New rumor about ATI Southern Islands

[Eastcoasthandle]

If this is true I get the impression that these naming schemes were designed for their APUs.

[Ejizz]

Even AMD people are smart enough to avoid that stupid naming scheme and performance gains

Performance is ok considering it's 40nm and they don't want to do an Nv. Naming scheme is damn awful though...

[Manicdan]

It's not.

The 6970 is a single gpu chip.
Barts takes the 6870 name, cayman = 69xx

Consider the 6870 to be the 6770 and the 6970 to be the 6870

The 6770 (6870 rebrand) is 90% of the 5870, brilliant. Bigger price = bummer.
But still 200 euros is what the 5850 costs and this should be a little faster

dont worry, i was already corrected for my miss-thinking

and i do agree that the names should have all been shifted down one level, and just drop the lowest level the currently have and make that a little more powerful. honeslty, who would care that a 62x0 is 2x stronger than 52x0 for a little higher cost

[Erklat]

62x0 is 2x stronger than 52x0 for a little higher cost

Those cards should be phased out soon since there is no longer need
for the uber cheap dedicated cards with consideration we're getting into an
era when IGPs are going to take over that market segment. My .02, you
might disagree

[johnieboy]

OMG i bet none of you guys answering to the 3D Center chart has read the google translation of the article

The whole chart is based on a thread at pcinlife.com.

3D Center consider them a unreliable source, as you can see if you read the article.


A very reliable source for a change is David Hoff, director at AMD. Techradar.com had the chance to do a small interview:

http://www.techradar.com/news/comput...ristmas-717388

The important things:

"It's certainly more than changing a sticker," he said with a grin. "I wouldn't say it's an absolute, complete from the ground up new architecture .It's a nice, different architecture."

He confirmed that it wouldn't just be the high-end card hitting the shelves by Christmas either. It wont be the full lineup, but we will see multiple SKUs of the card with the complete range following very quicky.

[Olivon]

OMG i bet none of you guys answering to the 3D Center chart has read the google translation of the article

Yes, I did

[Manicdan]

^^ it was a hard read when everything is in a sucky translation and a few words not translated at all.

[Mechanical Man]

fake?

This is apparently legit picture. Sampsa said @ muropaketti that his source has Barts PRO who confirmed this picture.

[generics_user]

one thing i gather from this thread:

with each release AMD manages to spread even more confusing fake information to mask their real plans

with 3870 they simply held off die size and clock speeds; 4870 they spread wrong information about SP count (480 vs 800), die size and memory and on 5870 every single rumour was proven to be at least partially wrong but we new everything about the naming scheme...

with the expected change in architecture i think that everything we learned so far is at least 90% wrong; we have no idea about efficiency, amd never talked about its new improved archiecture, we have no clue about model numbers and positioning, power consumption is in the dark as well, clock speed rumors (especially on memory) are wild guesses at best and shader count is unknown too thanks to the arch changes

i have to give amd credit for hiding their real intentions and performance like no one else in the industry does and i think that every speculation right now is based on wrong information and only there for pure entertainment

[Sn0wm@n]

any rumors about release date yet ???

[Florinmocanu]

It's also there to show who squeaks. Because they give an info to a company and a different info to another, like they did with eyefinity project.

This way, they know who broke the NDA.

[ajaidev]

"WE'VE SPENT A fair bit of time over the last month pondering the upcoming Radeon series from AMD. Specifically, the card which is rumored to be the 6770 is of interest. Sure the bigger cards get the crowns and bigger fanfare but this should be a card that most of us are more likely to buy given the price ranges.

The 6770, or Barts, has been rumored to have a 256 bit memory bus. This seems to break Radeon tradition in this price category. A 128 bit bus is simpler, takes up less die space and saves a little on the PCB. Keeping costs down is a definite AMD/ATi strategy as of late. A few dollars here and there really makes a difference on these cards. Why would AMD want to increase costs? Is a bigger memory controller really going to make a worthwhile difference? Many are saying no, Barts doesn't need twice the bandwidth of Juniper. Does it? Lets examine."

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/09/...islands-barts/

[Mechanical Man]

any rumors about release date yet ???

18th of october for Barts PRO & XT whole lineup released next year, some other cards in this year tough.

[-Boris-]

Since people seem to have confused SI with NI, could it be that the lost shader isn't a change we'll see in HD 6xxx?

