Tuesday, July 28th 2009
Radeon HD 4860 in the Works?
AMD released the industry's first 40 nm desktop GPU. The RV740 went on to make only one SKU, the Radeon HD 4770. The company filled its Radeon HD 4700 series almost overnight with two more SKUs positioned on either sides of the HD 4770, based on the 55 nm RV770/RV790 GPUs instead, due to stock shortages. These also impacted on the inventories of the HD 4770, which forced AMD to reposition the Radeon HD 4850 in the sub-$110 segment, creating a bit of a void between it and the roughly $150 HD 4870. If anyone of you is up for yet another ATI Radeon SKU, here's one coming your way: Radeon HD 4860.
The Radeon HD 4860 seems to have been already taped out, sampled, and pictured by sections of the Chinese media. At the heart of it is the RV790 GPU in a different configuration codenamed RV790GT. It has 640 stream processors instead of 800 on the HD 4850, except that it uses a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface, and effectively higher clock speeds. The core is clocked at 700 MHz, and the memory at 750 MHz (3000 MHz effective). The PCB pictured shows the card to powered by a single 6-pin power connector. It is expected to be positioned in at the $130 price point, and in theory, competitive with NVIDIA's GeForce GTS 250.
Source:
IT168
The Radeon HD 4860 seems to have been already taped out, sampled, and pictured by sections of the Chinese media. At the heart of it is the RV790 GPU in a different configuration codenamed RV790GT. It has 640 stream processors instead of 800 on the HD 4850, except that it uses a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface, and effectively higher clock speeds. The core is clocked at 700 MHz, and the memory at 750 MHz (3000 MHz effective). The PCB pictured shows the card to powered by a single 6-pin power connector. It is expected to be positioned in at the $130 price point, and in theory, competitive with NVIDIA's GeForce GTS 250.
92 Comments on Radeon HD 4860 in the Works?
ATi's practice is done to confuse the customer, to get so many ATi options out and available that the customer just gives up and picks one... If you have more shelf presence, customers are more likely to buy your products over the competition.
and the 8800gt and 9800gt is discontinued? silly me again I forgot the GTS 240 is the SAME CARD.
who is trying to deceive the consumer again?
so answer me this what is more confusing:
the same card with a different sticker to give the illusion of better performance or slightly different cards with slightly different numbers ranked high# to low# for high perf to low perf?
From the BSN article, ATI will have a full DX11 line up starting with a $50 card and going up in price from there. Not all ATI DX11 cards are going to be expensive. I am guessing there will be a DX11/Evergeeen 4890/275 performance class card in the $150-160 range with 1x 6pin power adapter using this board design.
And as much as you want to believe it, ATi's number scheme doesn't rank the cards in terms of performance. If it did, the HD4790 and HD4770 wouldn't outperform the HD4850 and HD4830.
I mean, really, your argument about the rebranding trying to trick people doesn't really hold up. So they took the high end card from the previous generation, and made it the mid-range of the current. How many people upgrading from the high end of the previous generation to the mid-range of the current really get an upgrade? Did people upgrading from HD3850s to HD4670s really get better performance? No, they got worse performance. Did people upgrading from HD2900XTs to HD3690s really get better performance? No, they got worse performance. Did people upgrading from a X1900XTX to a HD2600XT really get better performance? No, they got worse performance. So really, people upgrading from a 9800GTX+ to an GTS250 should consider themselve lucky that they are getting the same performance, they should be expecting worse performance. Upgrading from high-end to mid-range isn't usually an upgrade, and is more often than not a downgrade.
and the 4770 comes close to the 4850 but doesnt actually outperform it until overclocked
EDIT: I have literally heard the words "I run a 9800gtx but I just ordered a gts250 to upgrade" more than ONCE from gamers I know. General consumers are completely conned by the change in name of the same card.
Yep, if it's not on newegg, it must not exist...:laugh:
The HD4790 outperforms the HD4850, the HD4770 outperforms the HD4830, I should have put the word respectively in my post...sorry.
