ATI 4xxx Series Thread

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

You put too much faith in WHQL.

I disagree; among other things it guarantees the drivers won?t balls up Windows in the specific scenarios Microsoft tests for. While it won?t necessarily improve games it will help general OS stability.

The 174.74 drivers are WHQL certified and going by your description still suffer from the missing wheel problem.

This is quite true but WHQL is part of the bigger picture. It isn't WQHL per-se but rather the overall commitment and support of a given vendor.

If nVidia want to release non-WHQL drivers then fine, but they need to support them and need to release them monthly. At the moment we get random driver scraps along with a "we don't support beta drivers". Uh-uh, that?s not good enough.

Now to keep this relevant to the topic, the 4xxx series will be intertwined with ATi driver support so that means users of such hardware can look forward to monthly WHQL releases.

I have to be honest here: if the 4870 is significantly faster than my 8800 Ultra and the GT200 isn't significantly faster than the 4870, I will seriously be considering ATi this time around.

While WHQL in itself is worth very little, the problems arise from microsoft's strong arm tactics to enforce its usage. ANYONE can take the WHQL test tool from microsoft's website and run it with their driver to make sure it prompts no errors, but to get the WHQL you actually need the original maker of the driver to sign up with MS, and pay them to review your tests. The real issue is what microsoft does to non WHQL drivers.
Firstly, you have to click through some warnings during the install otherwise it will not install the new drivers.
Secondly, if you change any hardware around windows will revert to the last WHQL driver it has, I have a friend whose laptop reverts in less then a day without any hardware changes. This is a big problem when you try to install an up to date driver and it reverts you to the driver that originally shipped with vista (that doesn't work properly and causes visual corruption on the desktop, forget gaming)
There were some other issues, don't remember them.

The point is, naturally only WHQL drivers should be included on the windows CD and on live update, etc. But it should always default to the latest (by date) driver installed (if it is installed that means it came from the USER), even if non WHQL. It should have been an outreach program, not a money wrangling one. As it is it causes more harm then good.

 

[semisonic9]

The launch date still remains June, with volume availability in July and onward

If this is true, it somewhat cramps my style a bit. I was thinking the normal cards would be out this month, with the X2 out and down to reasonable prices by mid-July. That was around the time I'm planning to order the parts for my next rig, so it was looking a little bit like mana from heaven there for a second.

If the 4xxx isn't out in volume until July, I'd guess the X2 may be kept back a bit. If I'm really unlucky, they'll wait to see what nVidia is going to drop and try to juice it up on top of whatever they drop.

*sigh*

~Semi

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: semisonic9

The launch date still remains June, with volume availability in July and onward

If this is true, it somewhat cramps my style a bit. I was thinking the normal cards would be out this month, with the X2 out and down to reasonable prices by mid-July. That was around the time I'm planning to order the parts for my next rig, so it was looking a little bit like mana from heaven there for a second.

If the 4xxx isn't out in volume until July, I'd guess the X2 may be kept back a bit. If I'm really unlucky, they'll wait to see what nVidia is going to drop and try to juice it up on top of whatever they drop.

*sigh*

~Semi

If fuad does happen to be right (for once) we would be looking at an early June launch and with the X2 coming early July. At least is what I would assume.

 

[bryanW1995]

let's just assume that fuad is wrong and pick any time other than his...

 

[Paratus]

Originally posted by: JPB
RV770 GDDR5 supports 512-bit

One of the two chips


The fastest of ATI's two upcoming chips, the RV770XT, will offer support for two cool memory marchitectures. One is GDDR5, a very fast memory, and the second is 512-bit memory interface.

We are getting back to the memory controller of R600, but possibly significantly improved, and this time the chip can cope with GDDR5 while the previous controller could only cope with GDDR3 and GDDR4.

As GDDR4 didn?t really get these cards any faster, ATI decided to go for GDDR5. We believe this is the future and this definitely makes the RV770 a bit bigger than the RV670 and this will be the most significant difference between the chips.

The launch date still remains June, with volume availability in July and onward

Just for grins what if the 4870X2 really does have a 512bit interface with GDDR5? If we combine that rumor with the unified memory rumor we could potentially have a "dual gpu card" that really does act like a single card. I don't see why the ultrathreaded dispatcher couldn't distribute threads evenly across the two cores with each being ring stops on the 1024mb (512mb external) ring bus. Each core would have full access to the 250Gb/s 2GB ram buffer.

That would give us a 2TFLOP card with 64TMUs. 960(192) shaders, and 32 ROPS.

That is the only card I think ATI could reasonably develop that would decisively take the crown from Nvidia.

 

[Continuity28]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I don't know much about building video cards, but I would imagine that having two versions of the same card, one with a 256bit GDDR5 and one with a 512bit GDDR3 would not make much sense.

