Sapphire Radeon HD 4750 Spotted

[btarunr]

Sapphire's addition to the rather secretive Radeon HD 4750 lineup has been spotted in mainland China. This comes weeks after PowerColor's offering hit the scene. Based on the 40 nm RV740 GPU, Sapphire's platinum is "overclocked" from its default specs, while actually using the clock speeds of HD 4770: 750/800 MHz (core/memory). It features a simple cooler with radially-projecting aluminum fins, covered by a plastic shroud. The stream processor configuration however is modified, with the GPU being able to use only 480 stream processors from its kitty. The 128-bit GDDR5 memory interface remains unchanged. On the connectivity front, are one each of DVI-D, D-Sub, and HDMI. The card is CrossfireX capable, and we understand it's able to pair with other RV740 accelerators. It is priced at RMB 699 (US $100).



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[lemonadesoda]

Why would people want to crossfire a low end card like that? Or is the "feature" available because they are using the same PCB as the 4770.

 

[AphexDreamer]

Why would people want to crossfire a low end card like that? Or is the "feature" available because they are using the same PCB as the 4770.

Its cheap and affordable for some.

 

[btarunr]

Or is the "feature" available because they are using the same PCB as the 4770.

Yup.

 

[Disparia]

+ Enjoyable.

I'd have more fun building a 3 or 4-way Crossfire 4750/4770 rig than a single card setup. It also has uniqueness going for it, as it's a rare setup.

 

[jagd]

Strange , 4750 with power connector and with full solid cap ,is it really need power connector to work? 25% shader loss and 100$ ?
It looks like 4770 vapor-x wannabe but could not realised card ,it will be interesting if powercolor 4750 bios can be flashed to this baby( for 640 shader ) and OCed later .But price difference from 4770 not worth all effort i think

 

[aj28]

Strange , 4750 with power connector and with full solid cap ,is it really need power connector to work? 25% shader loss and 100$ ?
It looks like 4770 vapor-x wannabe but could not realised card ,it will be interesting if powercolor 4750 bios can be flashed to this baby( for 640 shader ) and OCed later .But price difference from 4770 not worth all effort i think

The power connector, as I've speculated before, is likely due to the fact that voltages must be raised to achieve the clock speeds they're after on these particular (low-bin) chips. Can't say if there's actually any truth behind such a statement, but it makes sense to me.

 

[newtekie1]

Why would people want to crossfire a low end card like that? Or is the "feature" available because they are using the same PCB as the 4770.

The feature is available because...why not...

The HD4350 is crossfire capable, because it can be. No one in their right mind would buy two straight out, but I think if you already had one(like it came in a pre-built or something) then it might be good to at least have the ability to make it better by adding a second.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Crossfire is an "enthusiasts" feature set. Regular consumers dont crossfire. Enthusiasts dont buy 4350/4750's.

Yes, somewhere out there in the world there is a person that will crossfire these. But that is not a market volume that would fit ANY business model or product investment criteria.

No, this thing was not "designed" to crossfire. It just happens to have the feature due to the use of the same PCB and production line as the 4770.

 

[twicksisted]

actually i dont know about that.... theres plenty of people who arent enthusiasts who think becuase its crossfire it must be good... so giving them the opportunity to try it out cheaply just puts them more in the gfx card manufacturers pocket as they will undoubtedly upgrade

 

[Semi-Lobster]

Cards like the 4650 and 4670 have crossfire, I don't see what the big deal with the 4750 having it as well? Even though its got a low SP count from the other numbers released, the 4750 appears to be better than the 4730 at least, so I wouldn't even really call this a low end card either. It's a mid-tier card, around the same league as the 9600GT, and the 9600GT has SLI.

 

[eidairaman1]

decent coolers.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Why would people want to crossfire a low end card like that? Or is the "feature" available because they are using the same PCB as the 4770.

It's not a low-end card, the clocks are actually the same as the 4770 (in this pre-overclocked version, at least).

Anyways, Crossfiring low-end card could be a solution for people who want to have a decent gaming solution and 3-4 displays for other stuff.

 

[btarunr]

Crossfire is an "enthusiasts" feature set.

No, not at all

Crossfire is meant for all market segments as a multi-GPU scaling / incremental upgrade feature. It starts with the grassroot Crossfire between AMD 780G/785G/790GX and HD 2400/HD3400/HD4300. I think the same applies for SLI as well.

 

[newtekie1]

No, not at all

Crossfire is meant for all market segments as a multi-GPU scaling / incremental upgrade feature. It starts with the grassroot Crossfire between AMD 780G/785G/790GX and HD 2400/HD3400/HD4300. I think the same applies for SLI as well.

This.

It isn't an enthusiasts exclusive technology. It is meant as an upgrade path for users, and only really works best when used as such.

There are generally two types of people that use Crossfire/SLI. Ones who buy two top end cards at the same time, to get the best performance possible. And those who buy a single card at first, then a adds one later to upgrade. I actually fall into the second category, and I would definitely consider myself an enthusiast. There are plenty of non-enthusiasts out there that use Crossfire/SLi as an upgrade path.

