The ATI Radeon 5XXX Thread

[BenchZowner]

A birdie said "the 5870 is beating a GTX 295 in some cases, and is following the GTX295 closely in most cases".

[jaredpace]

yah it should be faster than a 4870x2 - and probably trade blows with the 295 which puts it near the speed of 4890 CF.

It's like you guys are saying: 4870x2 specs (shader/tmu/rop) plus 40% greater memory bandwidth minus the associated crossfire overhead. but instead of having multi-gpu in two dies communicating through the plx chip, it all happens on one die, so no overhead or bottlenecks.

[saaya]

Seriously saaya, to make your price analysis worthy you ought present some type of research to back up assumptions on equilibrium price-point of market demand and production output...

Yeah I know it sound difficult, and perhaps even AMD didn't do any research, perhaps they just look upon performance of their new parts, and performance of NV offering and decided to put some price-tag (not saying that what Theo And Charley are claiming is true prices - hell I'm pretty sure there's no way they could have official pricing leaked)

you can spend an infinite amount of time and money on researching the perfect price points in a given market... the easiest and safest way is still this:

start at the top, then lower your prices and monitor demand, if it stops picking up, keep the price the same or even increase it a bit again (read: stop giving special discounts to certain customers) then repeat this as time goes by since the market continues to evolve and mfc prices drop...

its really very similar to fishing

so yeah, atis approach makes sense, if thats what they are doing... i think they are starting at a too high price point though... and if you do that, you risk losing a lot of peoples attention, and, you risk seriously pssing off customers who bite early and find the same piece of hw for half the price a few weeks later... thats what nvidia ran into with their 8800 and 280 series...

if you start too high and then drop prices more and more, people become more reserved and sit back and wait to see how low your going to go... and the price point where demand then picks up is lower than it would have been if you wouldnt have started too high to begin with...

yeah this really is so much like fishing... its pretty obvious why so many business men enjoy fishing hehe

so, if you start too high you either have to drop prices too fast and that means people wait and you end up dropping the price a lot, or, you play the waiting game and drop the prices steadily, but then your risking that somebody else will throw in their worm at the right spot during the right time and steals your attention

[saaya]

399$ = 275€ = cheap to me .

399$=!275E... if hardware launched at 299$ worldwide in the past it was usually 299E in europe, thanks to VAT...

so 399$ will be 399E or 349E, not 275...

A birdie said "the 5870 is beating a GTX 295 in some cases, and is following the GTX295 closely in most cases".

was it a turacu or a flamingo? ^^

[Xoulz]

As to your first parts, you are correct, dual GPU cards like the 4870x2 don't increase the bandwidth vs a single GPU card but it also doesn't decrease it.
Each 800SP/40TMU/16ROP RV770 has 115GBps of bandwidth vs a 1600SP/80TMU/32ROP RV870 that has 160GBps.
Basically you are, possibly, more than doubling the potential throughput of the 5870 while only increasing bandwidth 39%, which was my original point.
Sure you don't have the inefficiencies of AFR and a dualGPU setup but you also run into other potential problems/bottlenecks.

I just have a feeling that we are in for a few surprises when we actually get to take a look at the architecture and performance, there is obviously quite a bit of tweaks/info that we haven't heard about/thought about.

PS- Before those Vantage scores were leaked, there was talk about Cypress running near 4890CF, which would put it in the same league as a GTX295.

Yeah dude, you^^ nailed it!



Secondly, I think people are pricing these too high. The 5850 Will debut @ $269, dropping to $225 by Xmas. The 5870 will debut @ $369 and carry a $299 price tag till next summer.

The X2 line will get it's own specialized treatment and starting @ $400 ...!


Some very interesting stuff coming though, specially since they are getting closer to dual-GPU (ie: dual core).. the cross-communication is getting sophisticated and whoever lith is most advanced and robust, will be the class leader of this next gen!

Expect the X2 to gobble Crysis ~ ARMA 2 and give a really immerse experience. We know nVidia's is going to outperform and cost more, but the X2 has the potential to upset nVidia's business plans.

The rest is already a forgone conclusion, given that they are already marketing the 300 series, as re-branded cards. nVidia's can only compete in the high-end market and if ATi does this X2 right... nVidia might have a shake up!

[jaredpace]

About the press invites not for the September 10 function:
quote:
Just an update ... if you're sitting on the fence about going, I would recommend Deciding quickly, I'm down to only a few spots left. In case you did not Google it and figured it out, the event's being held on the USS Hornet aircraft carrier across the bay from SF to Alameda.

If you've already dropped me an e-mail you should have heard back from me by now. (If you did, PM me or write me again. ... Gmail was pretty wonky yesterday)
[...]
Bring a camera, Flip video camera, whatever you like. The whole joint will have wifi, so you can post pics and vids from the event live.

http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/...ssage/32521301

And there was the other message from the "AMD girl @ gmail.com" that said there would be plenty of chips & cookies to snack on. So sounds like it's going to be a fun time, hopefully they show us some comparison benchmarks, and reveal some official specifications.

