RV770 Meets GDDR4, PowerColor Radeon HD4850 PCS+ D4 Planned

[btarunr]

In an exhibition of pure technological flexibility by AMD, the RV770 graphics processor is going to be used along with GDDR4 memory, in PowerColor's newest Radeon HD 4850 PCS+ GDDR4 graphics card. The inclusion of GDDR4 memory is to boost the memory clock speeds and to provide room for a little more memory overclocking.

The PCS+ GDDR4 features a GPU cooler designed by ZEROtherm, which is advertised to keep the GPU up to 10 °C cooler than what the reference cooler would. It features heatsinks for the memory and the VRM area. It features 512 MB of GDDR4 memory clocked at 2.20 GHz, with the core clocked at 675 MHz. The card supports CrossFireX, and sports dual-DVI connectors. There is no word on its availability pricing as of now.



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[King Wookie]

I'm curious as to how much of a difference the memory will make. It is listed as twice the speed of mine right now. (4850 Toxic)

 

[rizla1]

2200 MHz-clocked memory (1986 MHz) what does that mean, also it seems like very slow for gddr4 . some of the nvidia cards run gddr3 at 2.2ghz stock . why use low end gddr4 when you could use very fast gddr 3 .

 

[eidairaman1]

wow another non factory card, uses DDR4, i know in the past that didnt do well for AMD but that was because of alot of other problems and also the design of the memory controller put too much latency in due to the ring stops (not doing anything at those points)

 

[Deleted member 24505]

I run the mem on mine at 2300 now and 2400 for benching.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Hmmm, I'm sceptical & pessimistic, so I'll look forward to a comparison review. I doubt the GDDR4 will make much difference on the power consumption overall, but anything lower would be nice.

 

[mdm-adph]

Yeah, that is kinda mild for GDDR4 -- isn't the GDDR3 on some factory-overclocked Nvidia cards clocked at something like 2500MHz today?

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

no 2800+ mhz no care, as teh frequency needs to go up to overcome the latency.

 

[HaZe303]

Why didnt amd have GDDR4 on the 4850 from the beginning??? That would have been nice, GDDR3 is getting old. Instead of having 4850´s with gddr3, I would have with gddr4.

 

[mdm-adph]

Why didnt amd have GDDR4 on the 4850 from the beginning??? That would have been nice, GDDR3 is getting old. Instead of having 4850´s with gddr3, I would have with gddr4.

A 4850 with GDDR4 would've cost more, and arguably GDDR3 seems to be more than good enough.

 

[SystemViper]

Just another attempt for them to milk the market in a card that is going to be end of cycle very soon, from what the other news stories say about the new 700 series chips.

wow, it might get you 3FPS on full settings., better go out and get it... amazing how they change a few things just to sell more product, great for them, but confuzes the buyers, in a market where there isn't much difference between most of the cards anyway..

 

[erocker]

Eh, mabye Powercolor found some cases of GDDR4 laying around and decided to throw it on a card.

 

[wahdangun]

i hope the extra bandwidt will help, just like 4870 with gdr 5

i can't wait to see a review

 

[btarunr]

2200 MHz-clocked memory (1986 MHz) what does that mean, also it seems like very slow for gddr4 . some of the nvidia cards run gddr3 at 2.2ghz stock . why use low end gddr4 when you could use very fast gddr 3 .

GDDR4 that does 2.2~2.4 GHz should ideally be cheaper than high-grade GDDR3. If AMD (and partners) doesn't use the GDDR4, nobody will, so they could be going for cheap.

 

[mdm-adph]

I'm just amazed that GDDR5 came out before it seemed that GDDR4 was really ever used that much -- I mean, how many cards used GDDR4?

Radeon 1950 XTX (GDDR4)
HD 2600 XT (GDDR4)
HD 3870
That PowerColor 3870X2 with the GDDR4

And that's it? Did I miss any?

 

[btarunr]

And that's it? Did I miss any?

HD 2900 XT 1G D4.

 

[mdm-adph]

HD 2900 XT 1G D4.

Aye -- that's the one I missed.

Only five cards total ever made, that's if you count the weird non-reference 3870X2 that PowerColor came out with.

 

[MrMilli]

Actually GDDR4 @ 2.2Ghz will be outperformed by GDDR3 @ 2Ghz.
I'm pretty sure Powercolor did this to lower power usage a bit and to lower cost.
Since only the HD3870 is using GDDR4 at the moment and it's sales are slowing down, i guess Powercolor managed to strike a good deal.

Edit: let's not forget consumers that don't know what GDDR4 is, will think it's much faster. Good marketing too.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Hmm, Gddr4 upgrade. I hope this PCS+ solves the problems of the former. I love my 3870 with GDDR4 but I dont know how much of a difference it will make.

 

[Hayder_Master]

wow , that's mean really beat's nvidia 9x00xx card's

 

[DaMulta]

Eh, mabye Powercolor found some cases of GDDR4 laying around and decided to throw it on a card.

lol lol lol

I bet it is, why let it go to waste if all we are using is GDDR5 right now.....