New rumor about ATI Southern Islands

[Carfax]

I'm so puzzled with cult like attitude by some forum members regarding products/companies, it's getting ridiculously ideological & pathetic. I've always get the best bang for the bucks products, manufacturer be damned. I've had good times with both nVidia & ATi cards while they're at the top of the game, such as GeForce 3 Ti, 6600 GT, 8800 GT for the green camp, Radeon 9500, X850 Pro, X1900 XT 256, and the current HD 4870. If i have the need for a new card at the moment, i might easily buy a GTX 460 1 GB for its perceived & appreciated great value. This is just so weird and sad IMHO.

You get points for "appearing" to be contrite

EDIT: To make my self clear, my comment on "I think GTX 480 will still be SUPERIOR .... as a room heater, remember, the cold days are arriving in the northern hemisphere." was forwarded after you make all those FUDs carpet bomb claims. When you ROFLMAOing the leaks and people who hope for the best, i keep my silence.

What FUD comments?

In the end, we're talking about these products as Video Graphic Accelerator, and when the new generation of one company pulls ahead of the older generation of another, i call that a good technological advance and moving on, nothing to get defensive about like what you've done all over this thread. IF the numbers are true, then GTX 480 would be inferior as a graphic chip, aka slower for gaming, nothing shame about that since it has happened for eternity, and you may keep enjoying your personal preferences no problem. Just keep your FUD opinions for your self, else it will be called accordingly by others.

Again, what FUD opinions?

[sniper_sung]

roadmap from chiphell:

[-Sweeper_]

roadmap from chiphell:

384-bit?

[Iconyu]

Wouldn't that make all the benchmarks fake? As I certainly can't see Bart's owning a 480GTX

[tajoh111]

roadmap from chiphell:

Is that referring to performance or pricing. Because it is pricing which is likely, its looks like everything getting priced to what I suspected it would. A 6770 being priced like a 5830... ouch. I think the 6650 and 6670 have to stay at the pricing they are at because they still have to keep some cards under 100 dollars. Man though, if the 6970 gets priced at 699 or 799. The 6950 is priced like a 5970 and those cards are already 700 dollars. Man thats going to suck for the consumer. Makes me scared how pricey the black editions or limited editions will get. Want to replace the 4870x2 but man its going to be pricey.

If it is in regards to performance which is less likely, I think its pretty underwhelming to see the 6850 slower than a 5870.

It wouldn't surprise both are true and performance is as the chart shows as well as pricing is going up for almost the entire line up.

[kadozer]

Lol @ trying to derail this thread about the upcoming 6 series. Greeeeen Envy. Nuff said.

[demonkevy666]

I find it odd that the 6850 would still be under 5870. :/

[saaya]

roadmap from chiphell:

hmmm that doesnt sound that good...
more realistic, but a bit dissapointing...
looks like the 6870 will be close to a gtx480, but definitely not faster... might not even match it...

im really dissapointed that barts doesnt reach 5850 performance...
that would have been killer... a 150-200$ 5850...
it looks like the 6000 series will be a mere update, if this positioning is correct.
this looks like it doesnt deserve the 6000 name imo, according to this table it should rather be:

5990
5980

5890
5880
5860

5790
5780

[Zloyd]

Is this reliable at all ? I mean 6850 to not perform as well as a 5870 ?

That just sounds wrong , well maybe its a little overeaction because it could perform almost as good at a signifiantly lower price and the same with 6870 matching 480 but lower prices.

[Jowy Atreides]

hmmm that doesnt sound that good...
more realistic, but a bit dissapointing...
looks like the 6870 will be close to a gtx480, but definitely not faster... might not even match it...

The 5870 in some games where ATI is favoured already bests the 480.
Since SI strengthens the weakest areas of 5 series performance and also includes a more efficient 4 shader model (and more of them) with a higher memory amount AND bandwidth (as well as more tesselation modules) then it's not very likely that the 6870 will be anything less than the 480 in the worst case scenario.

Definitely faster.

