New rumor about ATI Southern Islands

[MrMojoZ]

Who gives a rats a$$ what name a card has? What maters is performance/features, TDP, price. The rest is just useless mental masturbation.

There will be lots of people screaming about the change on internet forums. I read internet forums. I also hate when people complain about things that don't actually matter. See the connection here? I can see the train wreck coming, can't you?

[hurleybird]

I'll be alright with Barts being 6870 if Barts outperforms cypress. If it doesen't I'll be completely not-ok with it, and I will call them out. If Barts is slower in dx10/faster in dx11, I'll just be mildly disgruntled.

In any case, I hate the confusion that this barts-6870 rumour is causing. Makes it confusing not knowing what someone means when they say 6870. I'll be very pissed at NH and the other sites on board with the rumour if it turns out false.

[informal]

IF the clocks and SP counts are correct for Barts,AMD succeeded in "milking out" around 25% increase in performance per SP vs Evergreen line(normalized clock Vs 5850).This is very good achievement and if Barts XT manages to beat 5850 then kudos to them.Looks like that Cayman will be ~1.5x faster than Cypress(1.25x IPC * 1.2x SP increase) ,if it is 1920SP or 2xBarts. Many "ifs" so far

[demonkevy666]

IF the clocks and SP counts are correct for Barts,AMD succeeded in "milking out" around 25% increase in performance per SP vs Evergreen line(normalized clock Vs 5850).This is very good achievement and if Barts XT manages to beat 5850 then kudos to them.Looks like that Cayman will be ~1.5x faster than Cypress(1.25x IPC * 1.2x SP increase) ,if it is 1920SP or 2xBarts. Many "ifs" so far

not tessellation from what I've just found... >_>....

[hurleybird]

not tessellation from what I've just found... >_>....

Not tesselation in regards to *what*? And where/what is the thing you just fuond?

[LordEC911]

not tessellation from what I've just found... >_>....

Why? Because some of the features specifies a "tessellation unit" in singular?
I very much doubt that AMD didn't improve tessellation performance. I'm of the mind that the "leaked" benchmarks point to what we should see out of Cayman in regards to tessellation performance.

I don't think the problem is the tessellation unit but more than likely there is another bottleneck that they have addressed to improve the performance.

[tajoh111]

There will be lots of people screaming about the change on internet forums. I read internet forums. I also hate when people complain about things that don't actually matter. See the connection here? I can see the train wreck coming, can't you?

You are thinking short sighted.

If barts is named the 6870, the pricing of it has to be 259 most likely 299. No damn way will they allow the 6870 to be priced under 200 dollars. What does that do to cayman pro and cayman xt and why the name change to 69xx? It is to justify a higher price. Cayman will start at 399(it a substantially bigger chip and xt will probably hit 499-550. The naming scheme is all being changed to allow higher chip pricing.

If a 5770 was 1/4 the price of a 5970 and a 5870 was .66 the cost of a 5970. Look what it does to the pricing of antilles. Welcome to the 800 dollar graphics card.

Its really scary for the consumer because honestly, it been a while since such small chips(die size) were so expensive. Last time it happened, AMD and NV were doing some price fixing. Atleast with fermi, you know they have to sell it for so much because it is such a expensive chip to make because of size and yields. This could be really bad for the consumer as Nvidia takes a hit. In a worse case scenario, until Nvida responds, we have NV selling below cost to be competitive vs AMD raping us on chips, ala Athlon x2 vs core2 duo days.

[demonkevy666]

Why? Because some of the features specifies a "tessellation unit" in singular?
I very much doubt that AMD didn't improve tessellation performance. I'm of the mind that the "leaked" benchmarks point to what we should see out of Cayman in regards to tessellation performance.

I don't think the problem is the tessellation unit but more than likely there is another bottleneck that they have addressed to improve the performance.

one unit is fine if it can handle it but it in some places it can't so more is better to split the work up with.
The only bottleneck I've seen is that one 5870 isn't accessing memory as fast a two 5770 can.

[LightSpeed]

You are thinking short sighted.

If barts is named the 6870, the pricing of it has to be 259 most likely 299. No damn way will they allow the 6870 to be priced under 200 dollars.

