ATi 4870X2(R700) PCB Debut

[JohnZS]

I must admit this looks like a huge step forward (again) from the red or are they now black? team. Who would have thought that when Jen Husung or whatever his name is from nVidia was talking about opening a can of Whoopass he was talking about a Can given to him from those clever Canadians at AT Technologies.

Does anyone know when this R700 card is going to be released?

I was waiting on the HD R4870 1GB and planning to CF them, but if this card is out in July then I would be wise to wait as it maybe cheaper or around the same price but better performance than 2 x HD4870 1GB cards.
Would you be able to access the full 1GB of RAM on the R700 or is it going to be the same old 512MB of VRAM due to the way multiGPU's work?
John

[AriciU]

I'm in the same boat. I will be in a position to buy 2 x 4870 on the 8-10th of July. I was wondering when this will be launched since i won't have to change my motherboard if i get it instead.

[largon]

Surprised to see it's black and that there is a bridge chip...

But anyways, it's multi GPU that means I'm not interested.

[Metric]

Looks like no one has one of these up yet, but here's a comparison on PCB length compared to the HD3870X2 and 8800GTX/Ultra and the mounting holes for aftermarket compared to the HD3870X2 (Looks very close. edit: Correcting for lens distortion (the HD4870X2 was taken at a slight angle), the mounting holes likely match it seems ):

[zerazax]

The mounting holes look close to the 3870X2... that would be sweet if we didn't need a new water block for it!

[quake6]

But there isn't any aftermarket cooler except for water,and you cant use it because of different digital position (those between rv770 chips and above plx)

[largon]

It appears there's a dedicated phase for the bridge chip with inductors and all. Gotta be one hot bridge...

[Helmore]

It appears there's a dedicated phase for the bridge chip with inductors and all. Gotta be one hot bridge...

Where? As far as I can see, each GPU chip has it's own dedicated power supply circuitry.

[largon]

Below the vDDQ inductor which is below the slave GPU's choke pack. Big square inductor with tantal cap on it's left and low&high mosfets on the right.

[xlink]

I'm wondering if the performance will be the same with two 4870's in CF.

if they managed to get chip to chip communication done via hardware then it'll be faster.

sadly I count 16 memory chips so it'll either be a 512bit card or it won't.

I really don't know now.

[Philip_J_Fry]

yeah looks like its not shared memory (or is it?? ) ....

hopefully it will be less than $599USD MSRP with all those GDDR5 chips

[w0mbat]

Believe me, that thing is gonna crush gtx280 so hard, even chuck n. could do that

[largon]

It's clearly just like HD3870X2; 256bit per GPU.
Shared memory is nothing but a myth. It's practically impossible to implement as no bridge chip can offer the required bandwidth.

[triple_A]

i think it's really cool to see ATi catching up.
Now, all i need is a new fps that is so terribly demanding on graphics power and i'll get one

[F.stop]

good looking board.like it alot better than red

[Philip_J_Fry]

@largon
ahh thanx for clearing that up

[quake6]

This 4870 X2 will come with gddr5? Or with gddr3?

[AriciU]

DDR5 normally. They would be stupid to put ddr3 on their topend card.

[largon]

Chips' part #s and traces looks like GDDR5.

[Hornet331]

Believe me, that thing is gonna crush gtx280 so hard, even chuck n. could do that

bohu... no surprise there, its 2xRV770... if it dont beats a single 280gtx it would be a utter failure.

better question is, if it can beat 2x4870 in CF, if the rumors are true and the R700 is lower clocked ,i dont think it beats 2 4870.

[F.stop]

good positioning of the power connectors facing down like that. works well routing cables down

[largon]

Too bad in most cases the PSU is above the cards...

[F.stop]

Too bad in most cases the PSU is above the cards...

so is mine im thinking down a little and through the slots in the mb tray, then up round the back to psu. see what i mean ( good case needed)

[annihilat0r]

Meh, so the single memory pool rumors are wrong, and it's 512MB GDDR5 for each card? Meaning this uber-top end card will have only 512MB memory?

I guess 1GB DDR5 x 2 would be too expensive, though.

[adamsleath]

i hope that's a super-clever-chippy inbetween the gpu's

...any chance of squeezing more ram onto that card? or is it just impossible at this point?

either way; yes, i'm interested.