[tajoh111]

hmmm that doesnt sound that good...
more realistic, but a bit dissapointing...
looks like the 6870 will be close to a gtx480, but definitely not faster... might not even match it...

im really dissapointed that barts doesnt reach 5850 performance...
that would have been killer... a 150-200$ 5850...
it looks like the 6000 series will be a mere update, if this positioning is correct.
this looks like it doesnt deserve the 6000 name imo, according to this table it should rather be:

5990
5980

5890
5880

5790
5780

For some reason, I think this is more about pricing than anything. It would seem too screwed up if the 6850 never caught up to the 5870 when there is only a 15 percent between the 5850 and the 5870. It would have to be like only 10% faster and to call that a 6850 would be shameful and misleading.

It would kind of mirror what NV has done with gtx 285 and gtx 275 those and could simply be a super minor update.

But only 10% difference. This could be fake and all but considering the timing of this lineup and the obvious flaws found in some of the benchmarks results, this appears to be more genuine.

The 5870 in some games where ATI is favoured already bests the 480.
Since SI strengthens the weakest areas of 5 series performance and also includes a more efficient 4 shader model (and more of them) with a higher memory amount AND bandwidth (as well as more tesselation modules) then it's not very likely that the 6870 will be anything less than the 480 in the worst case scenario.

Definitely faster.

Who says the 4 D shader rumors are true those. This could simply be 1920 5 d shader like the previous gen which would yield between 10-20% more performance, but even that I think would be too conservative for AMD. However, all AMD needs to do right now to slap NV around is a conservative addition, as their current generation is beating NV pretty bad except for the gtx 460 when you include power consumption. If we look at it from that perspective, the performance falls exactly in line with this chart.


Their is one conflict however with the above chart, If AMD is going to have a 384 bit bus, why would they need ddr clocked at 1.5(6ghz effective) ghz? Thats too much bandwidth for any card.

[saaya]

The 5870 in some games where ATI is favoured already bests the 480.
Since SI strengthens the weakest areas of 5 series performance and also includes a more efficient 4 shader model (and more of them) with a higher memory amount AND bandwidth (as well as more tesselation modules) then it's not very likely that the 6870 will be anything less than the 480 in the worst case scenario.

Definitely faster.

well... on average a 480 IS faster than a 5870, and its at least 10%, last i checked it was around 15% iirc...

and we dont know how well ati tweaked the core and if it really gives a steady boost across the board... i agree, its likely that they wont settle for anything less than 480 performance... but im not sure if they will be fast enough to really beat the 480, as in enabling settings and resolutions the 480 cant...

For some reason, I think this is more about pricing than anything. It would seem too screwed up if the 6850 never caught up to the 5870 when there is only a 15 percent between the 5850 and the 5870. It would have to be like only 10% faster and to call that a 6850 would be shameful and misleading.

It would kind of mirror what NV has done with gtx 285 and gtx 275 those and could simply be a super minor update.

But only 10% difference. This could be fake and all but considering the timing of this lineup and the obvious flaws found in some of the benchmarks results, this appears to be more genuine.

well, despite the fake stuff chiphell has posted in the past i still trust them more than that weird chinese website that leaked those very high benchmark results... and hey, you know me, if i have to chose between optimistic and pessimistic rumors, which one do you think ill go for? ^^

jokes aside, i think the chiphell table makes a lot more sense than the numbers leaked by that other site... seems more realistic... im not saying i believe them... i still have my fingers crossed for bart reaching 5850 performance...

[tajoh111]

well... on average a 480 IS faster than a 5870, and its at least 10%, last i checked it was around 15% iirc...

and we dont know how well ati tweaked the core and if it really gives a steady boost across the board... i agree, its likely that they wont settle for anything less than 480 performance... but im not sure if they will be fast enough to really beat the 480, as in enabling settings and resolutions the 480 cant...


well, despite the fake stuff chiphell has posted in the past i still trust them more than that weird chinese website that leaked those very high benchmark results... and hey, you know me, if i have to chose between optimistic and pessimistic rumors, which one do you think ill go for? ^^

jokes aside, i think the chiphell table makes a lot more sense than the numbers leaked by that other site... seems more realistic... im not saying i believe them... i still have my fingers crossed for bart reaching 5850 performance...

http://www.4gamer.net/games/110/G011...093/TN/002.jpg

The chiphell roadmap, matches this official roadmap more.

