[NHW] RV870 lil dragons rumored specifications

3936 Views 60 Replies 38 Participants Last post by -iceblade^, Oct 31, 2008

linskingdom

Discussion Starter · Oct 27, 2008

Quote:

RV870, dubbed Lil' Dragon, will be the first 40nm GPU from AMD. It's slated for a summer launch in 2009. We expect the silicon to be taped out before the end of the year, but we don't know the specifications. A lot of numbers have now been posted over at a German site, much like the first specifications of RV770 that turned out to be planted misinformation. Even though much of this seem reasonable we urge you to consider this information with a truckload of salt until we can confirm this.

Just the fact that this source claims that AMD wants the GPU ready for market in late Q1 makes us doubtful, but we still feel we owe you to forward this information. They claim a memory bandwidth of up to 150-160GB/s with possibly a 512-bit bus. The memory bandwidth may be near the truth but there will NOT be a 512-bit bus. There is no need for it with GDDR5. With 5GHz GDDR5 over 256-bit bus you get 160GB/s, which should be enough.

The overall performance is said to be around 1.5TFLOPS, which matches the first stories of a performance boost of around 1.2 times that of RV770. This points to four added shader clusters, with 40 shaders and 2 texture units per cluster, adding up to 960 shaders and 48 texture units. This was not stated in the article, but mere speculation on our part.

The last piece goes on to say that R800 will feature a MCM (Multi-Chip Module) solution with two RV870 dies under the same IHS. This rumor has been going around for long, and when they claim it is already made, we doubt it even more. On the other hand, it turned out that the rather poor specifications of RV770 turned out to be completely off and that the unfeasible information of 800 shaders turned out to be right...

1 - 20 of 61 Posts

Havegooda

· #2 · Oct 27, 2008

So...5870s in summer '09?

~Gooda~

joemaniaci

· #3 · Oct 27, 2008

I think people that have either a 4870x2 or dual 4870's will end up being let down by this card, not really much of an improvement.

This is unless they actually do have a dual-core die and 40nm helps with a lot of heat issues.

FallenFaux

· #4 · Oct 27, 2008

2 dies & 1 IHS sounds like a truck full of win to me.

gtarmanrob

· #5 · Oct 27, 2008

so your summer means our winter. so we have a little less than a year to wait for this?

is that right?

damn i hate how fast this industry moves though. i mean, i like it haha. but my wallet hates it.

francesthemutes

· #6 · Oct 27, 2008

I'm definitely waiting for this. I'll hold on to my 3870 for a bit longer.

ZealotKi11er

· #7 · Oct 27, 2008

Just like they rumored RV770 to have 480SP and it came with 800SP. I bet 960SP is just a trick to full nvidia.

Marin

· #8 · Oct 27, 2008

Hopefully both ATI and NVIDIA take awhile to release their new stuff, I want some time with my card.

Somenoob

· #9 · Oct 27, 2008

Quote:

The last piece goes on to say that R800 will feature a MCM (Multi-Chip Module) solution with two RV870 dies under the same IHS. This rumor has been going around for long, and when they claim it is already made, we doubt it even more. On the other hand, it turned out that the rather poor specifications of RV770 turned out to be completely off and that the unfeasible information of 800 shaders turned out to be right...

No more CF on a stick? Lil Dragon must use HyperTransport 3.1.

Licht

· #10 · Oct 27, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by FallenFaux

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2 dies & 1 IHS sounds like a truck full of win to me.

Multi-core GPU... interesting though.

I think like the 4870 this is aimed to be a well balanced card, and the dual version a killer.

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sledgehammer1990

· #11 · Oct 28, 2008

I guess I will probably stick with my plan of buying a second 4870 1GB.

gtarmanrob

· #12 · Oct 28, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marin

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Hopefully both ATI and NVIDIA take awhile to release their new stuff, I want some time with my card.

lol yeah my exact line of thinking.

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grunion

· #13 · Oct 28, 2008

Nvidia is in for a world of hurt, if they can't get a sound multi-gpu architecture going this time around.

Kamikaze127

· #14 · Oct 28, 2008

Looks good to me, I wonder what the green team can cook up by then...

Speedma11229

· #15 · Oct 28, 2008

here is a wiki on it, interesting read

Marin

· #16 · Oct 28, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamikaze127

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Looks good to me, I wonder what the green team can cook up by then...

More optimization...

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-iceblade^

· #17 · Oct 28, 2008

2

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZealotKi11er

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Just like they rumored RV770 to have 480SP and it came with 800SP. I bet 960SP is just a trick to full nvidia.

fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...

or whatever it is

...

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Cheetos316

· #18 · Oct 28, 2008

With 40nm, the dies should be small enough (provided that AMD doesn't try to cram 1600 SPs in the new design) so that they could MCM two dies together under one IHS like C2Qs. But is there something more to the MCM design? Is it just the physical change of the location of the dies so that they will be much closer together?

I doubt AMD will jump back to a 512-bit bus. With GDDR5 speeds increasing, there should be plenty of BW. I hope to see a unified frame buffer so that GPUs can share the entire pool of GDDR.

Deathsnapper

· #19 · Oct 28, 2008

Hmmm I was hoping these would come out in the early-mid spring latest. Might have to get a 4870 some time then.

joemaniaci

· #20 · Oct 28, 2008

2

Quote:

Originally Posted by -iceblade^

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fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...

or whatever it is

...

I was not only thinking the same thing, but thinking of using the exact same quote, definitely can't get away with it again, unless of course they realize that everyone would think that they could get away with that again, in which case they will actually be able to do it again and surprise us all.

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