Perhaps it's a way to ensure there aren't too many GDDR5 shortages. The two approaches will bring memory bandwidth to where it needs to be, that's all that matters. If AMD decided to use only GDDR5, what would happen if there wasn't enough supply?

That's my guess.

 

[JPB]

Originally posted by: Paratus

Originally posted by: JPB
RV770 GDDR5 supports 512-bit

One of the two chips


The fastest of ATI's two upcoming chips, the RV770XT, will offer support for two cool memory marchitectures. One is GDDR5, a very fast memory, and the second is 512-bit memory interface.

We are getting back to the memory controller of R600, but possibly significantly improved, and this time the chip can cope with GDDR5 while the previous controller could only cope with GDDR3 and GDDR4.

As GDDR4 didn?t really get these cards any faster, ATI decided to go for GDDR5. We believe this is the future and this definitely makes the RV770 a bit bigger than the RV670 and this will be the most significant difference between the chips.

The launch date still remains June, with volume availability in July and onward

Just for grins what if the 4870X2 really does have a 512bit interface with GDDR5? If we combine that rumor with the unified memory rumor we could potentially have a "dual gpu card" that really does act like a single card. I don't see why the ultrathreaded dispatcher couldn't distribute threads evenly across the two cores with each being ring stops on the 1024mb (512mb external) ring bus. Each core would have full access to the 250Gb/s 2GB ram buffer.

That would give us a 2TFLOP card with 64TMUs. 960(192) shaders, and 32 ROPS.

That is the only card I think ATI could reasonably develop that would decisively take the crown from Nvidia.

Didn't ATI or someone before, say...that they found a way for both cores to address the full amount of memory on the pcb ? Instead of using 512 mb per core ?

 

[ghost recon88]

If this card has both 512-bit and GDDR5, me thinks it will be untouchable for quite a while, or until nVidia steals their schematics

 

[bryanW1995]

they're getting 512 bit as 2x256bit. I've also heard rumors that they've found a better way to use the two gpus together as a team, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Realistically, I think that the best that we can hope for is a few iterative improvements on their current crossfire structure, but this could give daamit a leg up for the next gen or later in the future as multi-gpu becomes more mainstream.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
they're getting 512 bit as 2x256bit. I've also heard rumors that they've found a better way to use the two gpus together as a team, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Realistically, I think that the best that we can hope for is a few iterative improvements on their current crossfire structure, but this could give daamit a leg up for the next gen or later in the future as multi-gpu becomes more mainstream.

The Fudzilla article says that the RV770 will be available as 512bit (RV770, not the R700). I don't know how much faith to put into them though.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
they're getting 512 bit as 2x256bit. I've also heard rumors that they've found a better way to use the two gpus together as a team, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Realistically, I think that the best that we can hope for is a few iterative improvements on their current crossfire structure, but this could give daamit a leg up for the next gen or later in the future as multi-gpu becomes more mainstream.

Not as, FOR. Multi GPUs aren't magically going to become more mainstream with time, they will become more mainstream as their implementation improves. The better the implementation, the more mainstream they become.

If the 4xxx series includes implementation improvements then it would definitely go a long way towards improving penetration. Quality causes penetration, not vice versa

 

[ghost recon88]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
they're getting 512 bit as 2x256bit. I've also heard rumors that they've found a better way to use the two gpus together as a team, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Realistically, I think that the best that we can hope for is a few iterative improvements on their current crossfire structure, but this could give daamit a leg up for the next gen or later in the future as multi-gpu becomes more mainstream.

The Fudzilla article says that the RV770 will be available as 512bit (RV770, not the R700). I don't know how much faith to put into them though.

0%

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: ghost recon88

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
they're getting 512 bit as 2x256bit. I've also heard rumors that they've found a better way to use the two gpus together as a team, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Realistically, I think that the best that we can hope for is a few iterative improvements on their current crossfire structure, but this could give daamit a leg up for the next gen or later in the future as multi-gpu becomes more mainstream.

The Fudzilla article says that the RV770 will be available as 512bit (RV770, not the R700). I don't know how much faith to put into them though.

0%

Chiphell has an article too saying 512 bus but for the RV770XT and for june/july release so I would only assume they are talking about some sort of x2 card with a 2x 256 bus.

 

[taltamir]

I have a question, what difference does it make if it is a 256x2 bus instead of 512? the 256x2 is supposed to be significantly faster then a single 256...

 

[BFG10K]

have a question, what difference does it make if it is a 256x2 bus instead of 512?

It'll rely on two GPUs (and hence Crossfire) to work. This is much different to slapping a 512 bit bus on a single GPU.

 

[taltamir]

which is bad why? the final ram bandwidth listed in MB/s is still increased.

