ATIs R570 Mystery connector

[Pinnacle]

There is also a mysterious connector on the top left side of the PCB. At first, it reminds us of an SLI-style connector for the PCB Bridge, but it could be actually a connector for the second PCB, containing optional HDMI or DisplayPort connectors. For what we know now, it is for a TBD feature (To Be Decided).

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32901

[nn_step]

Wouldn't that explain the two bridges we saw earilier?
Perhaps they will allow Crossfire to be daisychained

[hawkeyefan]

Wouldn't that explain the two bridges we saw earilier?
Perhaps they will allow Crossfire to be daisychained

Quad Crossfire is exactly what I thought when i saw that..

[perkam]

It is for the next generation of crossfire. It will be standard for all future ati cards including the R600. They ran a story on this a while ago.

Basically, ATI would be in patent violation if they used one connector like in SLI, so they use two. Same effect.

Perkam

[Pinnacle]

Could be, I havent seen that though, I seen just one.

[Shadowmage]

This is supposed to be a budget performance part... why is the core so big?

[JuanFlaiter]

This is supposed to be a budget performance part... why is the core so big?

I think it´s an R580 just trying the new PCB.

[cadaveca]

nice card...look at the power delivery...

I wonder who's behind that?

X1950? Rumoured X1900 PCB change?

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

nice card...look at the power delivery...

I wonder who's behind that?

X1950? Rumoured X1900 PCB change?

is it just me, or does that appear to be digital pwm?

[hawkeyefan]

is it just me, or does that appear to be digital pwm?

I'm half-blind, but I see no mosfets?? you might be right

[nn_step]

is it just me, or does that appear to be digital pwm?

Looks almost like it. WIsh I had a better Res Image

[onewingedangel]

The die size is larger because the crossfire compositing engine is integrated into the core - the seperate die to the left of the gpu on the pcb is the rage VIVO chip.

[MaxxxRacer]

In general that PCB design is VERY strange compared to what we have been seeing from ATI and nVidia recently.. digital PWM would indeed be interesting.

[nn_step]

In general that PCB design is VERY strange compared to what we have been seeing from ATI and nVidia recently.. digital PWM would indeed be interesting.

would definately make volt mods easier

[Kallenator]

Looks like a lot of open space, why not shorten the card?

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Looks like a lot of open space, why not shorten the card?

equal trace length to have properly filtered voltage, you see after each length of trace there is a ceramic capacitor to filter the voltage, id assume if they recieved pulses out of sync then they would have voltage flux on the other side of the caps.

this could deffiently help ati with effeciency and lower their high power draw. maybe they realizing not everyone wants a mini nuclear reactor in their case to be able to power their gfx.

[[XC] Lead Head]

There are two mosfets down in the lower right hand corner, but still...thats not alot of PWM circuitry compared to the x1800/1900, also note that the PCI-E power connector looks like its only using 3 of the pins instead of 6? Could the r570 be that low on power usage?

[alexio]

Looks like a cheap PWM to me. Could be that some components will be added as this is only a beta or even alpha version.

If the PCB +- stays the same as in the picture it will be cheap to manufactor and the card will not use a lot of power (because the PWM can't deliver it).

Conslusion:

1.) Low-cost
2.) Sucks when OC'd, high chance of dying when vmodded.
3.) The perfect competitor for the 7900GT.

I'm affraid the core can actually clock sky-high, but this can never be done safely because of the crappy PWM
I hope manufactorers will design their own PCB if the one in the picture is anything close to the final design.

[Kallenator]

equal trace length to have properly filtered voltage, you see after each length of trace there is a ceramic capacitor to filter the voltage, id assume if they recieved pulses out of sync then they would have voltage flux on the other side of the caps.

Equal trace length thats ok with me, but stil why so long. Since this is PWM the traces will be almost like antennas and those shouldnt be long. And long traces doesnt help stableing voltage.

Unless they have put the traces in one of the inner layers of the pcb and have put powerplane over and under them?

Maybe we should just wait and see :p

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

There are two mosfets down in the lower right hand corner, but still...thats not alot of PWM circuitry compared to the x1800/1900, also note that the PCI-E power connector looks like its only using 3 of the pins instead of 6? Could the r570 be that low on power usage?

i think you mean upper right hand corner.

and those are for the fan, you can see the fan header right beside them.

[jbizzler]

Since the bridges don't come with current Crossfire motherboards, and there's twe of them, I'm betting each card will come with one bridge. This is great. It will allow something like an X1900GT to be paired with its true peer, not a twice as big XT-ish crossfire board. I hope R580+ uses this too.

[[XC] Lead Head]

Anyone notice the white lines marking the where the heatsink should go, if you noticed, its a semi circle around the PWM area, like where the fan should go, new heatsink ?


@West, Doh, yeah that thing in the lower right is definetly digital pwm, 4 Phase by the looks of it (4 legs on top), so it *should* be sufficient to do some nice OCing.

[Kallenator]

The top silk* (white lines and component markings)

Looks like the other holes are the same except its missing the two holes that holds the mosfet heatsink on todays x18/900.

[turtle]

Doe anyone have that pic of the 8 layers dissected (silk top)?

I saw it linked on B3D to a chinese website. I was going to post it in this thread yesterday, but it was subsequently deleted not long after I saw it . Surely that would help those more educated in engineering than I figure out the finer points of the pcb design.