ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series discussion

[DRT-Maverick]

I imagine that hardware infused might also mean that the cores can share all the RAM between each other, who knows?

[LordEC911]

If they're already shipping to Retail/OEM then AMD know the final clocks & they have been set. At least for the 4850.

Found this and it doesn't look like it was posted before.

It seems that AMD has begun shipping its first Radeon HD 4000-series video chipset. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 is purportedly already on its way to card manufacturers and stores, and will represent a significant boost to the clock speed of the earlier, mid-range 3850 without affecting its heat; the core speed jumps from 670MHz to 800MHz while still occupying a single card slot.

Pricing is still a contentious point, those who claim to be aware of AMD's plans say. The company may wait until the day of the announcement itself to set a price and has given itself a price range between $179 and $219 for a stock card with 512MB of video memory. A last-minute price choice will purportedly let AMD meet an expected June 18th real-world launch without having to adjust costs ahead of time.

The uncertainty over the pricing and the launch date also likely reflect a same-day release of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX, which will initially target the high end but should create pressure on AMD to make its lower-cost cards more affordable.

Higher-end cards from AMD, including the Radeon HD 4870 and the 4870 X2, are expected to ship later in the summer.

+900mhz on the HD4870 is pretty much set now.
That 1050-1075 core clock definitely seems to be doable...

[fng77]

More news, or rumors I might say. Not much new:

http://www.overclock3d.net/news.php?...mour_roundup/1

[mcbalaban]

http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showth...916#post431916


And by the way, I'm an ATI fanboy...

[Luka_Aveiro]

http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showth...916#post431916


And by the way, I'm an ATI fanboy...

So? ATI HD4870 scored higher than a 8800Ultra and almost doubled HD3870 score, what's wrong about it?

[informal]

So? ATI HD4870 scored higher than a 8800Ultra and almost doubled HD3870 score, what's wrong about it?

He seems to be confused,performance is just fine.And also Vintage is useless BS marketing benchmark.We need performance figures in real world gaming.

[003]

More news, or rumors I might say. Not much new:

http://www.overclock3d.net/news.php?...mour_roundup/1

That is old, and proven fake.

[perkam]

Vantage numbers for either cards are about as useful as a library in Mariah Carey's house.

We have no idea how to translate 3d07 (vantage) scores into 3d06 and 3d05 numbers because there is far too little consistency across the different cards. 3D 06 numbers will STILL be the ones that matter this time around, as it has gone through a few revs. FM is already talking about a new revision coming out so 3d 07 numbers will be useless till those come out.

Perkam

[Miwo]

I am still wondering how much memory bandwidth will come into play. Whether or not the gains of the 4870 over the 4850 are a result of the DDR5, or simply just the higher Core/Shader clocks of the 4870, or a combination of both. If its anything like the 3850 vs 3870, most of the speed improvements come from the increase in core speeds. If the same pattern follows, it may be much more economical from a Cost/Perf perspective to buy a 4850 (hopefully AIBs will add 1GB DDR3 variants), and voltmod the snot out of it.

[Buck47]

Vantage numbers for either cards are about as useful as a library in Mariah Carey's house.

Perkam

[Macadamia]

Vantage numbers for either cards are about as useful as a library in Mariah Carey's house.

We have no idea how to translate 3d07 (vantage) scores into 3d06 and 3d05 numbers because there is far too little consistency across the different cards. 3D 06 numbers will STILL be the ones that matter this time around, as it has gone through a few revs. FM is already talking about a new revision coming out so 3d 07 numbers will be useless till those come out.

Perkam

Well... I think CJ has said that the ATI parts are made up, he spread the original GTX scores though.

Flame me for trying, but I think one segment where the 4870 will be VERY competitive with the GTX 260 is 3DMark Vantage, while in other titles it's back down to price.

Vantage is very shader-heavy. It does strain on texture a little, but not to the extent that it does to the shaders. All in all, High/Xtreme is quite a good representation of what DX10 future titles will be

[trinibwoy]

Nearly every single shader heavy game or synthetic benchmark still runs faster on G80 including Vantage.

Higher theoretical Flops + lower efficiency != Faster

[Macadamia]

Nearly every single shader heavy game or synthetic benchmark still runs faster on G80 including Vantage.

Higher theoretical Flops + lower efficiency != Faster

Fillrate, Z and tex (it still strains the units, just not as much to give G94 a lead). I think RV770 addressed that.

There's no competition that G80+'s shaders are more efficient, but R600+'s limited components gave its shaders too much of a bad name.

[mcbalaban]

Yea, sure guys... I wasn't lying when I said I'm an ATI fanboy, I just got so used to ATI being over-hyped that auto-sarcasm has gotten the best of me.

In any case, I'll be much nicer being pleasantly surprised if the 4k series performs 20% better than that chart (or downright religiously ecstatic for any number higher than that), than it will be when it performs only 5% better than that.

Think about it! What if all ATI fans chaged their attitude to mine?...
Then we could have threads like this with folks saying stuff like "Man, I can't wait to buy the next ATI card... We'll get owned by nVidia so badly that the cards wil reach S3 prices within a week!"

And that, my friends, would leave the nVidia camp with nothing troll about!

Catch my drift?