Or are you saying that in the rare cases where you disable crossfire it will no longer work in 2x256 and instead be just 256bit and much slower MB/s transfer rate?

mmm... i wonder if all the sites reporting the MB/s transfer rates to memory account for the fact that data has to be stored in ram vram twice in crossfire (one per each GPU's ram)

 

[BFG10K]

which is bad why?

Because slapping two cards together is never as robust as taking an existing single card and doubling everything on it.

the end ram bandwidth listed in MB/s is still increased.

Sure, but not in the manner that it would increase with a single card with a double bus. A doubled bus doesn?t need Crossfire scaling to increase the bandwidth.

Or are you saying that in the rare cases where you disable crossfire it will no longer work in 2x256 and instead be just 256bit and much slower MB/s transfer rate?

That's exactly what I'm saying. In fact you don't even need to disable Crossfire to see this, all you have to do is run into a driver problem that prevents proper scaling. If the GPUs aren?t scaling properly then they aren't taking advantage of the dual-bandwidth.

 

[ghost recon88]

a true 512-bit will always be faster then some 2x256-bit 3870x2/4870x2 garbage.

 

[AshPhoenix]

X-bit Labs

GDDR5 in Production, New Round of Graphics Cards War Imminent.

Qimonda Ready to Deliver GDDR5 Memory Chips in Volume

Qimonda, a leading manufacturer of advanced dynamic random access memory (DRAM), said that it could deliver next-generation GDDR5 memory for graphics cards and other applications that require high memory bandwidth in volume. At this point Qimonda can supply makers of graphics boards GDDR5 memory with up to 4.50GHz clock-speed.

?Qimonda was the first to announce samples of GDDR5 back in November 2007. We have proven the technology and we can deliver in volume production to the market today,? said Glen Haley, communications director of Qimonda in North America, in an interview with X-bit labs web-site.

Presently Qimonda has 512Mb (16Mx32) GDDR5 chips at 3.60GHz, 4.0GHz and 4.50GHz clock-speeds in PG-TFBGA-170 packages in production. It is interesting to note that current-generation GDDR3 chips from Qimonda use PG-TFBGA-136 packing, which means that GDDR5 has more pins and requires more complex print-circuit boards of graphics cards.

It is projected that GDDR5 will play a substantial role in the next round of war between the leading designers of graphics processing units (GPUs) because it can double bandwidth available for graphics chips. Unfortunately, the price of GDDR5 memory from Qimonda is unclear. But while Qimonda does not unveil the exact pricing, it is likely that GDDR5 will be more expensive than GDDR3 and GDDR4, at least initially.

?If you look at the best performing GDDR3 parts today, they are running at about 2Gbit/s. With our GDDR5 we are able to at least double this data rate. We believe that Qimonda offers the highest performing graphics memory. There is a price/performance curve, and we are well-positioned to accommodate market demand as adoption increases,? Mr. Haley said.

Existing GDDR3 memory chips may run at 2.0GHz ? 2.2GHz, which provides up to 140.8GB/s memory bandwidth in case of 512-bit bus, though, such chips are pretty expensive, just like print-circuit boards with 512-bit memory bus. For ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, the use of high-speed GDDR4 is an option, but Nvidia?s GeForce 8 and 9 GPUs do not support GDDR4. Therefore, the company either needs expensive GDDR3 in conjunction with wide memory bus, or GDDR5 with its extreme clock-speed potential.

In addition to Qimonda, Hynix Semiconductor and Samsung Electronics also plan to make GDDR5 memory.

 

[bryanW1995]

good to see that there's some available at least.

here's a good reason to get a 4xxx:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2186222&enterthread=y

 

[ShadowFlareX]

*Deleted*

Wrong thread, oops :x

 

[AshPhoenix]

http://www.fudzilla.com/index....=view&id=7274&Itemid=1

GDDR3 only

We wrote that RV770XT supports 512bit here and now we have learned that the slower RV770PRO will only support 256 bit and it will use GDDR3.

It looks that the current GDDR5 design sticks with 512 bit memory interface and as RV770PRO will use 256bit GDDR3 memory. The RV770PRO will need a smaller cooler, it is definitely going to end up cheaper of two, and you can bet on a sub-$200 price.

RV770PRO will also end up with a slower clock than RV770XT but we still don?t know what is the current speed plan. It is sampled and it works at least the RV770PRO with 256bit GDDR3 does.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
good to see that there's some available at least.

here's a good reason to get a 4xxx:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2186222&enterthread=y

F@H GPU client is already available for all 2xxx and 3xxx cards, it's not something exclusive of the 4xxx.

 

[bryanW1995]

yes, I know that, but somebody considering 4xxx isn't likely to be comparing it to 2xxx or 3xxx. He is probably also considering gt200, which doesn't offer folding@home compatibility. this new gpu2 client has just been released and appears to fix many of the bugs from previous versions.

 

[MyLeftNut]

Was there an estimate released on the price for the XT version yet?