AMD Cayman info (or rumor)

[Calmatory]

You forgot one minor tid-bit... The slower GDDR5 generally has tighter timings. As such, with both at the same bandwidth over-all the wider-bus will generally end up the faster, albeit by what amount this effects things remains to be seen.

Sigh.

What do tighter timings help when the cycle delay is lower? They don't. Just as there is no replacement for displacement in engines, there is no replacement for raw bandwidth.

Look at the timings from DDR1 era and compare them to DDR3 era. And see how the performance has been increasing. The only difference between e.g. 166 MHz DDR1 CAS 2 and 667 MHz DDR3 CAS 8 is that the latter gives quadruple the bandwidth. The CAS latency is exactly the same. It has been near the same for a decade, though there has been some progress, it's far from the progress in bandwidth.

Obviously in situations where there are just small few byte memory accesses and the limiting factor is the latency, the difference between such DDR1 and DDR3 is slim. But when doing tons of memory operations the difference is tremendous. Given GPU <-> VRAM bandwidth(What, ~180 GB/s these days?), the limiting factor most of the time is the bandwidth, not the latency.

[generics_user]

Why would anybody buy 6950 if "6950 = 5870"? Clearly 5870 is going to be much cheaper...
Also, interesting die size figures. Cayman has ~370mm^2 die size, GTX580 has ~530mm^2. I wouldn't say that Cayman is a chip with a big die, then.
And 1920sp for 6970 is back, heh...

lower power consumption, higher tesselation performance, possibly better ocing

[hurrdurr]

1920SP and only "faster than 5870?" I think those could be wrong...

Plus 2x6pin for 225W seems a bit low... 2x6 would be a max of 225W already, yes I know 6 pins aren't actually limited to 75W but GPU design isn't like that, usually..

Plus, that chart seems to underestimate performances, HD6870 is closer to HD5870 than to HD5850.

[Kristers Bensin]

lol even nvidia admitted that 6970 is faster than 580 in unigine so i guess thats less talking about unigine for nvidia from now on

That's GTX 570 in the slide

1920SP and only "faster than 5870?" I think those could be wrong...

Plus 2x6pin for 225W seems a bit low... 2x6 would be a max of 225W already, yes I know 6 pins aren't actually limited to 75W but GPU design isn't like that, usually..

Plus, that chart seems to underestimate performances, HD6870 is closer to HD5870 than to HD5850.

yep 6870 is very close to 5870 performance, like 4-6% from its performance with only 70% of its shaders.

[tajoh111]

You guys "being disappointed" with the product placement slide of AMD: I can't understand you, a month before there was the Analyst Day and there was another product placement slide which placed HD6970 significantly below HD5970... nobody took care of it then, but now people don't want to believe this.

Thats because people for some reason got unreasonably optimistic about this card and generated excuses that the placement on the slide didn't equate to the 5970 being faster than the 6970.

The hype has gotten out of control for this card and people are realizing the gravity of such high expectations. The higher your expectations are, the more likely something is going to let you down. I remember reading 30-40% faster than a gtx 580, 80% faster than a 5870 during this thread.

Noticed the r300 tag has been removed because the original poster realized this card is not shaping into one and such a reappearance is unlikely.

[Picao84]

Conspiracy Theory:

When Charlie said that allocation for HD6950 was changed to HD6970, what if there wasnt a change in the chips? Imagine HD6970 was going to be 1920 SPs, and instead of a real allocation from 1536 SPs to 1920 SPs, what was changed was just the name?

The chip might have 1920 SPs, but launched with only 1536 enabled. This would give space for AMD to launch a HD6980 in the future, or even a renamed product for the 7xxx series, while waiting for the 28nm process to mature (quite possibly it will only be available on Q42011 or Q2012).

I cant imagine them developing another 40nm chip meanwhile. Maybe they are just playing their cards for the near future?

[zalbard]

lower power consumption, higher tesselation performance, possibly better ocing

Now this is what I am hoping for. There are rumours saying that the voltage regulation and OCing is quite similar to desktop CPUs, this means we might be able to achieve 30-60% OCs!

[zalbard]

Conspiracy Theory:

When Charlie said that allocation for HD6950 was changed to HD6970, what if there wasnt a change in the chips? Imagine HD6970 was going to be 1920 SPs, and instead of a real allocation from 1536 SPs to 1920 SPs, what was changed was just the name?

The chip might have 1920 SPs, but launched with only 1536 enabled. This would give space for AMD to launch a HD6980 in the future, or even a renamed product for the 7xxx series, while waiting for the 28nm process to mature (quite possibly it will only be available on Q42011 or Q2012).

I cant imagine them developing another 40nm chip meanwhile. Maybe they are just playing their cards for the near future?

If their top model (6970) does not have every single unit enabled then it is a major fail no matter how you look at it. And since AMD has very little problems with 40nm tech and their chip isn't GIGANTIC so there is really neither room nor reason for such a move.

[Heinz68]

Why would anybody buy 6950 if "6950 = 5870"? Clearly 5870 is going to be much cheaper...
Also, interesting die size figures. Cayman has ~370mm^2 die size, GTX580 has ~530mm^2. I wouldn't say that Cayman is a chip with a big die, then.
And 1920sp for 6970 is back, heh...
Fecking rumours!

That's the Chuck Norris special edition I did hear a lot about it.

[zerazax]

Conspiracy Theory:

When Charlie said that allocation for HD6950 was changed to HD6970, what if there wasnt a change in the chips? Imagine HD6970 was going to be 1920 SPs, and instead of a real allocation from 1536 SPs to 1920 SPs, what was changed was just the name?

