R580+

[Arty]

Fuad has some info on the R580+:

• Will use GDDR4
• 7% faster (err?)
• €399 price (yay!)
• 24th August hard launch at Leipzig convention

(I was not sure where to post this, guess its time for the R580+ thread?)

 

[Geo]

Sure, why not?

I wonder if that 7% is core speed? Or just total speedup, and all from GDDR4?

 

[Jawed]

Wouldn't it be funny if it was just 700MHz clock due to a better cooler (like that on the HIS X1900XTX IceQ3 iTurbo nutter - or whatever it's called).

I'm still dubious this is actually a new die.

Jawed

 

[AlNom]

Any info/rumours on GDDR4 speeds?

 

[Zaphod]

Fuad has some info on the R580+

How does it score in Rydermark?

Heaven forgive me, I'm so sorry. I simply couldn't resist...

 

[no-X]

(I was not sure where to post this, guess its time for the R580+ thread?)

e.g. here. Never mind. :smile:

 

[CJ]

Sure, why not?

I wonder if that 7% is core speed? Or just total speedup, and all from GDDR4?

If it's the total speedup then I find the 7% a bit weird, especially since there was this interview with ATi's Rick Bergman at TrustedReviews where he stated that we would probably see a 10-20% performanceboost when the memorycontroller in the R580 would be paired to GDDR4.

TR: Fair point, you’re going to hate the next question though. Riyad wants to know when you intend to start using GDDR4 memory so the new memory controller can be used to its full potential?

RB: Roadmaps, roadmaps, that is what everyone wants from us! All we can say is that it’s coming though. We have no products to announce that will use it in the near future. I think the reason for this is because GDDR3 went so much higher than anyone expected and it means there has been no real urgency for GDDR4. It is true though that GDDR4 will bring with it some performance improvements when used in conjunction with our memory controller.

TR: Care to give away how much?

RB: I think we can reveal around 10 or 20 per cent gains.

Source: http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?page=6116&head=73

So a 10-20% performanceboost would be from GDDR4 only. That 7% that The Inq mentioned could very well be the corespeedbump, going from 650 to 695-700Mhz.

 

[Geo]

I seem to recall xbit speculating in the 15% range too, probably lead by ATI. Tho obviously a direct Bergman quote as given is even better.

 

[rwolf]

Doesn't GDDR4 have much lower latency.

 

[Razor1]

well the r580 scales very well with increased memory clocks almost 1 to 1, so however fast the memory is that should be the increased performance of the r580+

 

[rwolf]

Samsung’s first GDDR4 product has a data bandwidth of 2.4Gbps, compared with 2Gbps for the fastest GDDR3 part, while power consumption has been drastically cut by 45 per cent

http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=34940

Samsung says that GDDR4 processes images 33 percent faster than the fastest memory on the market today.

http://pune360.com/News/2006/07/07/samsung-begins-gddr4-production/

While the company is delivering on its earlier promise to begin mass production in the second quarter of 2006, the memory is substantially slower than initially indicated: In October 2005, Samsung said it would launch the technology with a bandwidth of about 2.8 Gb/s; in February of this year, the company claimed to have developed a 3.2 Gb/s version of its GDDR4 memory - which should be an indicator that GDDR4 has headroom to scale to significantly higher speeds in the future.

However, Nvidia and ATI participated in Samsung's product announcement and Tony Tamasi, the firm's vice president of technical marketing was quoted saying "GDDR4 is poised to become the next major evolutionary step for [Nvidia's] GPUs." Joe Macri, ATI senior director of engineering and chair of the JEDEC committee on GDDR4 added in a prepared statement: "We're delighted that we'll be able to use GDDR4 from Samsung in our latest graphics cards."

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/05/samsung_gddr4/

 

[_xxx_]

Sure, why not?

I wonder if that 7% is core speed? Or just total speedup, and all from GDDR4?

GDDR4 needs up to 45% less power than GDDR3 with the same clockspeed and can thus be clocked higher while still requiring less power.

 

[no-X]

X1950 XTX and X1950 CF will have same clocks: 650MHz core and 2.0GHz DDR4 512MB memory

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33147

Only 650MHz?

 

[_xxx_]

I guess the plus is there just because of GDDR4, so what did you expect? It's the same chip as R580 AFAIK.

 

[no-X]

HIS or Sapphire produce cards which are clocked over 650MHz. So why to stay at 650MHz, if the core has a lot of reserves and the card will be equipped with new (probably better) cooler?

 

[_xxx_]

You'll still get a rather nice boost thanks to GDDR4. And there surely will be higher clocked versions out there as always.

 

[Matas]

Is 580+ going to have the same X1900XT/XTX cooler or a new one?

 

[no-X]

Is 580+ going to have the same X1900XT/XTX cooler or a new one?

We hear it will have a new cooler, to make it nice and quiet, for instance.

http://www.theinq.com/default.aspx?article=33127

 

[Arty]

e.g. here. Never mind. :smile:

Sorry, I didnt see it.

 

[trinibwoy]

HIS or Sapphire produce cards which are clocked over 650MHz. So why to stay at 650MHz, if the core has a lot of reserves and the card will be equipped with new (probably better) cooler?

Doesn't look like the R580 core has a lot of reserves. Especially not to produce 700Mhz parts consistently.

Even when exotically water cooled it doesn't seem to do much more than the stock XTX - http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/sapphire-toxic/index.x?pg=1. Not to mention that power consumption is still waay up there even at "only" 650 Mhz. It looks like the lower-power consumption and higher performance of GDDR4 is the only viable upgrade.