ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series discussion

[NH|Delph1]

the fact that they only want $299 for a 4870 is a bad sign lol, but ill keep the hope that these cards can play crysis.

"4870" should slide in and replace 3870, price-wise.

//Andreas

[HousERaT]

This looks interesting. Looking forward to seeing some early tests.

[XS Janus]

wow those idle power figures sound to good to be true!

[hollo]

maybe they have some kind of power-saving feature that underclocks them when they're not doing high-end 3d stuff, like CPUs do

[ubuntu83]

wow those idle power figures sound to good to be true!

with those we don't even need powerxpress

[pH(x)]

My Nahalem GPU

[alexio]

maybe they have some kind of power-saving feature that underclocks them when they're not doing high-end 3d stuff, like CPUs do

The R600 and R670 have about 9 clock frequency "domains" in the GPU. I think that these domains are all tweaked already in idle. At least the most important domains (TMUs, ROPs and shaders) are all clocked down in 2D mode and vGPU also drastically drops.

If those idle power numbers are real they must use something to completely shut-down parts of the GPU in 2D, which is something I've been waiting for

[Arkangyl]

Why is $300 for the 4870 worrisome?

The 9800 GTX is coming out at $300, the 3870 is under $200. Right now single-gpu video cards are coming down in price to the point where $300 seems to be the new standard for a top end video card.

[Bobsama]

I'll be happy to spend <$250 for a HD4850 or <$300 for a HD4870. Looking at those numbers--it'll be well worth it. I probably won't buy one until my HD3850 doesn't cut it for medium-high settings. When I got it, it cost $170 (late Q4). I'll likely skip the HD4000 series/generation, and I'm happy to see that RV770 isn't just a rehash of RV670--but actually expands on the good GPU. I'm more wondering how HD5000 will be.

[Crazystang01]

Right I hope the days and price points of cards like the 8800 Ultra are the thing of the past. I like high end stuff but man once you factor in 1 or more gpu's the ever incressing prices of motherboards. The life cycle of said gpu's (besides the 8800 series) the cost of DDR3 even if coming down also ever shrinking PC games coming out. It just doesnt make since.

[[XC] gomeler]

Looking forward to 2 HD4850's to replace my current HD3850's. Just worried about those insanely high clocks, hope it isn't true as if RV770 is anything like RV670, that's about where it maxes out.

[grimREEFER]

what 2series / 3series from ati and 8/9 series fron nvidia CANT play crysis?

what you mean is on a 30 inch LCD with everything up on high so you cna see the blokes penis bludging in his pants?

nothing except the 9800gx2 plays very high decently afaik. 4870x2 will soon join it i imagine.

[HKPolice]

Hahahahaha

That GPU image is photoshopped. Those specs have been floating around for a while now and are fake. It WON'T have GDDR5.

[Hornet331]

zzzz... old fake news dont get any newer or more real if they are reposted....

[dinos22]

looks good on paper

lol GDDR5
goes and orders about $15K AMD stock me thinks
(relax >> only virtual game hehe http://vse.marketwatch.com/Game/Homepage.aspx)

[deathman20]

Well either way the specs look sweet.

Of course the number of ROP's is ok.. perfer to have more of coruse and wonder why they haven't decided to nudge that up actually yet for the performance increase it could get from it. GDDR5 \O/ All right now we are talking, the 256-bit bus... more than enough with the speeds GDDR5 will bring so not worried about that either. Shader increase is great, as well power consumption isn't totally out of the ballpark either.

I'd get a 4870... maybe 2 of them.

As well http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7575.html that was more of an updated story. The clock frequency isn't the 1050Mhz for the core.

From the sounds of it, it more or less sounds like the 4870 is like a referesh of the 3870's. At least according to them if the GT200 from nVidia is suppose to be that much better.

[LordEC911]

Hahahahaha

That GPU image is photoshopped. Those specs have been floating around for a while now and are fake. It WON'T have GDDR5.

How do you know that?

[ryboto]

The R600 and R670 have about 9 clock frequency "domains" in the GPU. I think that these domains are all tweaked already in idle. At least the most important domains (TMUs, ROPs and shaders) are all clocked down in 2D mode and vGPU also drastically drops.