The things that matches in this case is the memory bus, both of which are 384 bits.

The thing that really sticks out as fake in those benches is the 256 bit bus in the GPU Z which doesn't correspond to anything mentioned officially so far.

With a 384 bit bus, all AMD needs is the DDR5 they are already using and not this super new 1.6ghz ddr5.

[kadozer]

sorry have to post this from semiaccurate just take it as face value:

New GPU family pricing structure:
(pricing relative to the launch price of the Radeon HD 5000 series cards)

Code:

Antilles: 
Radeon HD 6970 ----------      N/A
Radeon HD 6950 ---------- Radeon HD 5970 ($599)

Cayman: 
Radeon HD 6870 ----------      N/A
     N/A       ---------- Radeon HD 5870 ($399)
Radeon HD 6850 ----------      N/A
Radeon HD 6830 ---------- Radeon HD 5850 ($299)

Barts: 
Radeon HD 6770 ---------- Radeon HD 5830 ($239)
Radeon HD 6750 ---------- Radeon HD 5770 ($159)
     N/A       ---------- Radeon HD 5750 ($109-129)

Turks:
Radeon HD 6670 ---------- Radeon HD 5670 ($99)
     N/A       ---------- Radeon HD 5570 ($79-85)
Radeon HD 6650 ---------- Radeon HD 5550 ($69)

Caicos: 
Radeon HD 6xx0 ---------- Radeon HD 5450 ($49-59)
Radeon HD 6xx0 ----------      N/A

Memory bus width:

    * Antilles/Cayman 384-bit GDDR5
    * Barts 256-bit GDDR5
    * Turks 128-bit GDDR5
    * Caicos 64-bit DDR3

All variants has UVD 3.0.
Performance wise, Radeon HD 6770 will be slightly faster than GTX 460.

Cayman PRO (Radeon HD 6850?):

    * PCB is slightly longer than Radeon HD 5870 (by a small margin)
    * [B]Card TDP <= 200 Watts[/B]
    * 850 MHz core frequency at this stage (may subject to change on the retail version)
    * comes equipped with a vapor-chamber cooler with uneven surface, looks like it would be expensive to make 

So 6870 will be ~ 50w more than the 5870. (pure conjecture) hot hot hot

http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/s...&postcount=333





Good news is we don't have to wait 6 months to find out.

[hurleybird]

Is this reliable at all ? I mean 6850 to not perform as well as a 5870 ?

That just sounds wrong , well maybe its a little overeaction because it could perform almost as good at a signifiantly lower price and the same with 6870 matching 480 but lower prices.

It's obviously not comparing performance, but pricing. First, assuming the road map is legit, AMD would not show their hand by spilling performance like that. Secondly, no way a 6850 based on a part large enough to house a 384-bit memory bus is going to be slower than a 5870.

On one hand, I'm glad to see this alleged 384-bit bus version. Sounds like a monster, a cypress core enhanced and then scaled up closer to GF100 level proportions. In fact, this makes things look like the full design NI was just redone on 40nm despite the cost in die size (however, the fact that 6970 is supposed to come so soon afterwards seems to contraindicate this unless AMD has pulled a rabbit out of its hat in terms of energy efficiency or 6970 uses heavily cut down parts). On the other hand, we won't be able to see a 2GB version, only 1.5GB, and most definitely not 3GB.

[spursindonesia]

@Saaya, i think that Chiphell roadmap is more related to pricing structure, agreed with Tajoh111 there. IMHO, this new generation will imply a higher price structure than the current Evergreen one (a trend that i loathe as a consumer but quite understandable from ATi POV since they want to maximize profit and the cost of goods must also increase in the process, chip is bigger & the specs seem more complex). There's still a hope for a 5850's capable Bart, because if you think Chiphell's leak is quite believable, then the buswidth design of each respective chips seems collaborative with the speculated relatively significant performance increase in this new family.

