Ok, no more secrets... behold, the FireGL V8650
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So, what this thing actually is? Well, it is quite simple - fully active R600 GPU (16 ROP, 16 TMU, 320 SP) paired with 2 GB of GDDR4. Of course reference clocks are rather conservative - 688 MHz GPU and 1736 MHz GDDR4... but that can be fixed by simple overclock. More on that later.
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The back side has a backplate attached, mostly for memory cooling.
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Regular HD 2900 XT (either 512 MB GDDR3 or 1 GB GDDR4) has 16 memory chips total, 8 on the front side and 8 on the back. Here you can see there are actually two rows of memory chips on each side... this means 32 in total.
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In my old test rig - i5-2500K. The card is very long - almost 34 cm, not a problem on benchtable... but might not be as easy to fit it in regular case.
And while the card looks very massive and well built, the heatsing is far from perfect, to say the least. The main heatsink is the very same as first batch of 2900 XT were using (the two heatpipe one). Because of that this thing is rather loud even at idle and when loaded it resembles the old GeForce FX 5800 Ultra leaf blower jokes.
Also lack of any kind of power management isn't exactly helping - the V8650 idles at 70°C and still is noisy.
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My intention is to benchmark this as the ultimate R600. HD 2900 XT has stock clock 743 MHz GPU and 1660 MHz MEM. My goal was to get at least 850 / 2000 MHz here, also don't forget the 4 times bigger RAM
. It seems it is possible to reach this clock, althought it is close to the limit. I had to increase voltage from 1.15V to 1.225V and even this might not be enough for perfect stability. GDDR4 overclocks just fine to 2 GHz, even a little more. But R600 isn't bandwidth limited, this is just to look good.
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Of course the real question is...
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But can it run Crysis?
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