AMD: R9xx Speculation
- Thread starter Lukfi
- Start date
Remember 3870? It was twice cheaper than 2900 and still was considered a hugely successful chip, which prompted Nvidia to launch 8800GTS 512.
I dont expect more features in 6xxx generation (only UVD3), so the major factor will be price/performance, everything else is secondary.
Right, I keep forgetting about the mobility code names (probably because I totally fail to see what purpose they serve for what is essentially exactly the same chip as the desktop one).
To me you just have to look at the end result. AMD did not need to call Barts 68xx. They specifically chose to. Why did they do this? Its not because they do not have a card to fill its shoes (Cay and Anti are both more than acceptable here) and it appears as though it may not be because it offers better performance than the 58xx series (purely working of speculation, i know less than nothing). If that is the case, then to everyone in the market it will appear as though AMD is purely doing it to fool people. I doubt it will affect their sales or bottom line (I agree with the people saying price/performance is all that matters in the real retail world) however it will cast a shadow over their image, a shadow their competitor has had for a while and they have avoided, and that makes many people very angry with them. They will still buy their parts, but they will happily accept doomsday theories aswell (just look at Nvidia's death threads all over the internet). I dont understand why AMD would lose that goodwill when at the end of the day they would still sell craptons of 67xx's.
If the 6850 and the 6870 both end up faster than their 58xx counterpart than AMD has nothing to worry about and noone will care. It doesn't seem like that will happen though.
Thats the perspective of a completely ignorant guy who plays games on his computer.
If the 6850 and the 6870 both end up faster than their 58xx counterpart than AMD has nothing to worry about and noone will care. It doesn't seem like that will happen though.
Thats the perspective of a completely ignorant guy who plays games on his computer.
Not at launch
Please don't forget, that at until the launch of R9000 higher number always meant higher performance. Also family number was related to DX-support:
Radeon 7000 / 7200 / 7500 ~ DirectX 7
Radeon 8500 ~ DirectX 8
Radeon 9500/9700 ~ DirectX 9
Radeon 9000 was the first part, which broke both of these relations. It was slower than a lower-numbered model and also didn't support same DX level as the rest of the family.
Nothing of that prevented the reviewers to deliver judgments like... "It's a deal, it's steal, it's the sale of the f***ing century."
I remember a review showing performance about 10% better at the best. But I can't find it at the moment. Anyway, if you don't mint a conclusion based on two different reviews, check this, please:
According to Hardware.fr, GTS450 1024MB is faster than GTS250 512MB by:
7% at 1680*1050
10% at 1680*1050 + AA4x
30% at 1920*1200
According to ComputerBase.de, 1024MB models of 9800GTX+/GTS250 are faster than 512MB models by:
3% at 1680*1050
5% at 1680*1050 + AA4x
6% at 2560*1600 (1920*1200 wasn't tested)
the test on ComputerBase is 1.5 yers old, so it doesn't include current games, which can utilize 1GB even more, but I think it's quite obvious, that difference between ancient G92/GTS250 and (seemingly) 2 generations newer GTS450 is really neglible.
Will it be called 6970? For that, Cayman needs to be at least 50% faster than 5970. Or will AMD release a 6970 thats slower or just a little faster than 5970?
It would be ridiculous. But I really doubt Cayman to be that faster than Hemlock.
Bad PR if true. 
x8xx series tells us..it is the top single core gpu....why did they not just go for a price drop...and create a new line of 5x9x series...gpu graphics will progress little for these 2 years. AMD is doing this because they can, nvidia has sucked....i am here thinking the price of 6800 Barts will not even come cheap....299 for 6850....359 for 6870..
x8xx series tells us..it is the top single core gpu....why did they not just go for a price drop...and create a new line of 5x9x series...gpu graphics will progress little for these 2 years. AMD is doing this because they can, nvidia has sucked....i am here thinking the price of 6800 Barts will not even come cheap....299 for 6850....359 for 6870..
Well, for marketing reasons it belongs to 9000 family.
