AMD: R9xx Speculation

They were on all the Evergreen slidedecks

 

http://news.mydrivers.com/Img/20100208/S11475093.jpg

http://news.mydrivers.com/Img/20100204/12070394.jpg

http://news.mydrivers.com/Img/20100114/02571587.jpg

http://news.mydrivers.com/Img/20091013/03383718.jpg

http://news.mydrivers.com/Img/20090923/S04183087.jpg

 

Have ATi ever admitted, that Cypress is "dual-engine architecture"? I also can't remeber, that ATi compared their products to competitors product within the spec. table. Also the 4 comments aren't very typical. I'd expect this info in a separate slide.

 

http://www.highperformancegraphics.org/media/Hot3D/HPG2010_Hot3D_AMD.pdf

Slide 6. "Dual Unified Shader Engine". Each has its own resources, e.g. rasteriser and instruction cache.

 

http://www.hwupgrade.it/news/skvide...-la-prima-volta-tra-le-nostre-mani_33764.html

This italian site got hold of one HD68x0/Cayman for few minutes.. they are saying that in size it's really close to the 5870, they confirm the 8 GDDR5 module, the 8+6 pins and 4 display output (2 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 DVI)..

And i think nApoleon said that the slide is likely to be a fake:
http://translate.google.com/transla...ttp://www.chiphell.com/thread-123528-1-1.html

 

My italian is a bit rusty, but they say 2 mini-display port, 1 hdmi, 2 dvi, and conclude this allows 4 displays max. However, if the rumored EyeFinity improvements are true, nothing would prevent you from driving all ports simultaneously (hence 5 displays). Strange though, would make a EyeFinity 6 card almost, but not quite, unnecessary.

 

Heh, I thought the Eyefinity 6 card was already quite unnecessary. Wonder how many people out there are driving three monitors on their 5770's

 

<raises hand>
Runniing 3 x 1920x1080 with 5770s.. though 80% of time is productivity and not much of an issue when I do run a game or 3 (Lorto mostly)

 

http://vr-zone.com/articles/-rumour-radeon-hd-6850-on-october-18th-is-barts-pro-/9861.html

 

What do you think? If you had to bet, would you bet on this info?

 

You linked to vr-zone quoting sweclockers quoting chiphell. Chiphell already closed the thread and sweclockers seem to have removed the article.

 

Indeed 1120 divided by 64 ALU gives 17.5 arrays.

 

No, I wouldn't

In the age of newspapers that would've taken over 3 days.

 

That would be a good thing, but 1GB memory is not going to cut it for 5 displays. Productivity, yes. Having a 3x1 SLS and 2 additional displays, possibly. Lots of options for gaming + htpc, unusual room/office configurations.

 

I think that aiming for just 1GB this generation would be an error.

 

A agree. If they're using the 2Gb chips there is no reason not to go for 2GB.

I do speculate that this could be reserved for the 6870, while the 6850 could use the same memory 5870's use today - it all comes down to costs.

 

Depends on the cost differential between 1GB and 2GB. If it's significant, like more than double, putting it as standard is nonsensical - very few users need 2GB VRAM on a graphics card. For the highest end it makes sense, not for cards like Barts or perhaps even Cayman Pro.

 

Even if it's not more than double, it might be too expensive (I have no idea what those gddr5 chips sell for). The nice thing though is the availability of 2gbit gddr5 means all companies can optionally build 256bit 2GB cards with no additional cost other than the memory chips themselves - same pcb etc. (FWIW I'm pretty sure the FirePro 3D 9800 uses 2gbit chips, so these are really available now - also someone announced 2GB GTX460, though I don't know if it uses clamshell mode or 2gbit chips.)

 

Noone dares to make a game that will use more than 1GB ram if there are no 2GB cards aviable. Mod packs with high ress (i mean real high ress , not shity console port quality) textures can make masive difference with 2GB cards.
And it would be finaly time that u dont see these things http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,6...en-jetzt-mit-neuen-Gruseltapeten/Spiele/News/ .

 

That much is true.

I've been benchmarking and video making with my GTX 460 lately, at 1920x1080 and each time after the benchmark session, I went back to MSI Afterburner and was watching the memory usage of the card. Never went more than 800-900MB.

The good part is that RAM usage hovers quite nicely around 512MB and above. Even 512MB is decent.

As long as there are 256MB Video Ram Consoles, things will always look like that.

I remember when the PS3 came out , some devs were still porting the PS2 versions to the PC (no specific titles pop to mind but it was obvious). Dunno why these guys just don't make the game on the higher grade machine and then scale it down. Why do they do the opposite?