AMD: R7xx Speculation

Oooopps!

Missed it. That's the trouble with a big thread. *runs away with embarrassment*

 

ATI RV770 = ATI R650

I remember long time ago when Dave Orton said R6xx GPU generation will go up to 96SP's while R600 was 64SP's.

I believe R650 is renamed RV770 with DX10.1 add-on.

 

Even if 1000w were needed for the highest of the high ends (which looking at Brits post its not even close), that wouldn't translate into being what it takes to play the latest PC games.

My system runs fine with a C2D and 8800GTS 640MB on a 430w PS. And it runs all the latest games just fine. A Penryn coupled with a 9600GT would draw even less power for a similar experience.

It looks as though ATI is trying to take power efficiency into account with RV7xx aswell so hopefully we won't see any serious increases in power requirements this generation.

 

Yeah but not for performance, at least not in the sense that NV uses clock domains. ATi only does it to lower power consumption/heat output (lower clocks in "2D" mode).

 

Thats not differing clock domains, thats engine scaling. Different things.

 

So do ATi GPUs use multiple clock domains as others have claimed?

 

Yes, they have a higher clock delta for the ALUs AFAIK.

 

It can say for a fact that ATI has been using multiple clock domains since the early nineties.

VGA interface clock domain, PCI clock domain, memory clock domain, GPU engine clock domain.

So when SirEric claims in an interview that they have a whole bunch of them, he's exactly right. He's also not saying anything informative, as long as he doesn't claim whether or not it has decoupled shader vs rest of the GPU engine clocks.

 

http://beyond3d.com/content/interviews/39/7

 

Exactly my point: a completely meaningless remark that pretends to answer the question. Clock domains are well understood by everyone. These days, there's not a chip in the world that doesn't have multiple clock domains.
As long as he doesn't specify exactly what they are used for, he might as well have said that the sky is blue: same amount of information content.

Edit: by not being specific enough, the interviewer made it extremely easy to answer the question without revealing anything useful.

 

Chances are high that was his(or those who combed the answers) goal

 

Well if you consider 300ish USD for the 9800 GTX a truly top end price, then I'd have to agree with you.

If not for ATI and their renewed focus on Performance in the Mid-Range. That 9800 GTX would probably have shown up as a 8900 GTX, in the past, with a price much much closer to the 8800 GTX Ultra.

It can be argued that ATI is only focused on performance in the Mid-Range because they can't currently compete in the high end enthusiast space. But regardless of WHY they are focused there, it HAS brought down prices of all video cards quite significantly.

Something I'm sure Nvidia isn't very fond of.

And considering ATI appears to be sticking to this focus for their cards (affordable performance) it should keep prices for video cards down in general. Although I'm sure there will always be room for the Uber Special Edition Super Expensive video card. I suppose a GX2 or X2 could be considered in this segment, but meh.

Yes, I do somewhat miss the heady days of constant and rapid releases of Video cards that pushed the performance envelope. But my wallet and energy bill is thanking ATI for pushing prices back down, even if it may not have been by choice.

Regards,
SB

 

A lot of people know that. However when you got money to burn and want the best, 1000watts sounds uber.

This kid in the last year had had a 2900xt replaced by 3 - 3870XTs (lasted enough for a few weeks of that uber game the internet is enamored of - 3DMark LOL) and then replace by a nvidia card.) Throw in new case, raid raptors, a few TB harddrives, Q6600 .... You are getting the picture right. Yous just MUST have ne of those 1000Watt power supplies.

Its his hobby and he doesn't have to pay for it.

Me - I have a pretty decent system (for work and play) but I have a gasp 2600xt... something I bought as a fill-in for new Motherboard until i decided what I wanted. I have not been playing any games after I got tired of LOTR, so there is absolutely nothing I require a good video card for. Howver I might be doing Age of Conan so will order up a card if and when I decide.. move the 2600xt to my wife's machine.

Maybe there might be a different choice in May... hopefully the RV770 is out and that may be the choice or whatever is ideal at that time.

 

The presence of Umlaut (on vowels) and Eszett (characters almost exclusive to German) make it quite obvious this is German. Even if the Umlaut was replaced with an "e" following the vowel, and the Eszett was replaced with 2 "s", those letter combos would be totally out of place in French text.

You're rigorous regarding hardware design, please do not be dismissive of other disciplines. Thank you.

 

Heh, I was (gently!) mocking the poster I linked. I'm aware of the difference b/w French and German, and not aware that I was dismissing either language. (Heck, I'm not entirely lost with one of them.) If your point is that I was favoring one to the detriment of the other, that wasn't my intention, either.

I'm not sure I have something to apologize for, but I was never aware of the Eszett, so thanks for that. Lexical_quiver++!

 

I'm not sure if this was covered, and I hate to compare cards that haven't been released. But assuming the R700 is two smaller RV770 chips on one card, wouldn't it be cheaper and better business for AMD to make their high-end card than it would for nVidia to make their 1+ billion tranny GT200? Or would there be some other manufacturing aspect to putting the two chips together that would counter out just placing one chip on one card?

 

All depends on yields what 55 nm version they are using and how well two rv770 scales

 

Do we know how the chips are going to be placed onto the one card yet? Is is MCM or more like the 3870X2?

 

Is it 100% certain that GT200 is 1+billion single chip? I mean there is this "Tegra" thing floating around. Isn't R700 supposed to be some new kind of multicore thingy, dulacore but not crossfire? Maybe NV is doing something similar -> Tegra = multicore but not SLI?

 

Ok one of the downfalls of the 3870x2 was intergpu communications and the fact that textures had to copied twice as memory was not shared leadingly to low low min fps if this solved ATI MAY HAVE a chance.

TEGRA something else.