And I didn't say consumers weren't idiots, I've heard people say "I run a HD3870 but I just ordered a HD4670 to upgrade". Again, these consumers should consider themselve lucky that they are getting the same performance when doing an upgrade like that.:laugh:
And really, if nVidia had used the GT200 as a base for a new core for mid-range cards, what would it look like? 240 Shaders cut in half is 120. 512-bit bus cut in half is 256. 80 TUs cut in half is 40. 32 ROPs cut in half is 16.
Shaders | 120 | 128
Memory Bus | 256-bit | 256-bit
TUs | 40 | 64
ROPs | 16 | 16
Seems to me using G92 produced better cards than if they had cut down a GT200, I'm certainly happy about that, and I'm sure it saved nVidia a pretty penny to not have to tape out a new GPU that is almost identical to, actually slightly worse than, one already in existance. I bet all those people upgrading from a 9800GTX+ to a GTS250 would have been really happy if they use a GT200 derivitive instead of G92 though. Yep, it would have been really benefitial to the consumer...:shadedshu
Give me a farkin' break. :wtf:
nVidia is not different -- they seek to confuse, as well. The least you could do is admit it and not let your bias get in the way.
unless you are an investor in a company you shouldn't be caring one iota about how much money anyone saves except for yourself.
the naming schemes may not be the best for either company, but they are doing what they can with what they have. if you dont like it, dont buy from either company....oh wait, what does that leave you with?
And remember that you can combine some of what you listed above. They aren't that different. In fact one could go as far as saying R300 = R580 (DX9 non-unified) and R600 = RV770 (DX10 unified shader). All the interim refreshes weren't very different in the end regardless of how exciting they were at the time and how many magic marketing bullets were tweaked. Hell, practically we're still getting DX9 games and DX9 is from '02!
HD 4860
If the chip really is 40nm (as stated for the mobility version) , it should overclock like mad.... don't you think?
The average idiot consumer will likely NOT know the GTX260 is better than the 9800GTX simply by looking at the name. 9800>260, so the 9800 must be better to the common idiot. Just like 4670 is bigger than 3870, so the 4670 must be better. That is the whole point of the renaming. The idiotic consumer can look and tell that a GTS250 is worse than GTX260 simply by number, 250<260. I don't see how you could consider that adding confusion. Yes, they used the same core, big fucking deal, the renamed it so the name fits the performance level. And as I've already explained, the people that you claim they try to confuse are probably better off in the end.:eek:
NVidia seeks to eliminate confusion, but you will never see that because you are just an ATi fan...:laugh:As a consumer nVidia saving money is a good thing for me, for several reasons:
1.) If they had to spend extra money to tape out a new GPU, then the new GPU would likely have a higher price to the consumer. They have to recover that extra cost somehow. As a consumer I don't like higher prices.
2.) If they have to sell the GTS250/240 for a higher price, then ATi would be selling the HD4850/HD4830 for higher prices also, becuase if nVidia isn't able to compete price wise, ATi wouldn't have to lower their price as much. This door swings both ways of course, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say ATi is bad because they would charge more money if they could, every company is like this. Heck, even I would charge my customers more if I knew they wouldn't just run off to my competition...Just for the record, I don't think ATi seeks to confuse the customer, I think they are trying to flood the market with every variation on the RV770/790 possible.
I only talk about their naming scheme because it was brought up and I was responding to it. Their naming scheme simply doesn't directly relate to performance, I don't think they are trying to confuse customers with this, they are just bad at naming cards(nvidia is definitely quilty of this also, but I've already posted a number of times how I think their naming scheme should have gone).
nVidia is renaming the same card! Which average consumer on earth do you think will not understand it as a new card?:confused:
I think you're starting to defend nV beyond reason, and you know what everyone calls that....
