Thursday, April 24th 2008

ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series Video Cards Specs Leaked

Thanks to TG Daily we can now talk about the very soon to be released ATI HD 4800 series of graphics cards with more details. One week ahead of its presumable release date, general specifications of the new cards have been revealed. All Radeon 4800 graphics will use the 55nm TSMC produced RV770 GPU, that include over 800 million transistors, 480 stream processors or shader units (96+384), 32 texture units, 16 ROPs, a 256-bit memory controller (512-bit for the Radeon 4870 X2) and native GDDR3/4/5 support as reported before. At first, AMD's graphics division will launch three new cards - Radeon HD 4850, 4870 and 4870 X2:
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 - 650MHz/850MHz/1140MHz core/shader/memory clock speeds, 20.8 GTexel/s (32 TMU x 0.65 GHz) fill-rate, available in 256MB/512MB of GDDR3 memory or 512MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1.73GHz
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 - 850MHz/1050MHz/1940MHz core/shader/memory clock speeds, 27.2 GTexel/s (32 TMU x 0.85 GHz) fill-rate, available in 1GB GDDR5 version only
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 - unknown core/shader clock speeds, available with 2048MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1730MHz
The 4850 256MB GDDR3 version will arrive as the successor of the 3850 256MB with a price in the sub-$200 range. The 4850 512MB GDDR3 should retail for $229, while the 4850 512MB GDDR5 will set you back about $249-269. The 1GB GDDR5 powered 4870 will retail between $329-349. The flagship Radeon HD 4870 X2 will ship later this year for $499.
Source: TG Daily
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278 Comments on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series Video Cards Specs Leaked

#26
HTC
mdm-adphThat'd be cool, but there's no way -- a 3870x2 can sure throw out some pixels.
Dunno, but it sure would put the graph market in full throttle, so to speak!
Posted on Reply
#27
CY:G
Anyone knows when are this going to be released, im thinking of selling my 3870 if they get released in the following months..
Posted on Reply
#28
johnnyfiive
sinner33Wonder how much faster these 4870's are compared to 3870's? :confused:
I'm gonna guess 15% at default clocks.
Posted on Reply
#29
magibeg
batmangI'm gonna guess 15% at default clocks.
That seems extremely conservative. 320 stream processors to 480 is like a 50% increase in that alone. Then theres the 1050mhz shader speed to the 775. The faster memory should help a little, the fact its 1GB. I would say a clear 50%+ increase if i had to guess.
Posted on Reply
#30
lemonadesoda
Interesting.

Seems like the HD 4850 512MB GDDR5 is the winner here. Best price/performance/power ratio.

Unfortunately, the jury is still out on raw horsepower. How much faster will the 4850 be compared to the 3850? 50% more shaders. 15% faster RAM, 0% extra ROPs. Higher power consumption, (unless switching to GDDR5).

I would have like to see MORE HORSEPOWER, e.g. Texture units and ROPs, etc. I'm not convinced the extra 50% shaders will do much more than allow 8x AA rather than 4x AA, but still with all other settings the same. I hope I'm wrong.

Excluding the move to GDDR5 (optional), the new ATi cards seem more like a "3950". I dont think they deserve a "4" at the front. After all, performance wise, it's like a X800XT over X800Pro.
Posted on Reply
#31
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
magibegThat seems extremely conservative. 320 stream processors to 480 is like a 66% increase in that alone.
Ehm..that's 50%
Posted on Reply
#32
Pinchy
All paper talk. Lets just wait for the benchies :)...

We all know what happened with the "awesome" specs of the 2900's.
Posted on Reply
#33
magibeg
btarunrEhm..that's 50%
Yea sorry i corrected that after. From a % basis its 66% UP from 320 although in an absolute sense its only 50% more shaders total.
Posted on Reply
#35
lemonadesoda
The Radeon 3800 series had a serious flaw called texture low fill-rate, which was addressed by ATI with an increased number of TMUs (Texture Memory Unit) from 16 to 32. The specifications indicate that 16 TMUs can address 80 textures on the fly, which means that 32 units should be able to fetch 160 in the RV770: This should allow the new GPU to catch up with Nvidia’s G92 design. However, the G92 has 64 TMUs that were enabled gradually (some SKUs shipped with 56), resulting in a fill-rate performance that beat the original 8800GTX and Ultra models.

ATI’s RV770 will be rated at a fill rate of 20.8-27.2 GTexel/s (excluding X2 version), which is on the lower end of the GeForce 9 series (9600 GT: 20.8; 9800 GTX: 43.2 9800 GX2: 76.8).
Interesting. Perhaps the "texture fill bottleneck fix" will mean big improvements in SOME situations.
Posted on Reply
#36
mdm-adph
lemonadesodaExcluding the move to GDDR5 (optional), the new ATi cards seem more like a "3950". I dont think they deserve a "4" at the front. After all, performance wise, it's like a X800XT over X800Pro.
Ah, but it's a completely different core -- something actually deserving of a new number prefix for once. :p
Posted on Reply
#37
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
i may well look into the 4870x2 - just after a card thats cooler/quieter/smaller than my GTX (which seriously takes 4 slots with the cooling i have on it) and less power use at idle.