[informal]

More news(from questionable source i must admit ):
http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-53...rice-drop.html

It was considered that the video card radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4850 will be proposed for $349 and $249 moreover in the first case buyer will obtain video card with 1Gb GDDR5 memory . According to extract from official AMD document , dated 26 May, the company notified its partners about reduction in the recommended prices of video card HD 48XX .

In particular, Radeon HD 4870 with 512mb GDDR5 memory will be proposed for $329, and Radeon HD 4850 with 512mb GDDR3 memory will be proposed for $229. Thus, AMD reduced the initial prices by $20.

Associates also report that Radeon HD 4870 will be approximately up to 40% faster than GeForce 9800 GTX, and Radeon HD 4850 will prove to be 10% faster than the same Nvidia video card .

[trinibwoy]

Fillrate, Z and tex (it still strains the units, just not as much to give G94 a lead). I think RV770 addressed that.

There's no competition that G80+'s shaders are more efficient, but R600+'s limited components gave its shaders too much of a bad name.

Yes RV770 will benefit if those areas are improved. However, my point was that even if you isolate the shaders R6xx's performance falls short of its potential. So RV770 will certainly benefit from shader improvements as well.

Check the perlin noise test in Vantage - it's pretty much a pure math test and the architectures are in a dead heat.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles3/video/vantage2.html

Also, take a look at the geometry shader heavy particle simulation test. This is supposedly a strong suit of the R6xx architecture yet it falls way behind. Just pointing out that you shouldn't get too caught up in marketing or theoretical numbers.....

Having said that, I fully expect HD4870 to be a more compelling option that HD3870 was. The pricing alone belies that possibility.

[AliG]

But the fact remains that HD4870 > 9800, RV770 > GT200 price-wise, and R700 > GT200 performance-wise, and probably price-wise aswell.

That can never happen with the state amd is in right now, if the 4870x2 outperforms the gtx 280, we'd definitely know it with a $150+ boost in price. However if amd had plenty of money, then yes they may want to do what they did with th athlons again

[zerazax]

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=13600

WTF Radeon 3950 as well? Revised RV670 or cut-down RV770 cores?

Interesting to see the SP counts are hidden for an AIB partner while the Nvidia cards are already out and about - either ATI is really confused or unsure or they're keeping a tight lip on the SP counts and have something up their sleeves

[AliG]

probably that's the rv670 a12 revision

[Macadamia]

Yes RV770 will benefit if those areas are improved. However, my point was that even if you isolate the shaders R6xx's performance falls short of its potential. So RV770 will certainly benefit from shader improvements as well.

Check the perlin noise test in Vantage - it's pretty much a pure math test and the architectures are in a dead heat.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles3/video/vantage2.html

Also, take a look at the geometry shader heavy particle simulation test. This is supposedly a strong suit of the R6xx architecture yet it falls way behind. Just pointing out that you shouldn't get too caught up in marketing or theoretical numbers.....

Having said that, I fully expect HD4870 to be a more compelling option that HD3870 was. The pricing alone belies that possibility.

If I remember the RV670 loved vertex, was neutral on pixels and hated geometry (shaders).

More like tasks the compiler can split up properly but still, GS isn't widely used in current DX10 titles. The cloth simulation test is an eyedropper though.

I wonder if the cache for synchronization in every (cluster of MPs?) ALU of the G80+ helped here, considering RV670 has to reach the registers instead of the sideway cache.

[trinibwoy]

If I remember the RV670 loved vertex, was neutral on pixels and hated geometry (shaders).

Yeah it has a considerable triangle setup advantage but since games are mostly polygon shy this doesn't help.

I wonder if the cache for synchronization in every (cluster of MPs?) ALU of the G80+ helped here, considering RV670 has to reach the registers instead of the sideway cache.

The parallel data cache is used by CUDA and geometry shaders AFAIK. However, it is no faster than accessing the register file (this is the fastest memory on a chip and is closest to the ALUs).

[zerazax]

CJ at B3D posted this about the R700 Vantage scores:

But for now I'll leave you with this... what does a HD3870X2 score in Vantage on the Extreme Preset? Some reviews I found on the net say a HD3870X2 scores about X2600 with Cat 8.3... Well according to a source of mine who I trust and who has proven to be correct most of the times before...

you can double that... and some more for the R700 Vantage X-score...

Wow, that would be way more than the GTX280 score leaked by him..

[003]

probably that's the rv670 a12 revision

Yeah, wasn't ATI going to be releasing a revised HD3000 lineup along with the HD4000 series, that is supposed to be able to clock higher than the current ones?

[zerazax]

Yeah, wasn't ATI going to be releasing a revised HD3000 lineup along with the HD4000 series, that is supposed to be able to clock higher than the current ones?

Yeah the rev A12 cards. Fud claimed it was canned, but then again Fud knows nothing about ATI hardware it seems.

If true though, that should give a good indicator of where the 4850 and 4870's slot. If a 39xx series is faster than the 38xx series, it should place it close to the 8800GT and so 4850 would be a bit faster, probably close to the 9800GTX as hinted by rumors.

[003]

CJ at B3D posted this about the R700 Vantage scores:



Wow, that would be way more than the GTX280 score leaked by him..

Damn that would put it somewhere around the X5600 range!!

If that is really true, I am going to be buying dual 4870X2s for quad CFX.