Saturday, May 31st 2008
AMD Starts Shipping ATI Radeon HD 4850 Video Cards
The ATI Radeon HD 4850 cards are reportedly already shipping to OEM partners and retailers. According to TG Daily everything is going as planned and AMD/ATI is aiming for a sizable launch of the new product generation, with Radeon 4850 512MB boards leading the charge. The final prices for all Radeon HD 4 series cards will be officially declared during the Computex 2008 tradeshow which will open doors on Monday. Higher-end Radeon 4870 cards with 512MB of onboard GDDR5 memory are expected to ship in volume sometime this summer, with flagship Radeon HD 4870 X2 to follow soon after that.
Source:
TG Daily
74 Comments on AMD Starts Shipping ATI Radeon HD 4850 Video Cards
Anyway the difference in price is there, and that was my point. Maybe I remember this badly wrong, but I remember Palit_Guy saying their profit was smaller in 1 GB cards than on 512 ones. This means that production cost difference was bigger than the one existing in retail prices. I mean the difference in retail price (without the aforementioned profit loss) of the extra 400 MB in the GTX 260 would probably be around $50. A 448 MB GTX 260 could easily sell for $60-80 less just as the GTS 320 and still be faster than the competition.
EDIT: Also correct me if I'm wrong but Wizzard said 1 ns 512 Mbit chips were about $4,5 from manufacturers in 1000 (10.000?) units. $4,5 x 8 = 36. And 0,8 ns chips are a lot more expensive AFAIK.
EDIT2: On another note, I've just seen this in Fudzilla (yeah whatever, I trust them as much as many other sources, kinda):
www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7625&Itemid=1
I've mixed opinions about this. I do think AA is done better out of the shaders, but we'll have to wait and see now, because FSAA done in 16 ROPs could be a limiting factor for such a card. I guess they have significantly improved them, but I don't know how it will work in the end. I'm optimistic in that I never think they will fail, but I'm am worried in the sense that the decisions seems more based on developers desires than on Ati's desires. This is important in a timely basis: have the chip prepared to do it since the start or is it a "last time" decision?
But it's good in the long run. These companies keep pushing themselves to advance technology and it's the consumer that has benefited.
The reason nVIDIA needs to use a more expensive 512-bit memory bus is because they don't have the capability to advance GDDR memory the way ATi can. Still using GDDR3 because they don't know how to develop anything better.
EDIT2: I have made my brother read this and he has said I didn't made my point clear about the above. Here's further explanation. It's not that I don't like a company to own the rights over something they have developed. It's the fact that suposedly Ati has set standards for the industry for something they don't manufacture, memory chips. They are the customers not the developers and IMO shouldn't be the ones setting standards, as those may not fit other customer's needs. The fact that it's always Ati who sets the GDDR standards and that I know how the world works, and that's 99% politics, my view is that JEDEC aproves Ati's designs because they are "used" to them. That's not good for the industry nor the customer IMHO.
EDIT: Just as a showing of how they can. I studied Telecommunications Engineering. I left in the second course because it was a lot about programming software than what I liked and first thought it would be. But in the meantime and without a lot of studying in that matter (I mean I left in the second course) , I learnt by myself how to do a SDRAM memory controler with the help of Altera programable FPGAs, for a project in which I needed more memory than the one that I could fit in the FPGA they gave us. Was it fast? No mama, but it worked, and it was me. Come on...
Plus Amd developed x86-64 because they have a joint development agreement with Intel. Any improvement made by one part can be "copied" without a patent infringement (more or less that's it).
This is not the case with Ati - Nvidia AFAIK. Plus JEDEC dictates what the manufacturers are going to do. If JEDEC says GDDR5, it's GDDR5. Let's say Nvidia comes up with a new own memory design, they have first need to be aproved by JEDEC. If the new design is similar to GDDR they won't get aproved. The case is that GDDR5 is the standard and if Nvidia wants to use it, probably has to pay to Ati because they probably have the patents over it. Any try to make something similar will fail into patent infringement.