[Sn0wm@n]

Since people seem to have confused SI with NI, could it be that the lost shader isn't a change we'll see in HD 6xxx?

maybe the confusion was created because of the announcement about tsmc's cancelation of the 32nm node so it created an hybrid shader design rumor ... but it seems like its really a re-organisation of the shader layout from what i understood from severals thread on the subject

dont take it as gospel ... its my understanding of how those rumors started and what it is now closer to the release of the product

[STEvil]

"WE'VE SPENT A fair bit of time over the last month pondering the upcoming Radeon series from AMD. Specifically, the card which is rumored to be the 6770 is of interest. Sure the bigger cards get the crowns and bigger fanfare but this should be a card that most of us are more likely to buy given the price ranges.

The 6770, or Barts, has been rumored to have a 256 bit memory bus. This seems to break Radeon tradition in this price category. A 128 bit bus is simpler, takes up less die space and saves a little on the PCB. Keeping costs down is a definite AMD/ATi strategy as of late. A few dollars here and there really makes a difference on these cards. Why would AMD want to increase costs? Is a bigger memory controller really going to make a worthwhile difference? Many are saying no, Barts doesn't need twice the bandwidth of Juniper. Does it? Lets examine."

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/09/...islands-barts/

Its a balancing act. They might be able to pull off a fairly cheap 256bit PCB for a core that doesnt use a lot of power and come out with a GPU that gets performance close to a 5850 or 5870, kind of like the 5770 closed in on 4870/4890 territory.

[TheBlueChanell]

I'm gonna wait a few more weeks until buying into any of this renaming/specs hype. It's been a fun read though.

If I could make up numbers:

Barts Pro - GTS450 Price 5830-5850 Performance
Barts XT - GTX460 Price 5870 +/- a tad performance

[RPGWiZaRD]

If we're gonna speculate I'm guessing:

Barts Pro - ~GTX460 1GB performance or like ~5% better in some cases, $199
Barts XT - Same/slightly above (3~5%) HD5850 performance in avg, $249~259

[Olivon]

If we're gonna speculate I'm guessing:

Barts Pro - ~GTX460 1GB performance or like ~5% better in some cases, $199
Barts XT - Slightly above HD5850 performance in avg, $249~259

Yeah, That's my bet too RPGWiZaRD

Barts Pro - GTX 460 1 GB
Barts XT - Full GF104

Cayman Pro - GF110/102 (GTX 470 replacement)
Cayman XT - GF110/102 (GTX 480 replacement)

Something like that ...

[tajoh111]

If we're gonna speculate I'm guessing:

Barts Pro - ~GTX460 1GB performance or like ~5% better in some cases, $199
Barts XT - Slightly above HD5850 performance in avg, $249~259

I think it will be like this too.

Something tells me the 5850 performance is true because apparently partners that had the card confirmed such performance.

I am slightly more pessimistic and think Barts xt might perform a tad worse than the 5850 if the specs on the leak slide is true. Somewhere along the lines of 5 to 10 percent worse.

Is the 4 D shader rumor debunked if that slide is true? Where did this rumor come from. I think Charlie sources are not bad when it comes down to the chip level(tape out dates and chip sizes), but when it comes to performance and specs, he is not accurate at all.

I think the barts parts are going to be expensive this generation because the cards seem so huge(the pics atleast) compared to prior generations.

I think this generation will be more about AMD cashing in on weak competition than really providing a serious improvement. If the size of the die is correct, which is along the lines of 380-400mm. I can see 480-640 shaders being added without any new technology being added and giving it enough power to beat a gtx 480.

[RPGWiZaRD]

I am slightly more pessimistic and think Barts xt might perform a tad worse than the 5850 if the specs on the leak slide is true. Somewhere along the lines of 5 to 10 percent worse.

Yea I'm with you on this, it depends a bit which source I look at what I expect of it, ranging from like 0-10% worse performing to 0-5% better performing. :p With the specs in the slide I'd say pretty much on par with it or a few % below it. But time will tell as usual, just fun to see how close u get to reality.

[flopper]

I guess we see better fps and performance from dx10.1/dx11 games than dx9 and dx10 with the new series.
Looking forward its just a few weeks now.

[Russian]

This is apparently legit picture. Sampsa said @ muropaketti that his source has Barts PRO who confirmed this picture.

Its legit.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news...122c-2010.aspx

[thebluemeanie1]

Its legit.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news...122c-2010.aspx

Poor GTX 460s 128 bit bus.

[tajoh111]

Poor GTX 460s 128 bit bus.

Man Theo should do some fact checking before he publishes his articles. If he can't even get the specs of current products out, I don't know how he is going to be taken seriously with future products.