The chip might have 1920 SPs, but launched with only 1536 enabled. This would give space for AMD to launch a HD6980 in the future, or even a renamed product for the 7xxx series, while waiting for the 28nm process to mature (quite possibly it will only be available on Q42011 or Q2012).

I cant imagine them developing another 40nm chip meanwhile. Maybe they are just playing their cards for the near future?

Unlikely to fit in anything < 400mm^2.

[Oliverda]

If this slide is true then thats very disappointing.

[eric66]

That's GTX 570 in the slide



yep 6870 is very close to 5870 performance, like 4-6% from its performance with only 70% of its shaders.

i know but it says nearly 30 percent faster than 570 which puts 6970 above 580 plus that is nvidias own slide lol which makes chosen situation best suitable for nvidias own propaganda

[Zloyd]

30% faster than 580 they said ..... charlie doesn't bull they said ..... it looks like 580 will be getting self a cayman skin jacket for christmas :P

[zalbard]

Let me quote this -again-.
Moar rumours inc:

Cayman, Radeon HD 6970 and 6950 cards will have a 389 square millimetre core that packs 2.64 billion transistors.
Nvidia’s GT110 chip the one responsible for Geforce GTX 580 and 570 is a massive 520 square millimetre core and has some three billion. AMD’s chip is some 30 percent smaller in size and it has some 15 percent fewer transistors than Nvidia’s which is impressive. In the end Nvidia looks like a slightly faster solution, but its core is bigger.

Nvidia’s chip is more complex and more expensive to produce. It ends up with better shader performance, but overall AMD did a good job of making something that is close to the GTX 580 in terms of performance and significantly faster than the now obsolete GTX 480, all with fewer transistors in a smaller package.

The chips are ready and the cards will be available on Tuesday the 15th of December in Europe and in the US in the night of 14th of December. We are not sure about the price as AMD will finalize its pricing literally at the last minute, but we guess it will be less than Nvidia wants for GTX 580 and the recently introduced GTX 570.

So this time instead of ~370mm^2 it's 389mm^2 (around 2.64B transistors) vs 520mm^2 (some say 530mm^2; around 3B transistors, some say up to 3.2B). No matter how you look at it it appears that 6970 has a much higher transistor density, or some numbers just don't add up...
Worst case scenario for AMD (389mm^2):
2640 / 389 = 6.79
Best case scenario for AMD (370mm^2):
2640 / 370 = 7.14
Best case scenario, 3.2B for Nvidia:
3200 / 520 = 6.15
Worst case scenario for Nvidia (3B, 530mm^2):
3000 / 530 = 5.66

[SpuTnicK]

Come down everybody, That info is old (22nd of November, to be exact)

[generics_user]

Let me quote this -again-.
Moar rumours inc:

So this time instead of ~370mm^2 it's 389mm^2 (around 2.64B transistors) vs 520mm^2 (some say 530mm^2; around 3B transistors, some say up to 3.2B). No matter how you look at it it appears that 6970 has a much higher transistor density, or some numbers just don't add up...
Worst case scenario for AMD (389mm^2):
2640 / 389 = 6.79
Best case scenario for AMD (370mm^2):
2640 / 370 = 7.14
Best case scenario, 3.2B for Nvidia:
3200 / 520 = 6.15
Worst case scenario for Nvidia (3B, 530mm^2):
3000 / 530 = 5.66

amd had a significantly higher transistor density than nvidia since the 3870 series

[zalbard]

amd had a significantly higher transistor density than nvidia since the 3870 series

One would think Nvidia would work on it, though, having the biggest chip ever that's been delayed a few times, then released, and reworked for 6 months, again!
Like I said, just an interesting observation. I remember the old data.

[cold2010]

Such as the title: casual run, the performance generally and GTX570 rather, beat GTX580.

A meal should let them be disappointed, I am also quite disappointed. We next week, right on the line 3 and so evaluation.

3D MARK 11 Extreme 1920X1080 4aa score is 1640

We were wrong, just received a message AMD is positioning for the 6970 hit, not GTX580 GTX570
Pricing:
HD 6970 ¥ 3299 ~ 3399 products on the bit GTX570
HD 6950 ¥ 2499 ~ 2599
6950 really do not know who was playing

http://itbbs.pconline.com.cn/diy/12257812.html

[zalbard]

Hm, looks low... for 6970. This is a picture of 6950, though, from my understanding. Isn't it?
The post goes like this:

6950 really do not know who was playing
PIC

@ http://www.hardwareluxx.de/

[Dami3n]

Sounds false, but would be funny to see AMD releasing a new flagships card that is slower than my oced GTX 470 (x1703)

[Shadov]

Sounds false, but would be funny to see AMD releasing a new flagships card that is slower than my oced GTX 470 (x1703)

Have you forgoten the fact that HD 5970 IS the current flagship and WILL be replaced by 6990?

Cmon people stick to the facts not brand in your computer.

[SpuTnicK]

So its HD6950 vs. GTX480 and HD6970 vs. GTX570, I guess.

[-=DVS=-]

Have you forgoten the fact that HD 5970 IS the current flagship and WILL be replaced by 6990?

Cmon people stick to the facts not brand in your computer.

Not everyone cares for crossfire dual gpu =/= single gpu

[Overfiend]

That Vantage score is fake.....it's probably 5870 there.....
I get X10120 with my oc'ed 5870 to 905core / 1270 mem on i7@4Ghz HT off....so....seriously doubt that picture has anything to do with 69xx series

not too mention 1600 shaders - doesn't add up

[Dami3n]

Have you forgoten the fact that HD 5970 IS the current flagship and WILL be replaced by 6990?

Cmon people stick to the facts not brand in your computer.

Don´t you see the irony in my post?