Thursday, September 4th 2008

AMD FireStream 9250 Out in This Month

by
btarunr
 Discuss (24 Comments)
Within this month, AMD will release a FireStream GPGPU card based on the successful RV770 graphics processor. This card provides computing parallelism derived from 800 stream processors, that churn out a peak collective computational power of 1000 GFlops. That's a 100% improvement over the FireStream 9170 in terms of computational power and a 60% improvement in terms of GFlops per Watt. That said, the power draw of this card has gone up to 150W compared to its 100W predecessor. This card is the fastest in the industry in terms of double-precision floating point performance. It packs 1 GB of GDDR3 memory on a 256-bit wide memory bus.

FireStream series of cards to catered towards delivering blistering performance of AMD's GPUs to business users in high performance computing situations such as financial analysis, seismic processing, simulations, rendering, climate research, protein folding etc. Apparently the card retains the display logic with a single DVI connector though normally GPGPU devices lack it. This card will be out within this month and will carry a price-tag of US $999.
Source: GPU Café

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24 Comments on AMD FireStream 9250 Out in This Month

#1
tkpenalty
$999? Thats a rather low pricetag for a product aimed at this market!
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#2
FR@NK
tkpenalty$999? Thats a rather low pricetag for a product aimed at this market!
Yea the version based on the 2900xt was $1999 iirc. I wonder what the clock speeds are since it looks like it uses the single slot cooler like the 4850.


I just dont see why ATI isnt using GDDR5 on all of their cards. Doesnt it simplify the PCB design? Meaning it should make the card cheaper even though the ram cost twice as much? Also uses less power and is nearly twice as fast as GDDR3.
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#3
Katanai
What's that? A glorified 4850?
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#4
tkpenalty
KatanaiWhat's that? A glorified 4850?
Every professional GPU would be glorified to you...
FR@NKYea the version based on the 2900xt was $1999 iirc. I wonder what the clock speeds are since it looks like it uses the single slot cooler like the 4850.


I just dont see why ATI isnt using GDDR5 on all of their cards. Doesnt it simplify the PCB design? Meaning it should make the card cheaper even though the ram cost twice as much? Also uses less power and is nearly twice as fast as GDDR3.
Err GDDR5 complicates the PCB design.
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#5
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
If only AMD had a GPGPU platform as popular as CUDA.

HD 4850 looks good in black.
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#6
FR@NK
tkpenaltyErr GDDR5 complicates the PCB design.
Nope. The main benefit of GDDR5 (other then the speed) is the clock signal training system.
W1zzardAMD has successfully introduced GDDR5 memory to the graphics market, which is a new generation of memory chips that is used on the HD 4870 for the first time. Compared to previous generations of GDDR memory this new architecture offers twice the bandwidth at the same clock and bus width. This means that AMD achieves over 100 GB/s memory bandwidth with a 256-bit bus. Together with the link training features of GDDR5 this enables a much simpler PCB design, resulting in additional cost savings.
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#7
DeltaFox
Damn!
Why didn't they make the 4850 with black PCB/Cooler in the first place,
this thing look so cool! (At least they made the 4870X2 black)
Posted on Reply
#8
jbunch07
I dont know why but i find that card very appealing. Aesthetics anyway.
Posted on Reply
#9
GPUCafe
GPU Cafe Representative
FR@NKNope. The main benefit of GDDR5 (other then the speed) is the clock signal training system.
The cost savings on the PCB design side are much smaller compared to the cost difference between GDDR3 & GDDR5. If AMD decides to, they can still release a 9270 using GDDR5.

Now that AMD dropped CTM, these cards will be very useful with OpenCL & DirectX11 (Compute Shader).

And AIB partners are free to offer a black edition. Didnt we have a black 3850?
Posted on Reply
#10
snuif09
hell its black i even want one
Posted on Reply
#11
Darkrealms
GPUCafeThe cost savings on the PCB design side are much smaller compared to the cost difference between GDDR3 & GDDR5. If AMD decides to, they can still release a 9270 using GDDR5.

Now that AMD dropped CTM, these cards will be very useful with OpenCL & DirectX11 (Compute Shader).