But technically, it belongs to 8000 family
. That's not unlike the GF4MX which at least borrowed the pixel shader units from GF2.(Compared to r200 rv250 was a much better chip if you look at performance/transistor, but it was still a bit slower overall.)
caveman-jim
Regular
Implicit in your response is that 6800 is not the high end naming scheme. Based on 3800, 4800, 5800 being the high end single gpu products, many are expecting 6800 to be the replacement in terms of performance and price. So with rumors that Cayman is the high end single GPU architecture and part, people (quite reasonably) are drawing conclusions based on history. Of course, marketing and branding strategies change but people want to reduce the guessing and consider possibilities.
If we're looking at Barts as 6800 for the ~$200 price point, Cayman as 6900 for the ~$350+ price point and Antilles as 6X00 for the ~$500+ price point, people won't care as long as the performance is there (i.e. Barts XT is faster and significantly cheaper than initial MSRP of Cypress XT).
It's the same architecture but clocks and voltages are different.
Just tell us 1 good reason that is ok to name cayman 5900, and to name antilles 5990 and barts 5800, when these last generations were so good in describing the product with their respective naming.
Unless this new architecture is the second coming of jesus fusion-ed with alah, and barts kicks anally butt to gtx480, i don't think this change in naming scheme will be very representative of performance, specially against last generation
Sorry, I don't know what you mean. The 9000 was faster than previous cards in its market/naming segment. i.e. 7000.
Two generations ago the card in the GTS 450's price/naming category was the 9500 GT. Why are you comparing to G92?
chavvdarrr
Veteran
9000 was DX8.1 card as 8500, all other 9xxx were DX9
I'm not sure how that's relevant to the current discussion. Aren't we comparing a new generation card (6870) to the prior generation card (5870) in the same bracket? As far as I know the 9000 wasn't inferior in any way to its 8000 series equivalent.
It was inferior to 8500 & 8500LE, and those 2 were the only 8000-series cards.
Didn't have any what?
trinibwoy: The system was introduced at the time of R200's launch. R200 (as a DX8 part) was named R8500, RV200 (as a DX7 part) was named R7500. ATi had large stock of old R100 and RV100 GPUs, so they rebranded them to R7200 and R7000. Model numbers reflected only performance (R7000<7200<7500<8500) and DX relation.
But there were no fixed "brackets" at that time. R7500 was mainstream part supplementing R8500, R7000 was originally mainstream part for R7200. The x0xx, x2xx and x5xx numbers were not brackets, which would reflect any segment, like today, e.g. that x5xx would be high-end part and x0xx would be low-end. R7500 was never high-end part, R8500 was etc... The only sense of the early numbering was performance and DX support. R9000 break both of these conventions.
Some persons hinted it, but the majority understood, that the product has perfect price/performance, supports DX8.1 (GF4MX was only partially DX7 compliant - no pixel shading, no EMBM) and everybody got, that the product is good regardless of name. That's my point.
People are criticizing ATi/AMD, who in fact launched two product families and don't notice, that nVidia didn't finish even the first one yet...
But there were no fixed "brackets" at that time. R7500 was mainstream part supplementing R8500, R7000 was originally mainstream part for R7200. The x0xx, x2xx and x5xx numbers were not brackets, which would reflect any segment, like today, e.g. that x5xx would be high-end part and x0xx would be low-end. R7500 was never high-end part, R8500 was etc... The only sense of the early numbering was performance and DX support. R9000 break both of these conventions.
Some persons hinted it, but the majority understood, that the product has perfect price/performance, supports DX8.1 (GF4MX was only partially DX7 compliant - no pixel shading, no EMBM) and everybody got, that the product is good regardless of name. That's my point.
People are criticizing ATi/AMD, who in fact launched two product families and don't notice, that nVidia didn't finish even the first one yet...
chavvdarrr
Veteran
Bad naming from bad guys is normal, bad naming from good guys ... will make me wonder if they are still "good"
@no-x: Ah I see what you're saying. It broke the old convention yes but was fully in line with how things have been ever since. Performance is dictated by both family x000 and segment 0x00 which makes perfect sense and is how most products are named. Are you suggesting that 6870 < 5870 would usher in a similar change in convention? Doubtful.
Anyway, I'll believe it when I see it. Till then 6870 > 5870. No need for AMD to lose their common sense approach to naming for absolutely no reason.
Anyway, I'll believe it when I see it. Till then 6870 > 5870. No need for AMD to lose their common sense approach to naming for absolutely no reason.
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