Although ATi's naming scheme is very awkward and confusing too, they are not passing off previous generation cards a new-gen. If people are confused, they ask a more knowledgeable person to do their thinking. nVidia is just trying to give the illusion of releasing new cards in the face of ATi's blanketing release. LOL, there are 3 ways to win the market, flood, cheapen and lead; right now ATi's winning on 2 fronts while even nVidia's lead is made null by the incredulous 285 & 295 prices. BTW, I'm getting performance similar to 285 off my 4890, so yes, 285 is overpriced IMO.VIA/S3G!! PMSL:roll:
This HD4860 comes from UNIKA (chinese company).
The card can only be correctly identified by AMD Gpu Clock Tool:
And a small comparison test with a Radeon HD4850 under 3DMark Vantage:
HD4860:
publish.it168.com/2009/0730/20090730028001.shtml
And what new features did GT200 bring to make it next gen? None. It is just a beefed up G92. So again, what benefit to the consumer would releasing a GT200 derivitive have had? So the consumers that you say are being tricked, the ones that don't even know the new card they are about to get is the same G92 core with the same specs, would get the satisfaction of knowing that they really did get a new core on their card? Granted, the new core would be almost identical to G92...and they wouldn't know it anyway, because if they are too idiotic to check specs and what core is on the card in the first place, they won't know if the new card has a new core or not... But they certainly would have that satisfaction...:confused:
Nvidia makes video cards, Ati makes video cards, the video cards are priced per their PERFORMANCE. Top end piece is roughly $600 the card with the most performance between ati/NV garners that price tag - all other cards are priced respectively lower within a brand based on their performance relative their superior sibling card. Cards are also priced relative to their performance equal from the other company.
Nvidia sees that it is making $150 on each card and says "oh man, we are really making our consumers pay us too much, we need to drop the price $20 so we can get less money and they can save a few bucks" NO IT DOESNT WORK THAT WAY
when nvidia saves money nvidia makes money, when nvidia loses sales to ati they lower prices, they could give a flying f*** about saving their consumers money, and that goes for ALL companies.
en.expreview.com/2009/07/30/unika-radeon-hd-4860-taken-apart.html#more-4497
according to this article the UNIKA 4860 is only targeted at the Chinese market and it is an RV790 chip not the 40nm mobility HD4860 chip.
I guess this is all about clearing out stock chips (RV790) as much as possible before the DX11/evergreen boards appear (which will be very soon). And different markets (Japan, China,....) are all very different. For example we can get 4770 here in akihabara but they are 13500 yen boards ($135). And 1GB 4870s are still in the 20000yen ($200) range.
ATi and nVidia are competing on several performance points. Currently the GTS250/9800GTX+ and HD4850 are competiting cards. Each company wants the consumer to buy their cards. So, when the 9800GTX+ was on the market, nvidia had it priced at about $300. Then the HD4850 came along to compete with it, and ATi priced it at $200. So nVidia countered by lower the price of the 9800GTX+ to $175, so ATi countered by lowring the price of the HD4850 to $150, so nVidia lowered the price of the 9800GTX+ to $125, so ATi lowered the price of the HD4850 to $100...and nVidia was stuck because they couldn't lower the price on the 9800GTX+ any more because the cost to make the card was too high.
Now, nVidia redesigns the card to make manufacturing cheaper, guess what they get to do? You guessed it, lower the price to best the HD4850, which will then force ATi to then lower their price on the HD4850, assuming they aren't as low as they can go.
I never said anything about nVidia lower the price for the consumer because they wanted to...you just made that up simply because you have no clue how compeition and product pricing work, and you wanted to try and make my argument look bad. In the end you just made yourself look uninformed.
Their current moves do indeed seek to eliminate confusion, not to mention any nice store clerk could tell you that a 9800GTX+ and a GTS250 are the same card.
The problem is this same clerk is stumped when it comes to ATi's cards, with 4770 and 4790 besting 48xx series cards, it gets a whole lot more confusing.
don't get me wrong, this whole renaming dance doesn't please me in the slightest, but as for this particular discussion, newtekie1 ftw. In your very replies SNiiPE_DoGG, you have inadvertently proved his point.