[RaZz!]

the roadmap is definately based on prices, imo. neither ati nor amd ever used a roadmap like this to categorize performance.

since we saw no price drops in the 5870 era, i pretty much expected the 6870 to retail at a higher price point :/ especially if we consider they'll release the cards before christmas. maybe we'll see price drops after christmas already - atleast i hope so

@saaya: your naming scheme doesn't make any sense tbh i'm confident the performance of these new babies will justify their placement in a 6000 series.

[Sn0wm@n]

hmmm that doesnt sound that good...
more realistic, but a bit dissapointing...
looks like the 6870 will be close to a gtx480, but definitely not faster... might not even match it...

im really dissapointed that barts doesnt reach 5850 performance...
that would have been killer... a 150-200$ 5850...
it looks like the 6000 series will be a mere update, if this positioning is correct.
this looks like it doesnt deserve the 6000 name imo, according to this table it should rather be:

5990
5980

5890
5880
5860

5790
5780

how can a slide with names indicates that this wont beat fermi ????

[saaya]

if ati thinks people will pay more money for faster cards, they dont seem to understand the market very well...
why do you think all dx11 cards combined only make up 5% of the market today?
cause games hardware requirements have stagnated ever since crysis came out... sure, there are one or two exceptions, but overall hardware requirements have not really increased over the past years...
you can play games on dx10 and some even on dx9 and you wont notice a difference...

more performance for higher prices is not going to be very successful i think...
what the market really wants is the same performance for lower prices... i thought ati had realized that...
the s/a rumors sound like the 6k series is going to boost performance, but there wont be any performance boosts for free, the price per fps seems to remain almost the same (bart xt = cypress le = gf104)
same perf, same price... meh...

[tajoh111]

@Saaya, i think that Chiphell roadmap is more related to pricing structure, agreed with Tajoh111 there. IMHO, this new generation will imply a higher price structure than the current Evergreen one (a trend that i loathe as a consumer but quite understandable from ATi POV since they want to maximize profit and the cost of goods must also increase in the process, chip is bigger & the specs seem more complex). There's still a hope for a 5850's capable Bart, because if you think Chiphell's leak is quite believable, then the buswidth design of each respective chips seems collaborative with the speculated relatively significant performance increase in this new family.

I think they need more ROPS those. Look how starved the 5830 is with 16. I think 32 is just enough for the 5870. I think its one of the reason the 5850 and 5870 don't have a bigger difference. With the 6870 they are likely going to add more.

I don't think the 256 bit bus is real though because it doesn't match the official roadmap and thus those benches are fakes, their is just too many flaws overall. Even the original poster implied that they were not genuine.

It doesn't mean the real thing won't live up to those results, it's just that some guy on the internet wanted to get attention and screwed with us a bit, and just posted a few bogus results.

I expect the 6870 to be fast, maybe a bit faster than a gtx 480, but I won't be optimistic. I remember thinking the 5870 was going to be faster than a 4870x2(basically a 4870x2 but with perfect scaling). It was atleast 25 percent slower than that.

Same with fermi, I was expecting a jump to gtx 285 SLI performance. Considering the increase in shaders and the higher clock speed, but as stuff started to leak like the decreased TMU and the reduced clock speed my expectation quickly sank.

The only time I was pleasantly surprised with performance was the 4870 and the 8800gtx. Both of which I can't see happening because 40nm at TSMC is a real pain in the ass to work with and the chips they have already right now are too big.

if ati thinks people will pay more money for faster cards, they dont seem to understand the market very well...
why do you think all dx11 cards combined only make up 5% of the market today?
cause games hardware requirements have stagnated ever since crysis came out... sure, there are one or two exceptions, but overall hardware requirements have not really increased over the past years...
you can play games on dx10 and some even on dx9 and you wont notice a difference...

more performance for higher prices is not going to be very successful i think...
what the market really wants is the same performance for lower prices... i thought ati had realized that...
the s/a rumors sound like the 6k series is going to boost performance, but there wont be any performance boosts for free, the price per fps seems to remain almost the same (bart xt = cypress le = gf104)
same perf, same price... meh...