[Farinorco]

I don't find those prices "too high" at all. If they're nearly twice the power of previous gen, with DX11 support, they'll become basically an unrivaled product, with no competence at all. That increases the value considerably, because they are unique features: do you want a DX11 card? Buy that one because there is no other. Do you want the most powerful? The same. And so on.

We have had the chance to see this on the latter NVIDIA launches, with their 600$ 8800GTX / 800$ 8800Ultra, and their 650$ GTX280, and all the people paying those prices.

So I don't really think a 399$ top card would be nothing exorbitant. I'd say it's actually a very mild pricing given the circumstances, probably due to AMD wanting to recover market share as fast as possible.

Of course, other completely different thing will be when NVIDIA enters again to the market. Then, prices will depend on what each one have to offer, and for how much. If NVIDIA releases a faster and cheaper product than that, then AMD will have to lower their prices.

[jaredpace]

We have had the chance to see this on the latter NVIDIA launches, with their 600$ 8800GTX / 800$ 8800Ultra, and their 650$ GTX280, and all the people paying those prices.So I don't really think a 399$ top card would be nothing exorbitant. I'd say it's actually a very mild pricing given the circumstances

That's a good point. Those were all fastest cards at the time. Ati having the fastest cards ATM and charging 299 399 and 599 is actually quite a bargain for the consumer considering the alternative .

[BenchZowner]

399$=!275E... if hardware launched at 299$ worldwide in the past it was usually 299E in europe, thanks to VAT...

so 399$ will be 399E or 349E, not 275...
was it a turacu or a flamingo? ^^

Think it was a red macao

[Xoulz]

I don't find those prices "too high" at all. If they're nearly twice the power of previous gen, with DX11 support, they'll become basically an unrivaled product, with no competence at all. That increases the value considerably, because they are unique features: do you want a DX11 card? Buy that one because there is no other. Do you want the most powerful? The same. And so on.

We have had the chance to see this on the latter NVIDIA launches, with their 600$ 8800GTX / 800$ 8800Ultra, and their 650$ GTX280, and all the people paying those prices.

So I don't really think a 399$ top card would be nothing exorbitant. I'd say it's actually a very mild pricing given the circumstances, probably due to AMD wanting to recover market share as fast as possible.

Of course, other completely different thing will be when NVIDIA enters again to the market. Then, prices will depend on what each one have to offer, and for how much. If NVIDIA releases a faster and cheaper product than that, then AMD will have to lower their prices.

Apparently, you completely missed the global recession going on. ATi would kill themselves if they released their new cards that high. ATi already knows they'll have a 3 month reign (before the holidays) to sell everyone they can make.

While Nvidia plays lip service and slides.

Money talks! ATi doesn't have to play the market, they can completly walk away with it!

ie:
HD5850 (2GB, DX11) for $225 by Xmas ...!





Also remember, there are 20million living in New York, half hit by a recession, their buying power alone is 50% of Spain. People are hurting, ATI isn't so aloof they would disregard the economy, as you apperently have...!

[Farinorco]

Apparently, you completely missed the global recession going on. ATi would kill themselves if they released their new cards that high. ATi already knows they'll have a 3 month reign (before the holidays) to sell everyone they can make.

While Nvidia plays lip service and slides.

Money talks! ATi doesn't have to play the market, they can completly walk away with it!

ie:
HD5850 (2GB, DX11) for $225 by Xmas ...!

Also remember, there are 20million living in New York, half hit by a recession, their buying power alone is 50% of Spain. People are hurting, ATI isn't so aloof they would disregard the economy, as you apperently have...!

I don't really think that recession is affecting the prices of computer components in any noticeable way, so I don't think AMD should be the only company aware of that situation in the world, but if you think so...

I've seen the Core i7 releasing for the usual price for a new CPU, the X58 boards for the usual price of a high end chipset, now they are going to release the P55 platform with the usual prices for the performance segment, hard drives of top sizes for the usual huge prices... only thing I see going down are SSD, and way slower than I'd think a year or two ago.

[BenchZowner]

ie:
HD5850 (2GB, DX11) for $225 by Xmas ...!

There's no word to describe how impossible this is...

Wishful thinking doesn't even come close.

For what it's worth, a HD5870 2GB will more than likely cost 350 - 399$.

[dan7777]

is there going to be a 5870x2 ?

[saaya]

Think it was a red macao

ohhh hows he doing these days? hahahah

i agree with xoulz, i dont think they can keep those prices up, if those prices are correct to begin with... but then again, like others here pointed out, without any competition they can ask for pretty high prices and cash in... but, like i said previously, they shouldnt be too greedy and start with too high prices and then slash them over and over... if prices are too high then a lot of people will enter a wait and see winter sleep until gt300 and larrabee arrive, cause the perf/$ was never as high for vgas as it has been in the past year, and the requirement for games has never been so low as in the past year either... lets face it, nobody really NEEDS a faster vga right now unless they upgrade their displays to a higher resolution first... and nobody NEEDS dx11 with barely any dx10 titles around thanks to consoles holding everything back to dx9...

so i think ati should try to focus on volume and not too much on making high margins with low volume, cause it might end up being really really low volume... then again, whip out the fishing gear and start teasing and we will see how it will work out

as long as juniper is priced nicely i wont complain

xoulz, i dont think 5870x2 will have any technological advancements regarding to multi gpu or dual core gpus etc... thats complete nonsense... before anything like that will make sense you need a high speed low latency bus like HT or qpi and not pciE, and youd need to do lots of logic reworking and adding to make propper use of both gpus more efficiently... and all that for what? you might get 25% extra performance out of a dual gpu card that way... thats not really worth all the effort i think...

is there going to be a 5870x2 ?

yes, but not at launch...

