brain_stew
Regular
PWM chips in the left of the card?
No cooling on the memory either.
Its certainly a weird design, I don't expect stock cards to look like that.
PWM chips in the left of the card?
9800GTX was slower than 8800Ultra (and many times slower than 8800GTX)...
Naming isn't necessarily always all that reasonable with respect to performance-levels. Marketing plays a mayor role here.That's not a way to explain the naming if you're losing to your own last gen x8xx-part
Is't HD3870(much slower than HD2900) was first?9800GTX was slower than 8800Ultra (and many times slower than 8800GTX)...
Is't HD3870(much slower than HD2900) was first?
No way, how chip with half of bandwidth could be same?No, they are roughly equal in performance, not as you say "much slower".
WTF?Is't HD3870(much slower than HD2900) was first?
Just to pour some more fuel in those naming-scheme related flames:
What if AMD decided to put different chips into one (naming-wise) family?
E.g.
[HD6750 = high-clocked/renamed Juniper chips - can't think of any other way to fill the gap here]
HD6770 = lower-clocked/partly disabled Barts chips (Pro) ~ HD5850
HD6850 = selected/high-clocked Barts chips (XT) ~ HD5870
HD6870 = lower-clocked/partly disabled Cayman chips (Pro) ~ HD5870+30%
HD6950 = selected/high-clocked Cayman chips (XT) ~ HD5970
HD6970 = 2x Barts XT ~ HD5970+20%
HD6990 = 2x Cayman XT ~ HD5970+50%
It would be confusing from a purely technical point of view - but it might make for a better marketing wise naming scheme when compared to current HD5xxx performance levels ...
If Barts XT really performs ~ Cypress clock-for-clock, AMD's marketing guys surely lost some sleep pondering over how to position such a chip on the market:
- Artifically "cripple" it to fit it into a possible HD67xx series - and you'll lose a lot of profit due to not pushing your silicon as much as you could.
- Raise clocks to put it somehwere in the range of the old HD58xx series - and (a) power draw will probably give you a hard time marketing those cards under the HD67xx name or (b) performance won't be quite good enough to rectify labelling your Barts XT card as the "successor" to HD5870 ...
So maybe just try something out-of-the-ordinary to make it all fit?
This is not flame... I don't remember any single review showing HD3870 "much slower than HD2900"I could find tons of reverse examples, but, you know, just do not want continue flame
Xbit said:The Radeon HD 3870 is overall fast for its price, providing as much performance in popular games as the previous flagship card from AMD but being twice more economical and absolutely silent.
techreport said:The Radeon HD 3870 delivers almost exactly the same performance as the Radeon HD 2900 XT, yet the chip is under half the size and brings an astounding near-100W reduction in power use while gaming.
Guru3D said:The XT and the 3870 card perform roughly equal with an positive exception for the 3870 here and there.
HardOCP said:The Radeon HD 3870 can be summed up as being slightly faster than a Radeon HD 2900 XT, with less power draw, but not as fast as a GeForce 8800 GT.
tweaktown said:Looking over our questions from the intro the card does perform quite well and is a nice step up from the HD 2900 XT at a very good price.
pcperspective said:In most cases the HD 2900 XT was actually slower than our HD 3870 results making it the fastest card in the AMD inventory but not by much.
extremetech said:This is the card meant to offer equivalent performance to the Radeon HD 2900 XT—only at barely more than half the cost and half the power utilization.
hothardware said:The new Radeon HD 3870 performed much like a Radeon HD 2900 XT.
Just to pour some more fuel in those naming-scheme related flames:
What if AMD decided to put different chips into one (naming-wise) family?
E.g.
[HD6750 = high-clocked/renamed Juniper chips - can't think of any other way to fill the gap here]
HD6770 = lower-clocked/partly disabled Barts chips (Pro) ~ HD5850
HD6850 = selected/high-clocked Barts chips (XT) ~ HD5870
HD6870 = lower-clocked/partly disabled Cayman chips (Pro) ~ HD5870+30%
HD6950 = selected/high-clocked Cayman chips (XT) ~ HD5970
HD6970 = 2x Barts XT ~ HD5970+20%
HD6990 = 2x Cayman XT ~ HD5970+50%
It would be confusing from a purely technical point of view - but it might make for a better marketing wise naming scheme when compared to current HD5xxx performance levels ...
If Barts XT really performs ~ Cypress clock-for-clock, AMD's marketing guys surely lost some sleep pondering over how to position such a chip on the market:
- Artifically "cripple" it to fit it into a possible HD67xx series - and you'll lose a lot of profit due to not pushing your silicon as much as you could.
- Raise clocks to put it somehwere in the range of the old HD58xx series - and (a) power draw will probably give you a hard time marketing those cards under the HD67xx name or (b) performance won't be quite good enough to rectify labelling your Barts XT card as the "successor" to HD5870 ...
So maybe just try something out-of-the-ordinary to make it all fit?
Maybe they decided to re-introduce the sideport-idea he advocated so strongly for a long time - and he had to acquiesce in a really crazy naming scheme in returnI hope Dave is here and is laughing at this. Otherwise it would be really sad when turn into reality...
None. They aren't going to have only one crossfire connection on their highend series.What are the odds that this is in reality a Cayman pro?
Maybe they decided to re-introduce the sideport-idea he advocated so strongly for a long time - and he had to acquiesce in a really crazy naming scheme in return
Nah, I'm just trying to make some sense of the rumours floating around recently - but I'm still pretty sure we'll ALL be surprised once NI is officially unveiled...
None. They aren't going to have only one crossfire connection on their highend series.