Tuesday, July 1st 2008
ATI Preparing 'Super RV770' to Challenge GeForce GTX 200 Series
The RV770 is perhaps the best thing that happened to AMD in a long while. But more than AMD, it's perhaps the best thing that happened to us, the consumers. But general product launches seem to be just the tip of the ice-berg. The new PCB's designed by ATI for RV770 cards are actually running at well below the clock speed they can support and there is every reason to believe that these cards will be challenging NVIDIA's very best.
The HD4870 PCB with two 6-pin power connectors can support a maximum TDP of 225W (2x 75W from the power connectors + 75W from the PCI-Express interface). While at stock parameters, the HD4870 will not consume over 170W, it implies that with a fair bit of binning for high-performing parts, there is a serious lot of room for overclocking way beyond what the ordinary HD4870 cards can take.
ATI is binning the parts to a lowest denominator required for good yields and a level of performance that reaches or sometimes overtakes the GeForce GTX 260. But this time around, the company developed an AIB/OEM-only product codenamed "Super RV770", which will be much more powerful.
These cards will come with pre-installed water-cooling and feature an 'unlocked BIOS'. Déjà Vu? Yes, it's perhaps the same parts that went into making the Diamond HD4870 XOC Unlocked Black Edition which was released earlier. The BIOS allows manufacturers to push the GPU core speed all the way up to 950 MHz, with the memory being able to scale up to 1200 MHz (effective: 4.80 GHz). With even better cooling such as a thermo-electric couple (TEC) cooler, you might be able to push it a little further. At 1200 MHz memory, the card attains a memory bandwidth of 150 GBps.
With Diamond Multimedia already having a product in the making, expect announcements from other ATI partners such as ASUS, Sapphire, HIS and GeCube.
Source:
DailyTech
The HD4870 PCB with two 6-pin power connectors can support a maximum TDP of 225W (2x 75W from the power connectors + 75W from the PCI-Express interface). While at stock parameters, the HD4870 will not consume over 170W, it implies that with a fair bit of binning for high-performing parts, there is a serious lot of room for overclocking way beyond what the ordinary HD4870 cards can take.
ATI is binning the parts to a lowest denominator required for good yields and a level of performance that reaches or sometimes overtakes the GeForce GTX 260. But this time around, the company developed an AIB/OEM-only product codenamed "Super RV770", which will be much more powerful.
These cards will come with pre-installed water-cooling and feature an 'unlocked BIOS'. Déjà Vu? Yes, it's perhaps the same parts that went into making the Diamond HD4870 XOC Unlocked Black Edition which was released earlier. The BIOS allows manufacturers to push the GPU core speed all the way up to 950 MHz, with the memory being able to scale up to 1200 MHz (effective: 4.80 GHz). With even better cooling such as a thermo-electric couple (TEC) cooler, you might be able to push it a little further. At 1200 MHz memory, the card attains a memory bandwidth of 150 GBps.
With Diamond Multimedia already having a product in the making, expect announcements from other ATI partners such as ASUS, Sapphire, HIS and GeCube.
56 Comments on ATI Preparing 'Super RV770' to Challenge GeForce GTX 200 Series
The only bottlenecks in the rv770 architecture are a lack of ROPs and the link between core speed and shader speed.
I'm not too worried about it though, because to the consumer, these issues don't really matter. The 4000 series is proving to be incredibly efficient and economical, which is something nVidia can't say at the moment.
If they sell it without the cooler, then that's ok.
I don't want any of my liquid cooling ever coming pre-assembled.
And I still can't get over the fact that they're suggesting they 'hard lock' GPUs....Not sure where you're getting your information from, but the 4800 series has all but given the 'finger' to the heat/power consumption/noise issue.
This time around, and even some of the previous cards, Nvidia is leading in that department.
Go find some reviews on it. As an example, a GTX 280 can idle on air at around 50c and cap at 65c under load for some people. A 4850, yes 4850, idles at over 70c, take a guess where it peaks at ?
ATi chucked one of their main staples in order to close the performance gap on Nvidia.
About the die size and performance compared to spu, well, ofcourse there was some need to cut back in a few areas in order to make the silicon "normal" in size and yields. look at performance figures - the job is done, the cards are twice as fast as their predecessors.