Then again, i dont NEED it... lol.
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#38
TUngsten
is there an ETA?

does W1Z have one under the microscope as we speak?:toast:
Posted on Reply
#39
Solaris17
Super Dainty Moderator
go ati nice come back
Posted on Reply
#40
EastCoasthandle
Anyone notice how GT, GTS 512, GTX and Ultra have more Texture Fill Rate
(# of TMUs) x GPU clock rate

&

Pixel Fill Rate
(# of ROPs) x GPU clock rate

but doesn't equate to the same level of frame rates found in games. But that doesn't necessary equal to the performance in games. In some cases it's only a few frames.



If you notice, the GT and GTS 512 models of these video cards have higher texture and pixel fill rates then 3870 regardless if it's twice as high or not. Yes, other factors come into play however, the 3870 doesn't lag behind by the same magnitude which is why I believe it's not very efficient.

Therefore, it will be interesting to see how the 4870 stacks up.
Posted on Reply
#41
newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder
mdm-adphOh, I agree about the general nature of marketing BS, but how do you know that the 4870 X2 isn't going to be clocked at 1 GHz?
That wasn't the claim. The claim was that the HD4870 would be the worlds first production GPU clocked at 1GHz.
Posted on Reply
#42
lemonadesoda
@eastcoast, nice table. What a shame there arent standardised 3dmark06 scores in the table, e.g. same stock system like a Q6600 running same benchmark on each card. That would be a nice comparison. Without real-world tests, the stats dont mean a lot. It's like comparing number of screws on a sportscar. There is so much else that comes into the equation once the car gets on the track.

*EDIT*
Wait, I've just found this on google:

Benchmark HD 4870 on beta drivers vs. HD 3870, HD 3870 Crossfire on Cat 8.4 and 8800GT here: HD.3870.3Dmark06=12,590 vs. HD.4870.3Dmark06benchmark.leak.html=21,223 :D

ROFL WARNING
Posted on Reply
#43
newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder
PinchyAll paper talk. Lets just wait for the benchies :)...

We all know what happened with the "awesome" specs of the 2900's.
+1!!!
Posted on Reply
#44
EastCoasthandle
lemonadesoda@eastcoast, nice table. What a shame there arent standardised 3dmark06 scores in the table. That would be nice

*edit*
I've just found this on google:

ATI’s RV770 will be rated at a fill rate of 20.8-27.2 GTexel/s (excluding X2 version), benchmarks against HD 3870 here: HD.3870.3Dmark06=13,340 vs. :D HD.4870.3Dmark06benchmark.leak.html=21,223 :D
It's not my table, I googled for it :D. In any case as you can see the magnitude of the texture and pixel fill rates between competing cards leaves a pretty large gap.
Posted on Reply
#45
Weer
I'm sorry, wasn't I thinking about buying an X1950 just one year ago?
How many more numbers are they going to have to increase before people realize that they are repackaging the same old crap?
Posted on Reply
#46
magibeg
WeerI'm sorry, wasn't I thinking about buying an X1950 just one year ago?
How many more numbers are they going to have to increase before people realize that they are repackaging the same old crap?
Could say the same thing about cars, or almost any product for that matter. Very few things are build from complete scratch and most are gradual innovations over time based on what works.
Posted on Reply
#47
das müffin mann
WeerI'm sorry, wasn't I thinking about buying an X1950 just one year ago?
How many more numbers are they going to have to increase before people realize that they are repackaging the same old crap?
a 3870 is not the same as a 1950 will its still a good card they are different
nvidia kinda did that with the 9800 series but then again didnt ati kinda do that between teh 2900-3xxx series?
Posted on Reply
#48
mandelore
wonder if the shader will be able to be independantly clocked like with NV cards? now that its unlinked to the gpu speed?

if so that would be awesome!! and a base core clock of 850mhz aint bad, and if the 55nm gpu allows some nice oc headroom i dont see why it cant be overclocked easily past 1ghz, but then again its all iff and assumptions here, still, pretty exciting stuff
Posted on Reply
#49
mandelore
WeerI'm sorry, wasn't I thinking about buying an X1950 just one year ago?
How many more numbers are they going to have to increase before people realize that they are repackaging the same old crap?
LMFAO , you're saying this about ATI???

try appling that rant to Nvidia, then you will be onto something
Posted on Reply
#50
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
WeerI'm sorry, wasn't I thinking about buying an X1950 just one year ago?
How many more numbers are they going to have to increase before people realize that they are repackaging the same old crap?
old, boring argument. geforce 2 and geforce 4MX was the same thing, GF 6 and 7 were very similar, 8 and 9 share GPU cores, ATI have so many i wont bother listing them all (9500/9800, 1600/1650, 2xx0 3xx0)
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