Following the example of x86. Do you really think that nobody in the world can make their own x86 processor? Nvidia for example to follow with the same players. Of course they can, but patents prevent them from doing it. You would be surprised how patents can prevent many companies from doing lots of things in this industry. The computer industry is not that much about innovation really, it's more the sort of like for double the performance double the lines or the clocks, etc. There are some things you can innovate, but offen times they are easy to think off and obvious, but at the same time are not worth at that time, so you don't implement them ar even care about them. So you forget about them, then a month later you think again and say "Ey in the next year this could be handy". You go to the patent's office just to find out you are 3 days late and someone else has "taken the lead"... That's how this things work. The worst thing, besides this or in adition to this, is that there are plenty of "companies" out there which their only job is finding those "holes" and making patents of them even though the won't even develop them into reality and never have thought of doing it. It sucks.
That 3870x2 came long after nvidia was at the top of the hill, and it was only one offering, and it was a dual-gpu. I was just hoping for more competition, one card (even though it is a great card) too far down the road doesn't do it.
anyhow, GDDR4 was never really show to improve performance over GDDR3, as GDDR3 over GDDR2 - the only difference I think that makes sense, IMO, is it reduces loading stutter, as the memory can move texture files in and out quicker. But, this type of performance isn't included, nor can it really be, in benchmarks. it's a thought . . . but ATI has never really been about the brute force method
I think I heard of the 1gb card as well but I'd imagine that'd be a no go until supply of DDR5 gets better (it would seem they had to cancel the DDR5 on the 4850s b/c of supply issues). Ultimately these cards very much so seem to be meant for the mainstream where good price/performance ratios should be able to get ATI some market share back. If 512mb is the sweet spot for most buyers I'd imagine ATI would want to put all their eggs into that basket from the outset and put the current supply of memory towards those so they can sell more. More of a nitpick than anything but Assasin's Creed actually did make use of 10.1 and from what I read it was supposed to make a pretty significant difference (I think I remember reading like 20% performance gain when using AA).
Also "performance is king" is probably not correct either -- it's important but it doesn't rule all. I'm sure Nv sold a hell of a lot more 8800 GTs than Ultra's or GX2s. Not to mention the arguement can be misleading. You can have games where an ATI card will out perform a similiar NV card that otherwise crushes the same ATI card in game x. In cases like those which is really the stronger card? At times performance can rely as much on market share & cooperative development initatives as it does technical design & specs. Where ATI may have the latter two they are definately lacking in the former. It becomes a chicken & egg thing. To make their cards perform beter ATI needs games to support their cards features, to get the support they probably need stronger market share (it makes sense to put more support behind a card your consumer is just more likely to have), to get market share they need....
And why do you care who developed it? All that matters is the cost and performance of the hardware, not who designed it.
I believe it is an extremely good move for Ati to stay in the shadow on Nvidia on the ultra high end of the scale. Why should they manufactor an expensive mega card that only markets towards the 5% of users who actually buy the best of the best.
By sticking to the affordable almost high end cards, they are bringing VERY good cards at FAR more reasonable prices, and starting to win back the mainstream users who buy up most of the cards sold by both companies.
After 2900xt people feared Ati might be a done company, now they are on the right track again with affordable high performance cards; isn't that everyones dream come true?
R300 8pp to compete with NV25 with 4pp. 256bit over 128bit. Seems brute force to me. r4xx 16pp SM2b 520/560 mhz core vs NV40 16pp SM3 450mhz. Brute force to me again.
R580 16pp 48shaders vs G71 24pp 24 shaders Brute force once again from ATI. Heck the R600 320 shaders 512bit vs G80 128 shaders 384bit, brute force again
The last non brute force attempt on ATI/AMD's part was the R520.
AMD or Nvidia, its all choices we live with. One leads the other follows and vise versa, one works through the front door (Intel) the other through the back door (AMD). But as for video cards, I am for the best implementation of new technology at a fare price. Memory, GPU's, CPU's and performance change quickly.
I for one look forward to seeing the new 4800 series come to market. My personal gaming rig will own one of these cards. My Biostar TP35D3-A7 Deluxe 5.x and E6850 sit idle waiting for the 4870 X2 to be released. AMD don't fail me now.
J/K
:slap: ;)