AMD: R9xx Speculation

And still your point is? ATI is not replacing only a mid-high range part, its seems to be replacing the top end, so i continue to not understand your analogy...

 

Well, let me remind your statement:

"R9xx" targets performance level, which isn't covered by current line-up. Maybe it will offer some further advantages to end user or manufacturer, but the primary target is described as a product for new performance segment.

GF104 targets performance segments, which are filled by GTX465, GTX470, HD5850, HD5830 and probably HD5970. GF104 models will be likely only slightly faster than HD5830, HD5850 and HD5970.

So why to bother with them? Using your logic it doesn't make sense to release a product which targets currently free market segment, but it makes sense to release a product, which targets market segment, which is full. Another point of view - it doesn't make any sense to realease a product, whichis slightly faster than GTX485... but it makes sense to release GTX485, which will be slower than "R9xx"...?

I applied your logic to another products to show you, how wrong it is. Nothing more, nothing less...

 

What mushrooms have you been eating?

GF104 definetely will NOT replace GTX470, it's much smaller and slower chip.

And replacing GTX465 is not a big deal as the GTX465's are just small number of parts that are so broken that they refuse to work as GTX470.

 

how do we know the size of avalible gtx 465 class chips. For all we know it may be the largest segment of chips produced ad it most likely will be.

 

No. Many 465 cards are 470GPUs that could not be sold, as the demand is low and vendors hope that the cheaper 465 will attract more customers.

 

Well, G94 was much smaller chip compared to G92, but despite having 55% of SPs compared to 8800GT, it offered 80-90% performance of its "bigger brother".

 

You know, I've been quite dismissive of the 5770 as only offering similar performance to 4870 but now that I think of it, 4870 performance for the price of 5770 is crazy good value for those who don't already have 4870 performance

Historically the ATI refreshes have been mostly top & maybe next down (eg 4890) but it would be awesome if they could do something about 5850 performance at a price about halfway between current 5850 & 5770

PS: Yes I've downclocked the memory, several times & now running at 880.
Have been running 1000 most of the time I've had it so quite probably my fault its dying, so my main complaint is just that its inconvenient timing for me.

 

True the 5770 performs on par with the 4870 even though it is clocked 100 mhz higher. But when it was released, it was priced higher than the 4870. Historically, new generations of chips have outperformed their predecessors and usually been priced lower to boot(exceptions i can think of right now are the radeon 8600 series and Cedar, ie radeon 5470 as well)

Ironically if the 5850 had fallen in price like the 4850 had, it would have been at exactly that price point now!

 

Wow, you've been able to look 3 generations into the future?

I "think" you meant Geforce 8600?

Regards,
SB

 

Maybe he meant 8500 or 9600...

 

My bad, i meant the Geforce 8600 series

 

A full scale GF104 will most definitely have the potential to beat GTX470 to the ground. It has about 80% raw power at the same clock. Who's to say you won't see a part that's clocked 25% faster than 470, especially when 470 is running at only 600MHz.

 

But doing that would kill the GTX 470, and killing the 470 would kill the 480 as well, because its yields without the 470 and 465 are probably way too low for it to be economically viable.

Plus, power might be an issue over 750MHz core clock.

 

I'm hearing rumours, that 100% of recently bought 480 can be flashed to 512 cores and work without problem - heat remaining only problem.

Maybe NV solved the yield problem?

 

That's not saying much, with 480 I think lower shader cores was more to do with staying within a certain power envelope rather than not being able to enable all 512 cores.

If we suddenly see the vast majority of 470's being able to be turned into 480's that would certainly be a good indication that yields are getting better.

Regards,
SB

 

Just like that, with no respin or anything?

 

Nodes mature anyway - e.g. later HD4870s have better power/thermals than early ones. And that's despite the fact that 55nm was running for quite a while by the time HD4870 launched.

Jawed

 

Sure, but to go from abysmal yields with 512 SPs to "100% of recently bought 480 can be flashed to 512 cores and work without problem" is quite different from better power & thermals, isn't it?

 

The explanation for the 480 core part's existence may also be that long term reliability is reduced in the case of a 512 core part @ current clock due to the higher than expected power draw.

 

Power/thermals seems to be a big part of the reason that GF100 at launch wasn't "full spec". Regardless, "100%" sounds like banter more than fact: a thread with high-fiving new-GTX480 owners needs linking, at the very least.