AMD: R9xx Speculation

[DuckThor Evil]

Of course. But back then the competition was so strong, that HD 4890 was 200 USD.

And that's why it's nice to see x8xx series return to around that price point with great performance

 

[Mianca]

http://www.chiphell.com/thread-128230-1-1.html

If the spacious cooler/shroud design in that lower picture is real, we might be about to witness a rather big surprise with respect to the final clock speeds of Barts XT ...

Maybe history does repeat itself? What's the possibility of reading something like this @ anandtech in a few months time:

Barts XT was originally planned as a 1024MB HD 6770 card with a 750MHz core clock and 1000MHz memory clock. Dave insisted that the card had to be branded HD 6870 and needed to be upgraded to 2048MB of GDDR5 and 1000MHz core / 1200MHz memory clock to earn its new name in the process. It’s not just that he insisted, but that he convinced the engineers to make such a late change. Dave took the engineers through his reasoning of why and where ATI needed to be in the competitive landscape, by the end of the discussion he didn’t need to persuade them, the board and ASIC teams were championing the changes.

Just beating the bush a bit, of course

 

[Alexko]

Smells like an epic fail. I will repeat it one hundred times if necessary.
Why? Because it shows much better performance comparable to the old HD 5800 series.





Of course. But back then the competition was so strong, that HD 4890 was 200 USD. Now its equavelent as enthusiast single GPU card costs at least as twice as much.
Honesly though, I think there is possiblity Barts XT to be HD 6770 and because of its performance between HD 5850 and 5870 (conservatively though), to be priced over 300 USD. I think AMD will charge every single percent more performance.

I think Dave might have a clue or two about how Barts is going to be named and priced…

 

[Jawed]

Other new things

Eyespeed? Also, 5 outputs on the back of the card.

 

[PatrickL]

If AMD is really able to produce a single gpu card with theses performances and with TDP/price around 5870 ones, I wonder what would be the problem?
It prolly means that the dual gpu cards should get a new name.

 

[UniversalTruth]

And that's why it's nice to see x8xx series return to around that price point with great performance

I think there is no need for such artificial, fake lowering of the price. I will not call performance lower than the previous generation "great". It's competition and market situation which should define what the prices should be.

 

[Mianca]

If Cayman XT for sure will end up Radeon 6970 instead proper name that should be 6870.

This is how embarrassing and misleading it will look compare to Radeon HD5970.

*cough* 3DMark 11 *cough*

 

[Sampsa]

So confirmed then. What is Crossfire 5?

Ever noticed when AMD lists features there are those small numbers suggesting there is a footnote related to feature? For example:

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desk...5870/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5870-overview.aspx#2

When you copy text from PDF document and paste it to forums, it will look like this:

AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology1
Accelerated video encoding, transcoding, and upscaling2
AMD EyeSpeed visual acceleration3
AMD CrossFireX™ multi-GPU technology5
Dual GPU scaling3

 

[PSU-failure]

I think Dave might have a clue or two about how Barts is going to be named and priced…

Hopefully

But he didn't wipe out the fact "5850-ish" performance would be 6770, nor the price bracket I suggested, he only said 4770 and 5770 were cheaper.

He didn't confirm Barts is mid-range either.

The only reason to drop high-end price would be considerably lower performance than expected, but then I don't understand why they would call it "8" series as they could wait for the next process node to expand the arch.

(Remember, 4770 was an anomaly, 5770 wasn't...)

 

[no-X]

PSU-failure: Considering that NI's were designed for 32nm process, they are all anomalies.

 

[MarkoIt]

I think there is no need for such artificial, fake lowering of the price. I will not call performance lower than the previous generation "great". It's competition and market situation which should define what the prices should be.

Man, you talk too much.

From that PDF, it's official : Bart is 6800 series.
But no performance yet.

What can Eyespeed be?
Something related to Eyefinity?

 

[Mindfury]

Eyespeed?

From the last slide:
Eyespeed enable smooth video resize.

 

[UniversalTruth]

...From that PDF, it's official : Bart is 6800 series.
But no performance yet....