Man, they will look at the performance of the competition and price the cards accordingly. Naming has nothing to do with it. Maybe $30 give or take, but just because they are named 6850 instead of 5750 doesnt mean theyl charge a load more just because the name says so. If the 6870 is faster than the 5850, theyll price it at around 5850 levels I guess. If its slightly slower, no way will they charge a price higher than the 5850, let alone $299.

Yeah people will scream renaming, etc. But after what nv has done, this is nothing. Sure it still doesnt look too good, in fact its not good practice IMO, but if this helps them earn $$ let them earn it. They could have earned much more from the 5xxx if TSMC didnt muck it up so bad..

Nvm lets see how things pan out

[tajoh111]

Man, they will look at the performance of the competition and price the cards accordingly. Naming has nothing to do with it. Maybe $30 give or take, but just because they are named 6850 instead of 5750 doesnt mean theyl charge a load more just because the name says so. If the 6870 is faster than the 5850, theyll price it at around 5850 levels I guess. If its slightly slower, no way will they charge a price higher than the 5850, let alone $299.

Yeah people will scream renaming, etc. But after what nv has done, this is nothing. Sure it still doesnt look too good, in fact its not good practice IMO, but if this helps them earn $$ let them earn it. They could have earned much more from the 5xxx if TSMC didnt muck it up so bad..

Nvm lets see how things pan out

Naming has everything to with pricing. Why would they bump everything up a tier? Just for kicks? If cayman is in the 69xx range, its to justify the higher price.

If these cards(barts) are named as the 68xx range, people will think they are the natural successor to 58xx range, and more willing to pay a higher price. Considering alot of people are still on 4xxx and gtx 2xx hardware. They might think this is a good deal, but they are getting the same price/performance as the generation of old.

AMD probably felt they priced their cards too low this round because their cards sold above MSRP and they want to collect that extra revenue rather than retailers. This raised pricing stops scalping because demand won't outstrip supply because of pricing.

[bamtan2]

I'll be alright with Barts being 6870 if Barts outperforms cypress. If it doesen't I'll be completely not-ok with it, and I will call them out.

jesus h christ why do people even post or think these things. why would they ever ship a new product that is worse than the old one??????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????? THEY WOULDNT, IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN

[RPGWiZaRD]

Are you telling me you expect 6870 to outperform 5870? Not gonna happen. Cayman yes, Barts not very likely.

[-Boris-]

jesus h christ why do people even post or think these things. why would they ever ship a new product that is worse than the old one??????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????? THEY WOULDNT, IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN

You haven't been around for long? 9800GTX? Willamette? And HD3870 was often slower than 2900 XT.

Besides, I don't think anyone says that 6xxx will be slower than 5xxx. What people is saying is that they are making some changes in the naming system, so a HD 6870 will be slower than a HD 5870, but, it's only because HD 6870 is the successor to HD 5770. The successor to HD 5870 is HD 6970, and that one will be faster.

[LordEC911]

one unit is fine if it can handle it but it in some places it can't so more is better to split the work up with.
The only bottleneck I've seen is that one 5870 isn't accessing memory as fast a two 5770 can.

Or maybe because the CF 5770 has double the setup engine?

[sutyi]

I say we wait, cause only at the launch will reveal the final naming scheme. Although HD 5800 Series will probably get an EOL when the HD6000 Series launch, I think selling Barts as HD 6800 Series with roughly same performance as HD 5800 cards would be the worst marketing decision since nVIDIA rebranded the good ol' G92 trice.

[Kuroimaho]

I say we wait, cause only at the launch will reveal the final naming shame. Although HD 5800 Series will probably get an EOL when the HD6000 Series launch, I think selling Barts as HD 6800 Series with roughly same performance as HD 5800 cards would be the worst marketing decision since nVIDIA rebranded the good ol' G92 trice.

I concur, so we should wait before we call it a naming shame.

AMD had another bad quarter so maybe they try to squeeze a little extra with the inflated naming from the average gamer, but it could also very well be just part of the disinformation they release to cover the real facts.

[bamtan2]

You haven't been around for long?

