ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series discussion

[pinto]

4850 is also with 2x6pin connectors, although is equipped with drr3 memory, so there is no way 4870 to be with only one . I'm quite sad, that ati left behind the 6+8pin configuration. It looks like it brings bad luck to GTX 280, just like R600 a year ago .


They shall start pray and go to fire a candle in order ati to fail in their effort .

4850 use only one 6pins PCI-E connector.

[alexio]

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Nahh I just have that avatar because I dislike Nvidia's marketing program

[[XC] gomeler]

I hope some 4850's come with GDDR4, would make for killer "budget" cards

[bedlamite]

Well i don't think so.
If i'm correct GDDR4 were quite expensive and weren't much better tan gddr3, thats why allmost nobody uses them...

[aNNixP]

anyone got me adresses from chinese / japan / taiwan webshops which got the 4k series already in stock ?

[SimBy]

Looking forward to 48x0 launch, as are all the Nvidia users after those GTX 280 and 260 numbers

Perkam

I guess the problem is price. GTX is just too expensive for the performance it offers.

[GAR]

I guess the problem is price. GTX is just too expensive for the performance it offers.

It will drop soon, in a month or two it will be around $499 when all the hype is gone.

[JohnJohn]

Hello guys im new

Does anyone knows something about the claims that the new Ati cards will have phsics capabilities?? I think i heard from some slide from amd that it will, what is it known about this?

It´s looking good for the Ati camp xD

[Xello]

I'm going to break it down for both of you....

It's actually a pretty simple concept (even i could work it out!)

Seems they don't want to get it

[mascaras]

RV770:



http://we.pcinlife.com/thread-951255-1-1.html###

regards

[Hornet331]

lol mascaras beat me by seconds.

[v_rr]

In that diagram pay attention to "CrossfireX Sideport".
On the right side of the image.

What it is? New technologies to crossfire?

[Hornet331]

thats not a official pic, its by Edison and how he thinks RV770 looks like.

[emoners]

still no pics of the 4870 guys?

[Stuen4y]

still no pics of the 4870 guys?

There were some pics, the cooler looks mostly like R600 cooler, but there are no real tests, only predictions...

[zerazax]

That's only a mockup?

[fng77]

lol mascaras beat me by seconds.

mascaras is very fast when it comes to posting new info.

[w0mbat]

That's only a mockup?

I think so.

[v_rr]

thats not a official pic, its by Edison and how he thinks RV770 looks like.

How do you know?

Is that is difficult to know from where are the real source. And in Edison post there is nothing saying that or the opposite.
We will have to wait more to know something more.

[zerazax]

Well if true, compare that to:


CrossFireX Sideport... probably used as a dedicated lane/path for chip to chip communication? Might be what R700 has in store for us, as there were hints that R700 was designed early on for multi-GPU support, so a dedicated area of the chip for it might make sense

Anyways, 4 paths on the ringbus (4 x 64-bit memory controllers) it looks like each with RBE's (4 x 4 = 16 ROPS/RBES). But it looks like they beefed up the RBEs too cause each has 4 units instead of 2 within them.

Shaders look to be set in 10 arrays of 16 ALU's (x5 each) for 80 SP's per lane so that means there are 40 TMU's. Looks like the 4:1 ALU:TEX ratio is maintained from R600 but the raw units are significantly beefed up.

If that figure is indeed true, it could be amazing! I was definitely thinking 32 TMUs as well w/ w0mbat but at the same time, 32 TMU's suggests 8 arrays of 20 ALUs which seems a little "long"

[JohnZS]

I don't know anything, in fact I am probably just as creditable as "le Fud" or "Teh Inq", however the way I see it would be that the HD4850 series would be more or less equal in terms of performance as the 260GT series.
The 1GB HD4870 would be within 5%-10% (slower) than the GTX280.

HOWEVER

The ATi cards would be a lot cheaper, I mean at the moment you are talking £460 for a GTX280. I estimate the Radeon 4870 1GB GDDR5 will be around £350

The only reservations I have when it comes to turning from Green to Red (yep call me a shameless nVidia fanboi if you must) are.

1) Poor FSAA performance. The R6x0 series cards were dogged with FSAA performance issues.

2) Lack of Physx support, yes it is not really a big deal now.....but will it become one?

3) ATi compatibility issues, this might sound like a mindless fanboy rant here but back in the day of my Radeon 9700 I had a few issues with games due to a lack of support by the Devs for ATi cards (SimCity 4 and Metal Gear Solid). Later the X1800XT had issues to, due to not quite fully supporting Shader Model 3 (a lack of Vertex Texture Fetching). I just dont want to end up getting a card which lacks dev support or something...

4)Heat and Noise, lets face it the X2900XT cards were blimin hot and noisy.

Although that sounded pretty much like my Green Side talking, the ATi cards do have a lot of positives.

1) DirectX 10.1. Yes it is not a big deal now...but it will be....soon?

2) If rumours are correct, design should be more elegant and less power consumption.

3) Crossfire.. Yes I know Crossfire is pretty much the Devil's poison but my Intel X38 Chipset supports Crossfire...and it means I might be able to buy another card further down the line to enjoy this (Thanks to the evil Green Team locking their SLi in a cupboard marked nForce only).

4) Image Quality, Traditionally speaking ATi have always had better quality for Videos and FSAA and Texture Filtering...the G92 did kind of perhaps level this however I am sure that ATi with their double precision will regain the Image Quality Crown.


At the moment I am close to ordering a GTX280, (Zotac AMP), however this shameless nVidia Fanboy may change back to the red team....and is eagerly awaiting the reviews for the HD4870 1GB (DDR5)

Speaking of which....when are the reviewers allowed to remove their gags and give us something to read and salivate over?

Here endeth my mindless waffling

John

[Hornet331]

How do you know?

Is that is difficult to know from where are the real source. And in Edison post there is nothing saying that or the opposite.
We will have to wait more to know something more.

Simple mathematics

several fillrate tests from 4850 in the wild show ~19500MT/s and clock of the Card (TMUs) is 625Mhz

with 32TMUs and 625mhz you get a theoretical fillrate of 20.000MT/s
with 40TMUs at 625mhz you get 25.000MT/s.

i dont think RV770 is that inefficent.

[initialised]

Can't say too much due to NDA but it seems like ATi's press release of 30-40&#37; better than G92 GT for the 4850 are correct, not enough time to bench thoroughly due to a PSU brown out.

Thanks for the tip about the TIM, was necessary and did help!

BTW we should have new nVidia cards soon.

[AliG]

I had a feeling from when andreas said there would be 800 shaders it would have 40 TMUs, simply because you'd be running into retarded alu : text ratios, that and I can't see ati changing the architecture that much as the r600 was designed to be modular and highly scalable, there would be no need to create new shader array structures etc

[AliG]

Simple mathematics

several fillrate tests from 4850 in the wild show ~19500MT/s and clock of the Card (TMUs) is 625Mhz

with 32TMUs and 625mhz you get a theoretical fillrate of 20.000MT/s
with 40TMUs at 625mhz you get 25.000MT/s.

i dont think RV770 is that inefficent.

shh! 8 TMUs are a sleep, that's why you only get 19500 MT/S instead of 25000 MT/S

I honestly think that the card has 40 TMUs, for one its kinda hard to fake a diagram like that, and since there are 10 shader arrays, that would mean there are 10 clusters of 3.2 TMUs, which I don't think is likely. That, and ati would further weaken their tex : alu ratio if they stuck with 32 TMUs. If the 480 number was correct, I could see 32 TMUs working out as that would actually increase the ratio from 1:4 to 1:3, but since there are 800, 40 makes more sense