Yes, a typical example of a *bleep* trick in Nvidiaish style. I hope more people realise that and stay away from that freaky middle class chip Barts called 6800 series.
The performance doesn't matter becuase according to your logic there should be no performance improvement in every generation. Just lowering the quality of the product and lowering the price.
Total mess.

 

[GZ007]

If Cayman XT for sure will end up Radeon 6970 instead proper name that should be 6870.

This is how embarrassing and misleading it will look compare to Radeon HD5970.

Because the market for 5970 is so masive ? Its the least sold GPU sku from the whole line up. I think its much less than 1% market share from the whole lineup.
They also stated DualGPU scaling 3 in the pdf. Maybe they boost up the 5900 to a faster single gpu with higher TDP and leave you to make Crossfire. (actualy much more people end this way than with a X2 card)

 

[psolord]

Yes, a typical example of a gay trick in Nvidiaish style. I hope more people realise that and stay away from that freaky middle class chip Barts called 6800 series.
The performance doesn't matter becuase according to your logic there should be no performance improvement in every generation. Just lowering the quality of the product and lowering the price.
Total mess.

I don't like the Barts XT to be called a 6870, but if the 6870 is 10% slower than the 5870 in DX9/10, 30% faster than the 5870 in DX11+Tess and sells for like 200-250, I don't see why people should stay away from it.

The only thing that really scares me in that naming conversion is that AMD will try to push prices up, ie they will sell the Barts XT 6870 at 5870 prices and scale the rest of the line up from there. If they are willing to offer good prices, the heck with the name.

 

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

Yes, a typical example of a gay trick in Nvidiaish style. I hope more people realise that and stay away from that freaky middle class chip Barts called 6800 series.
The performance doesn't matter becuase according to your logic there should be no performance improvement in every generation. Just lowering the quality of the product and lowering the price.
Total mess.

We all gonna die.
But wait: What if HD6800s are the new HD3850/3870?

 

[trinibwoy]

Ever noticed when AMD lists features there are those small numbers suggesting there is a footnote related to feature?

Oh right, thanks.

The only thing that really scares me in that naming conversion is that AMD will try to push prices up, ie they will sell the Barts XT 6870 at 5870 prices and scale the rest of the line up from there. If they are willing to offer good prices, the heck with the name.

It'll be ~$200 and people will praise AMD for slashing prices Besides, while Dave and neliz are hinting that this is just a marketing change I'm not convinced that the parts won't deserve their x800 branding.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I think the problem is that everyone knows what the (pretty clear) numbering system means from AMD cards. 5870 is the high end of the single chip performance range, 5850 is the cut down version. If Barts is a mid-range chip, it should use the mid-range x770 moniker, not the high end one. It's not just about how fast it is or how much it costs, but where it fits amongst the lower and higher range products.

To do otherwise only seems like a way of fooling people, and pushing the performance and highend products higher up the price range for extra profit. Who want to see the return of a £500 high end single chip?

The only way of making this reasonable to customers is to push all the products down the price range. You'll have to buy a 6870 to get slightly more performance than a 5850, but it might cost a little less. This would put pressure on Nvidia pricing, and be more attractive to customers than trying to push graphics card prices back into the stratosphere.

And before people point at the prices of 5000 series, those are completely bizarre and I'd be surprised if we see another time where a card can go from launch to EOL a year later and sell for more than launch price. Lack of availability and competition has kept those prices high and discouraged people like me from upgrading at all this generation. Who want to pay for early-adopter gouging on a year-old product that's about to be obsoleted?

 

[chavvdarrr]

Oh right, thanks.



It'll be ~$200 and people will praise AMD for slashing prices Besides, while Dave and neliz are hinting that this is just a marketing change I'm not convinced that the parts won't deserve their x800 branding.

Then why not name it 6700?
Oh, wait, then people won't be fooled because 8>7 ...

Anything that AMD does is good .
In case 6800<=5800 this will be cheating and taking advantage of simple uneducated people.
Good for business? Maybe.
Tells much about some people's bias.

 

[Arty]

I dont see what the big deal is with the nomenclature. AMD could call it 6400 series with a performance of a 5870 for $200 and I would be all over it. And please dont feel the universal troll.