 

[lemonadesoda]

... all nice theory. But I'm not convinced. I guess it might come down to the terminology for who is an enthusiast... and I have tried very unsuccessfully to find some statistics on:

1./ How many Crossfire or SLI systems are there out there in the real world
2./ How many of these setup are on (not older gen) but lower spec cards

I just dont see that the person who has a prebuilt lower end card, or someone who has bought a lower end card for economic reasons is going to CROSSFIRE or SLI within 6 months of their original purchase. After 6 months, there will be a new generation of cards, or at least a significant price decrease on current gen cards, and their money is better spent buying a higher end card, rather than trying to double up an older lower spec card.

I just dont think it happens. Yes, there will be one person, but No, I dont think it warrants any investment to build and design crossfire capabilities into the low end cards for a market segment that doesnt exist (low end crossfire).

What IS HAPPENING is this:

1./ Reuse existing PCB designs and firmware from higher end cards... meaning the lower end cards retain this feature set
2./ Cross-sell marketing. Keep reinforcing the message about crossfire to everyone at every opportunity to get it into the mindset.

Most people who purchased a card with the thought that they might crossfire at a later date actually, when it came to the time to do that, ended up buying a better, newer gen, lower power (Performance per watt) card at that upgrade time. In fact, if you go through the forum, you will see people always advising to upgrade rather that just crossfire... for all sorts of reasons.

Example: Shall I crossfire my 3850?

Answer: No. Get a 4 series. Much faster, better performance per dollar for the added spend, and better performance per watt.

Your comment about "its an upgrade path" is very very valid from a marketing perspective. I think it is indeed a sales technique (trick). People buy the concept today, and believe they are getting more-value or more-options for their money due to the option of upgrading, but tomorrow, they upgrade the original card, rather than crossfire the low end one.

Conclusion: valid marketing method. In practice, only a countable few do it... and those that do would probably do themselves a better service by buying a better card.

Anyway, back to post#2. This post was just a longer explanation of why I made the comment.

 

[btarunr]

Nice read, but that's definitely now how companies and consumers see it. Obviously there are sales volumes for SLI/CrossFire (platforms and graphics), and both NV and ATI are having fun selling it to every market segment. If that's not the case, neither would have gone as far as Hybrid CrossFire and GeForce Boost.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Following the logic... it's high time consumers started buying DUAL SOCKET cpu systems. To upgrade later.

And it's time manufacturers stared producing some value dual socket systems for the regular consumer.

(I know this argument is flawed... the incremental cost of crossfire-capable gpu is a lot less than the incremental cost of dual cpu capable mainboard. Actually, this changes with QPI. All you need is a second socket and the wiring... not a lot different than an additional PCIe socket... but for the slightly more complex/expensive cpu socket.)

No, I'm not advocating consumer dual-sockets. It's just an intellectual argument.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Here we go. 2% of gamers use crossfire/SLI according to STEAM statistics. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

Ignoring nV and mobile chipsets for a moment:

3.22% have 4800 or 4770 series, and 0.38% have a lower end 4xxx series. Therefore the ratio of high end cards to low end cards as used by gamers is approx 10:1.

Note that ATI probably sells a lot more low end cards... but not to gamers, obviously. And non-gamers dont crossfire.

People do NOT crossfire low end cards more than high end cards. I'm going to throw a 5:1 ratio out there... without evidence other than commonsense estimate.

That means the NUMBER of high end crossfires to low end crossfires is going to be 50:1.

And given that only 2% of gamers SLI/crossfire, (another 50:1 ratio) that means only one in 2500 cards sold to a gamer would be a low end crossfire. That is NOT a market. Full stop. Imagine that. A line of 2500 gamers at the computer shop all buying graphics cards. Only one of them would be buying a low end card to crossfire.

I now refer back to post#2 after objective statistical reasoning rather than just subjective common sense.

 

[jagd]

Im agree with you but there is a niche market gamers use low end cards ,these people are gamers use low end cards for multiple screens with SoftTH
Edit : eyefinity may change this

Note that ATI probably sells a lot more low end cards... but not to gamers, obviously. And non-gamers dont crossfire.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Thanks for link to http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

Good stuff.

 

[newtekie1]

You've still failed to come up with a reason as to why not include Crossfire support. It essentially costs ATi nothing to include it, but adds a marketting bullet they can put on the box. If they reuse a PCB with Crossfire connectors, they can do it via hardware for free, and if they use a chaper PCB that doesn't include crossfire connectors they do it via software that is included in the drivers either way making it free also. So, again, why not include it? Because you believe it should be limitted to enthusiast use only? That doesn't seem like a good reason to me, that just seems elitest.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Please return to GO and read post 2 again.

Nowhere did I say they should exclude Crossfire from the low end card. Read carefully: "Why would people want to crossfire a low end card like that? Or is the "feature" available because they are using the same PCB as the 4770."

The discussion has moved on. We have looked at the practicalities and the statistics and concluded that in fact no-one (this is a relative term) will crossfire this thing... but the feature set it there for reasons of unified production line and for marketing and branding reasons.

There are bigger trees to bark at.