9800GTX? Willamette? And HD3870 was often slower than 2900 XT.

Besides, I don't think anyone says that 6xxx will be slower than 5xxx.

1. since tseng labs
2. those weren't worse than what they replaced. anandtech: "On average, the Radeon HD 3870 gives us a 6 - 10% increase in performance over the more expensive, less featured, louder Radeon HD 2900 XT. Not bad for improvement over the course of 6 months."
3. that is exactly what he said, which is why I replied

[Iconyu]

You haven't been around for long? 9800GTX? Willamette? And HD3870 was often slower than 2900 XT.

Besides, I don't think anyone says that 6xxx will be slower than 5xxx. What people is saying is that they are making some changes in the naming system, so a HD 6870 will be slower than a HD 5870, but, it's only because HD 6870 is the successor to HD 5770. The successor to HD 5870 is HD 6970, and that one will be faster.

The Willamette was actually a little faster, but only on code optimised for it, without SSE the P4 was very weak, alas it wasn't that much stronger with it. It only really found it's legs on Windows XP, which is why Intel have been more careful this time with AVX, they are making sure it's obviously faster, and the chip doesn't suffer when it's not used.

The 3870 vs 2900 doesn't count, X9X0 has been reserved for the highest end parts on the current naming regime, and ATI stopped making highest end single chips with the 2900. It's like saying that 6870 is slower than the 5970 and being upset about it.

9800GTX, no one can defend that... sorry.

[hurleybird]

one unit is fine if it can handle it but it in some places it can't so more is better to split the work up with.
The only bottleneck I've seen is that one 5870 isn't accessing memory as fast a two 5770 can.

Twice the triangle setup rate and two tesselation units vs. one. HD 5870 has faster memory access as those 5770s most of the time are accessing the same information at the same time.... at the same speed. And, ummm, even if the 5770 did magically double usable bandwidth you're looking at two 128-bit controllers using slower memory.

So, yeah, guess I'll just ignore that thing you said earlier about tesselation in 6xxx

[Xoulz]

5000 series will be EOL in 5 months. There is no point in discussing it. What do so many SP's matter..? The stuff that constantly causes jitter in games is the thousands of textures being loaded and unloaded. Specially in MMORPG, or Guild Wars(2), etc..

A $159 AMD 6850 will be the defacto-standard for 24" gaming.

[Olivon]

Are you telling me you expect 6870 to outperform 5870? Not gonna happen. Cayman yes, Barts not very likely.

I think he's right !

I really don't see HD6870 performs worst than HD5870 (or HD6850<HD5830 ...) if not, it's a big naming mistake from AMD.

[sutyi]

I concur, so we should wait before we call it a naming shame.

AMD had another bad quarter so maybe they try to squeeze a little extra with the inflated naming from the average gamer, but it could also very well be just part of the disinformation they release to cover the real facts.

LOL. I meant to type scheme. Guess I have to start proofreading my own writing.

Yeah it could be fud from AMD themselves, like the 480SP info before the HD4800 launch.

[kaktus1907]

If price is right who cares the name ?

[RPGWiZaRD]

I think he's right !

I really don't see HD6870 performs worst than HD5870 (or HD6850<HD5830 ...) if not, it's a big naming mistake from AMD.

Well it won't happen if the floating around specs are correct at least, 960 SPs (60% less than 5870) and 850MHz core clock. Ofc there is the 4D shader array change and possibly other changes we don't know about yet but that there would be over say 35~40% increase in performance efficiency from internal changes I really have a hard time believing for Barts. I would be happy/satisfied if it can beat HD 5850 with such specs, that would be quite an accomplishment already with that amount SPs.

[flopper]

I think he's right !

I really don't see HD6870 performs worst than HD5870 (or HD6850<HD5830 ...) if not, it's a big naming mistake from AMD.

why?
any gamer playing at 1920x1080 or lower which is what 80% or so of gamers, dont need more powerful cards than that.
todays cards are enough for them.
so they buy a great performance card at the price range.

I look forward the 6900 series.
not confused by naming as it shows the low end is soon going away and the 200 level will be the decided cash cow.
Most buy those cards around there.
The 6800 series seems to fit there nicely.