If those idle power numbers are real they must use something to completely shut-down parts of the GPU in 2D, which is something I've been waiting for

It's just undervolting/underclocking like the 3000 series. It's probably a harder undervolt, maybe they're also undervolting the ram, since I don't see an option for memory voltage in the bios editor I used for my 3870.

[ryboto]

I'm very sceptic about those numbers... A HD 4870 has 50% more SPs, 50% higher clocks and twice as much RAM - and yet AMD still manages to magically stay in the power envelope of the HD 3870 (on the same 55nm process). Doubtful at best IMHO.

It may not be in the same power envelope...xbit-labs tested the HD 3870 as only consuming ~81W at load. I think Ati gave the 3870 a suggested TDP of 105W, so we're jumping up a bit, but we're gaining core speed, more die size, and twice as much RAM.

[p2501]

I really wish that these specs are final, I guess playing Crysis with one of the 4870x2's would be a breeze. The release also fits in my upgrade plans, so please please please DAAMIT don't fsck up again!

And I think if the <25W idle is true then this card will really be worth it's money! It would mean that they started listening to what costumers NOT want, wich would be needlessly burning cash on the electricity bill. Then again the 4870x2 would be quite a folding monster I guess..

[alexio]

It's just undervolting/underclocking like the 3000 series. It's probably a harder undervolt, maybe they're also undervolting the ram, since I don't see an option for memory voltage in the bios editor I used for my 3870.

Undervolting GDDR4 or GDDR5 doesn't make much sense as in idle they use so little energy already, atleast GDDR4 does. Do you have a source to back-up your statement about the power savings?

It's not an easy job to just clock the different parts in the GPU really low when in idle. Validating the massive difference in speed between 3D and 2D would be a PITA. ATI GPUs suffer greatly from non working deviders and the like (at least since the R520), certainly in the low spectrum of clocks. Try to clock an R600 or R670 below 250MHz and you'll notice very odd behaviour. Some frequencies will be completely stable while others won't. Like I said it's a PITA for ATI to validate their GPUs at very low vGPU and frequency because of this.

I don't believe any of these cards will use GDDR5 actually.

[XS Janus]

I see Nvidia has some new hybrid power feature that works if you have a nvidia mobo with integrated gpu. It works by disabling the 3d features while doing office work. Explained here
Maybe it is something similar in the works...

[Frank M]

I see Nvidia has some new hybrid power feature that works if you have a nvidia mobo with integrated gpu. It works by disabling the 3d features while doing office work. Explained here
Maybe it is something similar in the works...

AMD/ATi talked about these plans for notebooks some time ago, and the
next revision of 780G-mobile is supposed to support this. Lately nv also
decided that this is a good idea, so they started this too, but theirs
doesn't yet work either.

[003]

Maybe I am the only one to notice but the 4850 is just an underclocked 4870!! Maybe we will see another 2900pro / XT type situation!!! I sure hope so!

[ryboto]

Undervolting GDDR4 or GDDR5 doesn't make much sense as in idle they use so little energy already, atleast GDDR4 does. Do you have a source to back-up your statement about the power savings?

If I load up ati catalyst control center while my pc is just displaying 2d graphics, the core and memory clock of my HD 3870 is 300/800...just ask any 3870 owner, it's a video card version of cool n quiet. There are third party bios editors, that were announced in the news section here. I've used it. You can change 3 different settings, since there are 3 power planes. One is idle/2d, where there's gpu/ram speed, and a voltage adjustment for the gpu, there's a middle range clock speed, can't remember it's numbers because I didn't touch it, and there's a full 3d clock speed, 777/1125?. The voltages were 1.1ish, 1.2ish and 1.37...i think. I changed the idle/2d to 0.975, considering dropping it to the lowest, 0.9v. I've seen a slight drop of 1-2W in idle, so I think it did make work, it's just that at idle, the GPU at these settings is probably already using a minimum, it's other components on the card that are drawing power. Which is why i suggesting maybe they're dropping ram clocks now too, doubtful, it could be possible that they're not just undervolting, but shutting down some of the stream processors?