ATI RV740 Preview - First to 40nm

[oopyseohs]

Was doing my morning tech site rounds when I came across this preview of ATI's RV740 GPU.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/...0-review-preview-test/ :Q

The Verdict The economy right now is in a tight spot, the entire world is fighting off the global financial crisis. As such people will have less to spend on entertainment and niche products, that is where graphics card series like the ones shown today come in. This is one of the reasons why I believe ATI's RV740 products could be a nice success. Products like these offer very decent gaming performance targeted at the budget end-user below a 100 USD level. That's stuff to think about for a minute. I mean, for less than 100 bucks you'll be able to get a videocard that performs fairly close to a Radeon HD 4850. I think that's impressive, an achievement all by itself.

Looks like this was first to the punch with 40nm. According to the article, scores are close to the 4850 for under $100. The article also reserves that the sample was a super early engineering sample and drivers are early beta so performance might change (probably for the better) as the product nears launch.

Imagine putting 2 of those in CrossFire..

 

[angry hampster]

An overclocked 4830 is very close to a 4850 in performance for $75. Just keeping things in perspective.

 

[nosfe]

i wonder how small its die size will be, 128bit and 40nm? talk about a cheap card

 

[biostud]

or doing an X2 card with it.

 

[Pantalaimon]

So meanwhile others are re-labeling and reinserting their products at a new price point, ATI is moving forward with more interesting steps. Smaller die-size, more shader processors (compared to RV730), oh and that life-size rabbit I just mentioned... it's GDDR5 memory.

I wonder who could they mean here about re-labeling and reinserting products

 

[oopyseohs]

Originally posted by: biostud
or doing an X2 card with it.

oh my goodness, what a concept. That would be something to think about for sure.

BTW, help out G3D by digging if you like, it's always nice to see sites publish stories like this when they are not under NDA. Increasing our knowledge FTW!!
http://digg.com/hardware/Radeo...eak_Preview_Guru3D_com

 

[Wreckage]

Nice looking card, would be nicer if they made it like that S3 card (Display port, HDMI, DVI).

 

[bluemax]

They HAVE to make a low-profile version! Low-power, good performance - it BEGS to be put in HTPC boxes!

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: bluemax
They HAVE to make a low-profile version! Low-power, good performance - it BEGS to be put in HTPC boxes!

The only problem is that it still appears to require a 6-pin PCI-E power line. Although if this card were placed in a PCI-E 2.0 slot, that should satisfy the power requirements as it would supply the same 150W that comes from a PCI-E 1.0 slot + 75W 6-pin PCI-E line.

 

[judasmachine]

The 4850 can be had at the lowest on the egg at $139, so this card will most definitely stay at $100 or a little less.

 

[exar333]

Imagine if you saw a small rebate on these as well ($20 or so) and you could pick up three for around $200.00. A fun Tri-SLI setup for sure!

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: ExarKun333
Imagine if you saw a small rebate on these as well ($20 or so) and you could pick up three for around $200.00. A fun Tri-SLI setup for sure!

I bet a 3rd would be mostly wasted as even a second one would suffer a little bit from the relatively low memory bandwidth.

 

[edplayer]

Originally posted by: angry hampster
An overclocked 4830 is very close to a 4850 in performance for $75. Just keeping things in perspective.

A more accurate perspective would be that the $75 you quoted is for a user overclocked card that sometimes will be on sale for that price while the estimated price on this card is for MSRP

 

[Cookie Monster]

Excellent card especially because of the price. Not to mention this result is based on an engineering sample and preliminary drivers. Specwise its about ~80% of a HD4850 while performing at around ~90% of the former! Think we got ourselves a winner at the $100 market.

edit - it will be interesting to see how dual RV740 will change the landscape of the $200~300 dollar.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: nosfe
i wonder how small its die size will be, 128bit and 40nm? talk about a cheap card

I think this is AMD's point. They're committed to multi-GPU... I wouldn't be surprised if this thing turns into the basis for a new lineup - MCM GPU's packaged similar to the way Core2Quads are packaged. CrossFire on a chip... 2x, 4x or more "cores".

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: ExarKun333
Imagine if you saw a small rebate on these as well ($20 or so) and you could pick up three for around $200.00. A fun Tri-SLI setup for sure!

Do you mean Crossfire? Because these cards won't do much in an SLI set-up.

 

[Tempered81]

haha yes he means x-fire, i'm sure! But, which Intel boards have 3 PCI-e slots? Not many, right?

Maybe you could do water-cooled single slot 4850x2's for Twelve-fire? Cod4 would be the only game that scaled probably... haha.

http://en.expreview.com/img/2008/10/27/p6t6-7374_1.jpg

 

[Jules]

Im looking at a 4870 1GB, GTX 260 or a 4850 X2. Should i wait for this or go ahead?

 

[Jacen]

This is one hell of a card for the price point. Surely some OEMs will make changes to this for the HTPCs size wise. Then it is just a matter of power. The 4850 is no slouch and comparable scores at $100 via the RV740 is a huge plus for the budget conscious folks.

Originally posted by: Jules
Im looking at a 4870 1GB, GTX 260 or a 4850 X2. Should i wait for this or go ahead?

This really isn't in the same level as those, unless you are doing crossfire, though they didn't test for that so that is up in the air as well.

Those above cards are definitely a bit better and if those were your plans, stick with them.

 

[tokie]

this seems to me to just be a better performing 4830 that is cheaper for ATI to manufacture. i don't see the big point of anybody waiting for this when they can get a 4830 for probably the same price now.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Its likely that the HD4830 will probably be phased out. I think the big question is, what is the cards power consumption?

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
Excellent card especially because of the price. Not to mention this result is based on an engineering sample and preliminary drivers. Specwise its about ~80% of a HD4850 while performing at around ~90% of the former! Think we got ourselves a winner at the $100 market.

QFT.

That card is amazing if it is $100 or less.

40 nm, GDDR5, and a great cooler.

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: nosfe
i wonder how small its die size will be, 128bit and 40nm? talk about a cheap card

I think this is AMD's point. They're committed to multi-GPU... I wouldn't be surprised if this thing turns into the basis for a new lineup - MCM GPU's packaged similar to the way Core2Quads are packaged. CrossFire on a chip... 2x, 4x or more "cores".

Can you see this happening anytime soon? My favorite machine only has the one PCIe16 slot...

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Jules
Im looking at a 4870 1GB, GTX 260 or a 4850 X2. Should i wait for this or go ahead?

I'd get the $224 4850X2 1GB at newegg. It should be fine for 1680 / 1920 resolutions and is the best performance per dollar graphics card in the enthusiast segment.

 

[Bateluer]

When does this hit the market? Does this mean that a 40nm RV870 is on track for July-ish 09?