So the core can be better utilized and has more potential, maybe yes. i say they will develop on this potential in the upcoming generations. these things are fast enough :toast:
Oh, 4890 FTW! :)
Comparing a GTX280 to a 4850 is not right, they both use different coolers, the GTX280 use's a large dual-slot cooler, the 4850 a small single-slot cooler. I would like to see Nvidia release a GTX2xx card with a single-slot cooler. Put that dual-slot cooler on the 4850 and it would load in the 50's. 4850's idle at high 60's, and peak at 80....same as alot of cards on the market.
but the heat issue is due to a bios locked setting of 16% fan speed. once you cnahye the speed, you get a much cooler card. you just have to balance noise vs heat. erockers 4870 at 50% fan speed gets 38c idle 55c load. and he says he can't hear the 4870's fan above hsi other system fans at 50% I'll bet the next bath of cards will have a different setting to allow better cooling performance.
So, something drastic needed to change - and even though these cards can microwave a potato in about 2.5min, look at how well they're selling.wouldn't surprise me at all - I had been getting the feeling ATI have had another ace up their sleeve, and then we hear of this . . . I'm sure they have something to counter whatever nVidia dram up to piss-on the 4870x2.
ATI have played this whole generation release perfectly, I am in awe :respect:
;thumbs up;
The point was that the 4800s ARE louder, hotter and consume more at a considerably larger percentage in just one generation jump. This aspect has been a big part of their forte in the past.
Although, it looks like they got tired of that approach, and chucked it to the bin, like I said before, to catch up to Nvidia.
And I'm all for it, at least the performance gain, just not the ethics.
However, let's not bullshit here. If Nvidia puts out a power house card, the first damn thing people speculate on, is that it's going to be a 'dog,' a mini radiator that could heat your room in the winter, etc. And in the past at times, such claims would have been valid, however Nvidia, in one generation, has improved upon this issue.
-Ati focuses on it less and gains performance.
-Nvidia focuses on it more and ;gasp; gains performance, still out performing.
What happens to the 'price/performance' cliche, when you have to change your case, and/or buy aftermarket coolers to compensate???
Now what do you expect is going to happen when they do this 'unlocking' the clocks non-sense and actually have increased voltages? Que the waterblock?
The 4800 series dissapoints me, because it represents ATi compromising something that was apparently very important to them, and their customers. And this 'super' bit only takes it one step further, as if saying they want the 'crown,' and they want to retain it. But at what cost?
Remember what's his face from ATi saying publically that the X2 would dominate a GTX 280?
When was the last time ATi made such a comment?
I think they've done a 180 and thrown everything they had left into this strategy to attack Nvidia while they were sleeping.
ATi doesn't have the money or resources to fight fire with fire. And I don't want to see them bowing out, because some twat executive has a personal genda to top Nvidia for several months.
also changing teh 4850 fanspeed to 35% drops temps significantly.
They must know that the cards are stuck at 18% but the cards are hardly more noisy at 50% & the cards don't even reach 75c at that speed.
Oh hey, so while we're on the topic of energy efficiency, can we talk about economic efficiency? Let's not joke around, nVidia could stand to focus on that a bit as well...I've almost gained a little bit of respect for you here, what with the highly emotional and ethical approach you take to picking out your components, but I can't help but find your argument entirely one-sided and, frankly, a little ridiculous.
ATi isn't compromising any of its values here.. The only reason their new cards run so hot is because they're practically silent and, in the case of the 4850 you so viciously attacked earlier in the thread, can be outfitted with single-slot coolers. We're talking not only half the heatsink material (very important for load temps), but a fan that's half the height of the GTX260/280's as well, and thus moves a whole heck of a lot less air.Evidently nVidia wasn't sleeping, what with the paper-launched 9800GTX+ they released in the middle of the night... Now you want to talk about tricky business practices?
I don't mean to attack you personally or anything, but really man, how can you make this kind of argument? ATi has delivered higher-performing, quieter chips that take up less room and cost less than the HD3 series. How can you possibly turn that into an attack on their ethics?
Now you could be right on the whole heat argument, as we all know that heat and high voltage are surefire killers of silicon-based microchips, but we won't know how that's affected the lifespan of these cards until we see them start going out en masse. Until then? Buy Visiontek. Lifetime warranty FTW! :D
again i say, heat and temperature are 2 different things.
The RV770 GPU creates a certain amount of heat during operation. The heatsink try to dissipate this heat while the fan blows air over the heatsink to allow for more heat dissipation. We measure the heat of the GPU by looking at its idle & load temps. WTH, are you just trying to make things over complicated cause I think I completely missed something. Sorry for not understanding :banghead:
Heat and temperature are cousins but they are not a direct corellation.
The company gives you the option of increasing teh fan, there are anvenues to do so. This cannot make one company worse than the other. If the heatskin itself was woefully inadequate now that would be a cause for concern.