I think people will pay more for more performance. The economy is starting to recover as tech company like AMD and Intel to show much stronger sales.

Most 58xx chips sold for well above retail. The retail price of the 5850 was 259 dollars. For the most part, the 5850 has sold for decently over 300 dollars because of crappy supply. None of that extra money really was received by AMD and went to retailers.

AMD would be more than happy than to have regular sales where cards were not sold out in hours and make extra money with a higher sale price that they themselves benefited.

Saaya, you think AMD can be really that happy from a 33 million dollar quarters net profit from their GPU department which they paid 5.4 billion dollars for? With their current margins and supply, that the best they can hope for considering how pathetic NV has been for the last 10 months. AMD like their CPU division want to increase their margins because thats the key to having big quarters.

Even those directx 11 cards only represent 5 or 6 percent of the pie. You have to remember, only one company has been really selling directx 11 cards and they were supply constrained. An NV part which most people were waiting for considering their current marketshare overall, has not really delivered and thus, those sale have remained unfulfilled. If NV released a good part(high performance, good power and heat) in october as originally planned, you would see atleast 2 or 3 times the current directx 11 cards.

Right now supply is limited and scalping of videocards show this. The logical thing to do is increase prices so demands doesn't outright outstrip supply and scalping stops. That way they sell pretty much as many videocards(you might not have as many sold out periods) and yet because of the higher margins you make way more money.

[flopper]

if ati thinks people will pay more money for faster cards, they dont seem to understand the market very well...
...

That was called the Nvidia way we make people pay for cards.
They understood the market perfectly, if we have the best card (fastest) we charge for it.

The market isnt made of billions of saaya...individuals

[SimBy]

if ati thinks people will pay more money for faster cards, they dont seem to understand the market very well...
why do you think all dx11 cards combined only make up 5% of the market today?
cause games hardware requirements have stagnated ever since crysis came out... sure, there are one or two exceptions, but overall hardware requirements have not really increased over the past years...
you can play games on dx10 and some even on dx9 and you wont notice a difference...

more performance for higher prices is not going to be very successful i think...
what the market really wants is the same performance for lower prices... i thought ati had realized that...
the s/a rumors sound like the 6k series is going to boost performance, but there wont be any performance boosts for free, the price per fps seems to remain almost the same (bart xt = cypress le = gf104)
same perf, same price... meh...

Well it didn't stop nV fanboys buying ultras for $800 Theres always market for the latest and greatest, no matter the price.

In any case, I wouldn't put too much into this leaks, they may all be fake.

[ilkkahy]

Companies function is to maximase profits and they have bunch of smart people working there who have really hardass-degrees about doing that. Especially this is the case with amd which has bottomless pit of depts. I think companies will sell products with "socialist pricing" only when they need to keep or grow market share. So its not very smart to make card for the masses if it prevents the customers to purchase card for the next 3 years. Customers must be kept little unsatisfied all the time unless they have put really a ton of money to their product (in which case the marketing has done its function). I think that expensive high-end products are always welcome as long as there are good options for the average joe too.

[herderien]

theory crafting can produce 12 pages of comments on names found in a .ini file ^^


good to know :p

[Jowy Atreides]

if ati thinks people will pay more money for faster cards, they dont seem to understand the market very well...
why do you think all dx11 cards combined only make up 5% of the market today?

They will, they will, they will and ..they will.

Fools on the forums I frequent have tri sli 480's to play wow and emulators.
Epeen is all about the ego and we know the number one reason people buy overpriced products, emotional reaction.

Also 5% of the market is PLENTY to make bank profits.
Check the sales figures for all 5 series cards over the last year.

Millions sold to OEM's. Remember the mass majority of comuter buyers couldn't even point out a cpu socket on a motherboard.
They buy whatever the OEM tells them to buy and OEM's like product updates as excuses to force repeat sales.