And AIB partners are free to offer a black edition. Didnt we have a black 3850?
For $999 though how much more would it have really cost to make it GDDR5?
I would have thought top of the line for business industry would have been GDDR5. Are they waiting for someone else to counter then move up?
Posted on Reply
#12
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
DarkrealmsFor $999 though how much more would it have really cost to make it GDDR5?
I would have thought top of the line for business industry would have been GDDR5. Are they waiting for someone else to counter then move up?
Point is, such a card at $999 is already very cheap (compared to NV Tesla, older FStreams' C/P). Being based on the HD 4850 design, they can't make this a GDDR5 (or sell it for $999).
Posted on Reply
#13
WarEagleAU
Bird of Prey
Id like this card to go for 199. I could so use this with SE19 and ACAD2009
Posted on Reply
#14
PCpraiser100
I wonder too much on what Nvidia will be planning to do to this card through game devs. Either way, I love this f*ckin card as the legend has returned to claim the performance crown if Nvidia has any ideas up their sleeve (who wants an Ultra edition of the GTX 280?). Hoping to see this card say "High" to Crysis on full settings (that means AA too). The only cons that hurts is that single DVI connector and the wattage that may threaten the 6-pin connector. Either way, I'm pretty sure workstations will be using TripleHead2Go video splitters and modular PSUs to resolve these issues.
Posted on Reply
#15
MadCow
PCpraiser100I wonder too much on what Nvidia will be planning to do to this card through game devs. Either way, I love this f*ckin card as the legend has returned to claim the performance crown if Nvidia has any ideas up their sleeve (who wants an Ultra edition of the GTX 280?). Hoping to see this card say "High" to Crysis on full settings (that means AA too). The only cons that hurts is that single DVI connector and the wattage that may threaten the 6-pin connector. Either way, I'm pretty sure workstations will be using TripleHead2Go video splitters and modular PSUs to resolve these issues.
It's not supposed to be a video card, it's pretty much just an HD4850 optimized for GPGPU applications. You're probably thinking of the FireGL line, those are workstation video cards.
Posted on Reply
#16
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
WarEagleAUId like this card to go for 199. I could so use this with SE19 and ACAD2009
This isn't FireGL :) It's a GPGPU accelerator. For clarity its:

Radeon vs. GeForce -consumer graphics

FireGL vs. Quadro -professional / enterprise graphics

FireStream vs. Tesla (cards) -stand-alone general purpose GPUs.
Posted on Reply
#17
kingkongtol
btarunrThis isn't FireGL :) It's a GPGPU accelerator. For clarity its:

Radeon vs. GeForce -consumer graphics

FireGL vs. Quadro -professional / enterprise graphics

FireStream vs. Tesla (cards) -stand-alone general purpose GPUs.
can you explain, what the difference of 2nd and 3rd?, isnt it same architecture with radeon?
thanks...
Posted on Reply
#18
Whilhelm
This card makes me wish AMD/ATI would start releasing special Black Editions of their video cards like they do with their processor lines. Maybe like factory overclocked cards with more memory or other special features.

Would be an interesting Idea, hell I would get one because of how cool they look. :cool:
Posted on Reply
#19
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
kingkongtolcan you explain, what the difference of 2nd and 3rd?, isnt it same architecture with radeon?
thanks...
FireGL is for professional graphics used in 3D content creation. FireStream is a module with which you provide your CPU assistance in the form of massively parallel computing (provided your software is coded to take advantage of it). GPGPU cards usually lack display logic (video outs) as they're not required.
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#20
kingkongtol
ooh, i see, i didnt notice that FireStream just have one dvi port, so firestream main task isnt graphics processing, is there a chance in future to mod by software -or bios- for radeon card?, something like radeon mod to firegl just by cheating the driver?
thanks...
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#21
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
kingkongtolooh, i see, i didnt notice that FireStream just have one dvi port, so firestream main task isnt graphics processing, is there a chance in future to mod by software -or bios- for radeon card?, something like radeon mod to firegl just by cheating the driver?
thanks...
What's the point in doing so? Would you want to buy a $999 card and mod it to a $199 card with a DVI connector less? The other way round (Radeon to FireStream) doesn't look impossible.
Posted on Reply
#22
kingkongtol
i mean it, like softmod radeon to firegl...
Posted on Reply
#23
IModAmd
Looks like all the owners of 4850 or 4870 should be able to mod theirs cards to an FireStream :toast:
Posted on Reply
#24
PCpraiser100
MadCowIt's not supposed to be a video card, it's pretty much just an HD4850 optimized for GPGPU applications. You're probably thinking of the FireGL line, those are workstation video cards.
Either way, I can't wait to see how this performs!
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