Wednesday, May 21st 2008
AMD Confirms GDDR5 for ATI Radeon 4 Series Video Cards
AMD today announced the first commercial implementation of Graphics Double Data Rate, version 5 (GDDR5) memory in its forthcoming next generation of ATI Radeon graphics card products. The high-speed, high-bandwidth GDDR5 technology is expected to become the new memory standard in the industry, and that same performance and bandwidth is a key enabler of The Ultimate Visual Experience, unlocking new GPU capabilities. AMD is working with a number of leading memory providers, including Samsung, Hynix and Qimonda, to bring GDDR5 to market.
Today's GPU performance is limited by the rate at which data can be moved on and off the graphics chip, which in turn is limited by the memory interface width and die size. The higher data rates supported by GDDR5 - up to 5x that of GDDR3 and 4x that of GDDR4 - enable more bandwidth over a narrower memory interface, which can translate into superior performance delivered from smaller, more cost-effective chips. AMD's senior engineers worked closely with industry standards body JEDEC in developing the new memory technology and defining the GDDR5 spec.
"The days of monolithic mega-chips are gone. Being first to market with GDDR in our next-generation architecture, AMD is able to deliver incredible performance using more cost-effective GPUs," said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Graphics Product Group, AMD. "AMD believes that GDDR5 is the optimal way to drive performance gains while being mindful of power consumption. We're excited about the potential GDDR5 brings to the table for innovative game development and even more exciting game play."
The introduction of GDDR5-based GPU offerings marks the continued tradition of technology leadership in graphics for AMD. Most recently AMD has been first to bring a unified shader architecture to market, the first to support Microsoft DirectX 10.1 gaming, first to lower process nodes like 55nm, the first with integrated HDMI with audio, and the first with double-precision floating point calculation support.
AMD expects that PC graphics will benefit from the increase in memory bandwidth for a variety of intensive applications. PC gamers will have the potential to play at high resolutions and image quality settings, with superb overall gaming performance. PC applications will have the potential to benefit from fast load times, with superior responsiveness and multi-tasking.
"Qimonda has worked closely with AMD to ensure that GDDR5 is available in volume to best support AMD's next-generation graphics products," said Thomas Seifert, Chief Operating Officer of Qimonda AG. "Qimonda's ability to quickly ramp production is a further milestone in our successful GDDR5 roadmap and underlines our predominant position as innovator and leader in the graphics DRAM market."
GDDR5 for Stream Processing
In addition to the potential for improved gaming and PC application performance, GDDR5 also holds a number of benefits for stream processing, where GPUs are applied to address complex, massively parallel calculations. Such calculations are prevalent in high-performance computing, financial and academic segments among others. AMD expects that the increased bandwidth of GDDR5 will greatly benefit certain classes of stream computations.
New error detection mechanisms in GDDR5 can also help increase the accuracy of calculations by indentifying errors and re-issuing commands to get valid data. This capability is a level of reliability not available with other GDDR-based memory solutions today.
Source:
AMD
Today's GPU performance is limited by the rate at which data can be moved on and off the graphics chip, which in turn is limited by the memory interface width and die size. The higher data rates supported by GDDR5 - up to 5x that of GDDR3 and 4x that of GDDR4 - enable more bandwidth over a narrower memory interface, which can translate into superior performance delivered from smaller, more cost-effective chips. AMD's senior engineers worked closely with industry standards body JEDEC in developing the new memory technology and defining the GDDR5 spec.
"The days of monolithic mega-chips are gone. Being first to market with GDDR in our next-generation architecture, AMD is able to deliver incredible performance using more cost-effective GPUs," said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Graphics Product Group, AMD. "AMD believes that GDDR5 is the optimal way to drive performance gains while being mindful of power consumption. We're excited about the potential GDDR5 brings to the table for innovative game development and even more exciting game play."
The introduction of GDDR5-based GPU offerings marks the continued tradition of technology leadership in graphics for AMD. Most recently AMD has been first to bring a unified shader architecture to market, the first to support Microsoft DirectX 10.1 gaming, first to lower process nodes like 55nm, the first with integrated HDMI with audio, and the first with double-precision floating point calculation support.
AMD expects that PC graphics will benefit from the increase in memory bandwidth for a variety of intensive applications. PC gamers will have the potential to play at high resolutions and image quality settings, with superb overall gaming performance. PC applications will have the potential to benefit from fast load times, with superior responsiveness and multi-tasking.
"Qimonda has worked closely with AMD to ensure that GDDR5 is available in volume to best support AMD's next-generation graphics products," said Thomas Seifert, Chief Operating Officer of Qimonda AG. "Qimonda's ability to quickly ramp production is a further milestone in our successful GDDR5 roadmap and underlines our predominant position as innovator and leader in the graphics DRAM market."
GDDR5 for Stream Processing
In addition to the potential for improved gaming and PC application performance, GDDR5 also holds a number of benefits for stream processing, where GPUs are applied to address complex, massively parallel calculations. Such calculations are prevalent in high-performance computing, financial and academic segments among others. AMD expects that the increased bandwidth of GDDR5 will greatly benefit certain classes of stream computations.
New error detection mechanisms in GDDR5 can also help increase the accuracy of calculations by indentifying errors and re-issuing commands to get valid data. This capability is a level of reliability not available with other GDDR-based memory solutions today.
135 Comments on AMD Confirms GDDR5 for ATI Radeon 4 Series Video Cards
It's just facts though - you look at specs and wow, GDDR5, wide bus... but still GFs win. Even if ATI gets one game, it loses in 10 other ones. There are more drivers problems with ATI too, and pricing kinda shows what's what as well.
AMD/ATI doesnt do that afaik, but im sure its just a marketing thing nvidia has going...
anyway im glad to see that gddr5 is confirmed! :)
At least power consumption should be lower that way :p
You have water cooling setup and want to decide on the size of the tubing. You can go 3/4" inner diameter tubing but you run the risk of a slower flow rate do to the size of the pump's barb only being 1/2" and it's power output (more/less). Or you can get a tube with an inner diameter 7/16" (which is slightly smaller then 1/2") which should maximize your flow rate. I believe this is what the following means:If I am wrong could someone clarify this? :o
the cards are built for gaming, there isnt a good enough game to really tell what is better. right now i beat the 9800 series of invidia by 8 fps with same settings. it is all on the config of your pc
( i am only running 1 card right now too)
But, those games are few and far between - nVidia likes to pander to the poor, struggling game devlopers, who need the money.
ATI cards have proven capable of keeping up without "optimized" game code, which says a lot, IMO. If we were to scrap all hardware optimizational coding, both companies would be on a level playing field.
The way I see it, though, I wouldn't be surprised if nVidia is the next to come under anti-trust law investigation. They're still up to shady tactics, and odd coincidences pop up now and then - like Assassin's Creed and DX10.1 . . . funny how much better ATI 10.1 capable cards were running it as compared to nVidia's, and then DX10.1 is removed?! :wtf:
Makes you wonder why nVidia refused to support 10.1 to begin with, even though it's meant to run better than initial DX10 . . . and possibly that refinement is why ATI chose to be the only hardware manufacturer to support it . . .
GDDR5 doesn't seem like something to drool over at all, too. I mean, isn't it like with DDR3 RAM? Frequency increases and so do timings, and in the end performance increase is nothing much really.
Same with graphic cards, we're up to GDDR5 already but the cards will still develop at the usual, moderate pace. 4x series is supposed to be what, up to 50% faster then 3x series? Within the usual cycle, I'd say.