severely reduce the power consumption when idle, but also reduce the peak consumption somewhat. When we look at the figures they don't quite add up, but as stated above, these figures are all most likely going to change before the launch. The idle power consumptions of all cards are extremely low and even the dual-core Radeon HD 4870X2 will consume less than 25W when idle.

The number of TMUs have finally been increased, actually doubled, to 32 with RV770, while RV740 sports 24 TMUs, and the low-end RV710 has 8 TMUs. Don't bother getting upset with the 256-bit memory bus because it will not become any kind of bottleneck. The only time it might be even close to that is when you're pouring liquid nitrogen into the container and have the GPU running at +50% of stock frequency, which will happen though.

To end this long and speculative post, we would like to say that if not all, most of the variables here are subject to change and should be considered with a "tiny" pinch of salt. We're still 4 month away from the launch.

Source @ Vr-Zone

Azazel · 02-18-08

If this is true and all they did was add 160 sp's to the new cards I don't see it going well for them. Their current x2 card isn't much better than 1 ultra and the next gtx is going to have double the shaders(not x1.5) and a 512 memory bus. I think this was a bad decision on ATI's part.

Edit: If Ati is going to make/try completely different architecture than nvidia, they need to go all the way and support it. aka paying game developers to make games for their products instead of nvidia.

Cait Sith Cat · 02-18-08

Better is better, and as repeated by the article, Price

erformance > performance for ATI. Everyone would like to have the best, but not everyone can spend $450 on a video card.

The 3870 is rated at what, 457 GFLOPS? Supreme Commander looks fantastic. Every game I have runs flawlessly, for the part of the graphics. The 4870 is going to be roughly twice as powerful, according to this source. I think ATI is going to be fine.

Their current x2 card isn't much better than 1 ultra

But it is better, for the same or lesser price.

the next gtx is going to have double the shaders(not x1.5) and a 512 memory bus.

You can't compare technical apples to apples. If the number of ATI's 'stream processors' compared to nvidia's, then nvidia would be crying in its bed. The 8800GT and 3870 are roughly the same; ATI has 320 "SP"s and nv has 112.

I'm not putting nVidia down, I'm simply defending ATI's stance and strong competition to nVidia.

Azazel · 02-18-08

"You can't compare technical apples to apples. If the number of ATI's 'stream processors' compared to nvidia's, then nvidia would be crying in its bed. The 8800GT and 3870 are roughly the same; ATI has 320 "SP"s and nv has 112."

I didn't. I said ati is trying to improve by 1.5 where nvidia is going for 2.0. By what sp's their current cards have to what the future cards will have.

Edit: If the the future ati card performance is 150% of the current one and nvidia is 200% of the current, then its not good for ati and not good for me because nvidia won't have to cut prices to compete with anyone. And screw the price to performance talk thats a bunch of bs. With the x2 barely beating 1 ultra now, take 1.5x(the x2 performance) and compare to 2x(ultra performance). Thats why I said its a bad move imo on ati's part. Its looking like 1 gtx will stand up to(probably beat) the x2 ati card. And price vs performance is out the window as they will both be over 500 bucks.

scottb75 · 02-18-08

I think the big difference is in the Texture Mapping Units (TMUs). The RV770 is rumored to use 32 TMUs while the 9800GTX is rumored to use 128 TMUs. TMUs are becoming more important to have in a GPU which is why I think cards like the 8800GT (56 TMUs) and the 8800GTS (64 TMUs) match or beat the current line of (single GPU) ATI cards despite having fewer stream processors.

bucdan · 02-18-08

but if u guys saw, these new ones are gonna be on a 256 bit mem bus...and that really sucks...y not 512bit?

SZayat · 02-18-08

I like that aggressive approach where the customer is the ultimate winner.

RPIJG · 02-18-08

I think you have to look at it in the right perspective, what most of you detractors are aiming at is that this won't be better than the next $700 card from Nvidia, however, the point is, ATI/AMD isn't aiming for that segment. They are aiming at a price/performance range that is pretty consumer friendly. Consider that the 3870x2 is $450 and performs better than the Ultra even if just a little at stock settings (I don't want to muddle the pond talking about overclocking for this argument). When you figure that the Ultra from retail locations is still pricing well above $500 and the GTX is just NOW getting below $400 with big MIR's, says to me that the price/performance point is just right for ATI/AMD. Now, with that being said, if Nvidia brings out the 9800GTX or the 9800GX2 in the same price range but with vastly superior performance, then it becomes an issue for ATI/AMD, but like has been said, what percentage of total users on OCN are running with THE ABSOLUTE BEST? Sure we all want that, but in the real world, want and reality are vastly different. I just think that if you are AMD/ATI you continue to make cards that compete near the same level as big green while pricing them below big green and you will have a healthy revenue stream so that you can secretly develop and uber card that will make baby jeezus cry.

gamervivek · 02-18-08

looking at how the 9600GT with just 64 shaders competes alongside 112 shader 8800gt i doubt if barely increasing shaders on the card will increase the performance by that much unless really shader heavy games come out.
but increasing the TMUs will definitely be a performance boost,since 3870 has almost a third of texture fillrate of the 8800gt and the 4870 should atleast double that.

Johnny Utah · 02-18-08

this is good to see. while most of us here are enthusiasts who love to drool over $600 supercards, they make up a very, very small percentage of gaming computers.

ATI focusing on value and forcing NV to compete there as well will make sure there's a constant supply of good-performing cards within reach of most consumers. this should keep people interested in pc gaming and not intimidated by thinking they have to spend over $300 to get a decent card.

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[Vr-Zone] New RV700 (ATi 4XXX) series info

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