[Olivon]

so 399$ will be 399E or 349E, not 275...

You're right saaya, 399€ seems plausible.

But HD5850 is maybe a better deal. Is it only frequencies differences between those two cards ?

[Smartidiot89]

You're right saaya, 399€ seems plausible.

But HD5850 is maybe a better deal. Is it only frequencies differences between those two cards ?

My guess is lower binned GPU (obviously) with lower frequencies, and perhaps it will use different/lower binned GDDR5 memory modules? There has to be some difference betweeen the cards imo, if not it will be another HD3850/HD3870 situation were it was obsolute

[saaya]

largon braught up a good point in the other thread just now... 870 is a big gpu and 40nm yields are far from perfect... they cant throw away bad parts, and the next lower part they could use these gpus for is juniper with 800sps... thats a lot lower... so it makes sense if the 5850 is actually lower in specs and has less sps and maybe even other blocks disabled... 1200sps should be enough tp beat the 285 easily and gives them enough headroom to get even notably damaged rv870 cores sold without losing a lot of money on them...

[Kylzer]

Ok so if its 100 less than the gtx285 then what would that be here cause the gtx285 is about 250 so maybe it will 199.99 ?

[Calmatory]

largon braught up a good point in the other thread just now... 870 is a big gpu and 40nm yields are far from perfect... they cant throw away bad parts, and the next lower part they could use these gpus for is juniper with 800sps... thats a lot lower... so it makes sense if the 5850 is actually lower in specs and has less sps and maybe even other blocks disabled... 1200sps should be enough tp beat the 285 easily and gives them enough headroom to get even notably damaged rv870 cores sold without losing a lot of money on them...

So HD5850 would go EOL in few months once the process matures? Or would AMD start to cripple the fully functional HD5870 cards to HD5850 cards because of high demand for the cheap 1200 SP cards?

A good plan for the first few months, which will backfire with good yields.

[iboomalot]

looks like its EBAY time for my 4870x2 and EK nickel block and live on my backup card for a couple weeks

oh wait is there a 5870x2 coming out soon ? or just the 5870 ?

[informal]

So HD5850 would go EOL in few months once the process matures? Or would AMD start to cripple the fully functional HD5870 cards to HD5850 cards because of high demand for the cheap 1200 SP cards?

A good plan for the first few months, which will backfire with good yields.

Nope ,they will just lower the clock speed on GPU or both on GPU and memory.Voila ,you have the 20-30% less performance with the same shader count- HD4850 all over again

[saaya]

Ok so if its 100 less than the gtx285 then what would that be here cause the gtx285 is about 250 so maybe it will 199.99 ?

nobody said 100$ less than GTS285... theres a rumor saying 100$ less than GTX295...

So HD5850 would go EOL in few months once the process matures? Or would AMD start to cripple the fully functional HD5870 cards to HD5850 cards because of high demand for the cheap 1200 SP cards?

A good plan for the first few months, which will backfire with good yields.

hw mfcs really dont care about selling fully functional silicon partly disabled... they sell top bin silicon as lowest bin in huge volume all the time as well... the more yields improve the lower the price diference between 5850 and 5870 could get i suppose, they could balance it out that way

looks like its EBAY time for my 4870x2 and EK nickel block and live on my backup card for a couple weeks

oh wait is there a 5870x2 coming out soon ? or just the 5870 ?

only 5850 for now, then 5870 shortly after and then 5870x2 "soon"

[FischOderAal]

and those investors know more about running amd than amd does?

Two words: shareholders value.

So HD5850 would go EOL in few months once the process matures? Or would AMD start to cripple the fully functional HD5870 cards to HD5850 cards because of high demand for the cheap 1200 SP cards?

A good plan for the first few months, which will backfire with good yields.

Doesn't matter. That's how it has been all the past years, why should it change? Why can many AMD X3s be unlocked to X4s? Why were there so many X1800 GTOs that could be unlocked (until ATI introduced a laser cut?)?

[Bgriffs]

So HD5850 would go EOL in few months once the process matures? Or would AMD start to cripple the fully functional HD5870 cards to HD5850 cards because of high demand for the cheap 1200 SP cards?

A good plan for the first few months, which will backfire with good yields.

What I'd like to see if these specs are true would be some kind of HD5850+ model once the process improves. Charge a bit more or something and EOL the 5850.

[saaya]

like the gtx260 216sp?
yeah wouldnt be surprised if amd did that... provided the 5850 IS cut down in hw specs...