R700 pics

[xlink]

mmm, want badly. Wish they had MCM'd the cores though, would make cooling them a bit easier.

technically this IS mcming the chips.

MCM= multi chip module.

the module is the card.

and while it'd be easier it'd be less effective.

[JohnZS]

I am an nVidia Fanboy to, just I am tempted by these new red toys!

Oh the red looks very good at the moment.........

besides I have an X38 based motherboard, I am sure that Crossfire will be worthwhile investment with these new 4800 series cards (providing there is no dreaded microstutter or driver god issues).

John

[Helmore]

Hey I am an nVidia Fanboy to, just I am tempted by these new red toys!

Oh the red looks very good at the moment.........

besides I have an X38 based motherboard, I am sure that Crossfire will be worthwhile investment with these new 4800 series cards (providing there is no dreaded microstutter or driver god issues).

John

What driver issues? I'm on an NVIDIA card and I don't consider NVIDIA's driver support very good. I have always had this idea that ATI has better drivers than NVIDIA, but I could always be wrong on that one. All I know from benches so far is that their CFX scales better than SLI.

[JohnZS]

What driver issues? I'm on an NVIDIA card and I don't consider NVIDIA's driver support very good. I have always had this idea that ATI has better drivers than NVIDIA, but I could always be wrong on that one. All I know from benches so far is that their CFX scales better than SLI.

Well perhaps I am being a bit too harsh but basically in my uneducated opinion Crossfire and SLi are both flawed.

These technologies do not support every game out there and require you to pray to the driver gods for a driver which is good for SLi or a Catalyst that supports Crossfire in X-Game or Y-Game....even in some cases a game has to be PATCHED to support SLi/Crossfire.

And then.....we have the issues of st.st..st..stutter this is caused by frame buffer synching (or lack of) which can in some cases give lower minimum frame rates as the CPU is having to do extra work!

Rumours suggest that HD4800 series have somewhat sorted out the way Crossfire works (and yes the scaling is phenomenal) however you still have the same old "this game doesnt work with Crossfire issues"

IF it is true that the HD4870X2 is not Crossfire based and is true multiGPU then wow

John

[safan80]

Well if their 4850 performs like this in ETQW , then I'll doubt well see any problems with their X2 card.

well if it beats the GTX280 and doesn't have stuttering I might get one.

[JohnZS]

What about the Soft Particles?

[kryptobs2000]

So is there any confirmation as to whether the micro stuttering still exist with the 4000 series? Not talking about the X2 and I don't suspect we have any way of knowing that yet anyway.

[w0mbat]

2*RV770XT cores? I heard other things...

[Stanley Pain]

Oh hello there.
Me want.

I'm literally drooling in anticipation

[Unbornchild]

2*RV770XT cores? I heard other things...

Yes. 2 x RV770, according to ExtremeTech:

First, there's the memory controller. Gone is the "ring bus" architecture of the 600-series GPUs. In its place is a new distributed controller design, with the memory interface spread out around the edges of the chip, and memory controllers spread throughout the die near the blocks of render back-ends. Comparatively low-volume traffic like PCI Express, display controllers, and inter-chip communication are handled by a centralized hub. Each memory controller block has its own L2 cache block. The net result is, according to ATI, better bandwidth utilization in less die space. Also new is support for GDDR5 memory, which will find its way to market first in the Radeon HD 4870. We previously wrote about the advantages of GDDR5.



This may be our first hint at what is new with the dual-chip "R700" product coming in a few months—these hubs may communicate between two RV770 chips in a fashion that is more efficient than in past multi-GPU boards.

[bowman]

technically this IS mcming the chips.

MCM= multi chip module.

the module is the card.

and while it'd be easier it'd be less effective.

Not really, it's crossfire-on-a-card.

If it looked like one GPU to the end user and had shared memory, I'd call it MCM.

There are rumors going around that it will have just that but right now I'll just expect a 3870X2 repeat with new chips, and perhaps be pleasantly surprised if it's not.

[flopper]

2*RV770XT cores? I heard other things...

ok, your so dead meat when I get my hands on your sources

[w0mbat]

@Unbornchild: That it will be 2*RV770 is clear, but i heard it will be 2*RV770PRO and not 2*RV770XT.

@flopper: ???

[Unbornchild]

@Unbornchild: That it will be 2*RV770 is clear, but i heard it will be 2*RV770PRO and not 2*RV770XT.

@flopper: ???

So, does that mean: 2 times the HD4850 chip? I thought the naming scheme applied to the cards, not the chip (being the same anyway)?
I thought the chip itself was 770, only the 4850 card is 770Pro, the 4870 card is 770XT.

[w0mbat]

RV770 PRO = 625MHz, RV770 XT = 750MHz
And i think R700 will clk @625MHz because of the heat/power consumption.

[Helmore]

@Unbornchild: That it will be 2*RV770 is clear, but i heard it will be 2*RV770PRO and not 2*RV770XT.

@flopper: ???

But with GDDR5 memory isn't it?

@bowman, then you will be surprise although we still have to wait for how surprise we will be. I don't think it will have shared memory, actually I'm quite sure it wont have that, but the communication between the 2 chips will be a dramatic departure from what we are used to from the R680. Don't quote me on that one, I don't have any sources like w0mbat has and these are just my guesses.

[Helmore]

RV770 PRO = 625MHz, RV770 XT = 750MHz
And i think R700 will clk @625MHz because of the heat/power consumption.

Ah that's probably why AMD hasn't claimed to have a board that can do more than 2 TFLOPs, as 2 x RV770XT would bring you 2,4 TFLOPs.

[Unbornchild]

RV770 PRO = 625MHz, RV770 XT = 750MHz
And i think R700 will clk @625MHz because of the heat/power consumption.

Ahh..ok. But the difference is only the clockspeed, but the chips architecture are just the same?, or are they different too?

[w0mbat]

Yes, only clks, vcore and thus the tdp is different.

[Kasparz]

4870 X2 is not like two 4870s
4870 X2 is a virtually single-chip videocard => any game not supporing crossfire will run great on 4870 X2

As people said, this is crossfire on one card. But nonetheless 4870x2 will be little faster than two 4870 in crossfire due to more efficient bandwidth between cards. So if HD4850 is matching performance with 260GTX, then HD4870 would be matching GTX280. This roughtly means if nVidia would not release something extra ordinary, HD4870x2 will be king by large margin and will turn nVidia high end video card into mainstream performance level.

[Lestat]

i wish these damn card makers would start pointing the power connector UP instead of out to the side or out on the end of the cards.

[Unbornchild]

Of course not. "UP" on the card would mean down in the PC's case, very unconvenient to the power cable. Unless you mean: place it on the backside of the card.

[Monkeywoman]

idonno if u guys saw this or not, "While Radeon 3870X2 relys on the PLX chip to communicate between the GPUs, 4870X2 GPUs will communicate with each other through the memory. Since the GDDR5 is clocked at 1800, the total bandwidth will be roughly 160 GB/s at 1 Gigabyte through the 256bit-bus, compared to the 8 GB/s of the PLX chip of the HD3870x2. Also 4870x2 WILL NOT have micro stuttering." http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=285719

it was posted a while back on vrzone. the shader clock is fud but this part looks like its can be real. anyone wanna take a shot at it?

[Envydia007]

What I can do now is wait for the benchmarks in games and final pricing for this might switch to the red zone.

[disruptfam]

i'll take 2 please