http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/05/24/gtx260-280-revealed

Not the best source, but some news is better than no news.

They say:

Core clock: 602Mhz
Shader clock: 1296
Memory: 1107


Shading: 933 Gflops
Texture fill rate: 48.16
Pixel fill rate: 19.264
Memory 1024MB @ 142 GB/ps

[:' (] That' s really low, a 9800GX2 would beat this if these are the clocks. I would not buy this to replace my 8800GTX. Maybe wait for the 55nm version. With the memory size and bandwidth these will be good for SLI but I' m not willing to spend that much for two, I don' t even have an SLI mobo.

Uh oh. Sounds like Nvidia is pushing the limits of the " make a massive gpu" technique. But even with the clock reduction, it' ll beat the GX2 (which is a horrible card). It' s the prices that they' ve quoted that are the most alarming for me. $600 for the GTX 280???

I' m not going to spell gloom and doom just yet. This is INQ we' re talking about, the entire website is so editorialized that facts often don' t come first anymore. The only thing less reliable than them is Fudzilla.

But even with the clock reduction, it' ll beat the GX2 (which is a horrible card).

You' re probably right but it won' t crush the GX2, the GX2 will still likely get a few wins depending on the settings/games. To get an idea how the HD4870 and GTX280 compare, look at the 3870X2, GX2 respectively. Both ATI and Nvidia have similar raw performance as their dual GPU counterparts from this gen. You can expect higher performance with increased memory bandwidth and eliminated inefficiency of dual GPUs on a card.

Yeah when you have a 240 Watt card you' re pushing the limits. Nvidia is going to have trouble with production costs because you can only fit so many 576mm2 chips on a waffer, they' ll have trouble with yields as well. The 8800GTX by comparison measures 484 mm2 with a TDP of 185Watts. It' s going to be a tough sell for Nvidia this round. I' m not too conserned for the company though, they made so much money with the 88**/98** series...

I' m really liking what ATI is doing. They' re going to appeal to a broader consumer base than Nvidia. A lot of people care about performance per watt as well as performance per dollar. ATI is going to nab both and still get the performance crown with the HD 4870X2 coming out in the fall. IMO that' s too late though. The GTX 280 is going to cost almost double an HD 4870 and only offer around 50% more performance. At the same time ATI has it' s Powerplay so their cards will consume *** all during idle. For many consumers this is a BIG deal. Think of businesses and schools etc. For me this makes getting two cards a lot more attractive. Unless ATI is bullshitting us, two HD 4870s should consume much less electricity than one GTX 280 at idle (where I spend most of my time). If performance of two HD 4870 is where I expect it to be (and it' s not difficult to predict) crossfire looks good when power draw and cost isn' t unreasonable. I' m tempted to pick up two HD 4870s when they' re released.

On the other hand I already have a 8800gtx, it' s not exactly a pussy. I should wait untill early 2009 for an upgrade truely worth 600$+. Really the only game I can' t run in it' s full glory is Crysis. I' ll have to wait and see how well team green and red handle this f.uckernaut. If I can' t run Crysis at 30fps+ VH @ 1920x1200 with either a GTX280 or HD4870 Crossfire, then f.uck ' em, I' ll keep my money.

-------------------------------
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/05/24/nvidia-buys-ray-tracing-firm-rayscale-hybrid-graphics

Nvidia bought a company doing ray tracing.

The new cooler for the GTX 280 looks pretty sweet. Same length as 8800 series. Needs one 6pin as well as an 8pin connector. I anticipated the 8pins so i have it (thank you Silverstone Decathlon), do you guys have the 8 pin? You can mod your connectors if you need to.

I' m still getting the GTX280, $600 isn' t that much for a videocard, was paying that much for high end videocards like 6 years ago, $100 inflaton over 6 years is nothing, it should actually cost $700+

More recent pictures.

http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=20212&catid=2

The 280 will have a low idle power consumption as well.

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=283808

I' m going to wait for the 55nm version to come out before buying anything.

Link

4870 X2 currently beats GTX 280?

While we are away for Computex, CJ let us know that the Radeon HD 4870 X2 R700 prototype card is out and it beats the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 in 3DMark Vantage. The R700 card is basically made up of two RV770 GPUs with 2x256-bit memory interface to either GDDR3 or GDDR5 memories. We asked our sources about R700 in Computex and apparently AMD is going to let AIB partners to decide the specs themselves. Therefore, the partners will set their own clock speeds, PCB design, memory types, cooler solutions etc. and there will be Radeon HD 4850 X2 and 4870 X2 cards differentiated by the memory type. The R700 card apparently doing pretty well at this stage scoring about X5500 in 3DMark Vantage Extreme preset while the GeForce GTX 280 card is scoring X4800. Both sides are still working hard on optimizing their drivers for the new architecture so probably we will see the performance to improve over time.

I' m still dubious about anything at this stage. 3DMark is not indicative of real world performance. But hopefully there will be a situation more akin to the G70 and R580. Closer performance means more competition and lower prices.

I expect a 4870X2 to beat a GTX280 in most games.

Assuming the clocks end up being the baseline for retail. Comparing a 9800GTX with a GTX280 we see:

44% increase in shader processing
13% increase in texture processing (TMUs)
78% increase in pixel processing (ROPs)
100% increase in memory size and bandwidth

The shaders is what will make the biggest difference. Even if we said a GTX is more or less 50% faster than a 9800GTX, that' s hardly a massive leap.

Meanwhile, one HD 4870X2 is the equivalent of over four HD 3870s in terms of raw performance. You end up with similar numbers to a GTX280 except the HD 4870X2 has double the shading power.

My guess is that ATI will win with it' s flagship in most cases except where their drivers cause problems.

I' m considering grabbing two HD 4870s for Crossfire. I have no doubt two HD 4870s will beat a GTX 280. It' s just a matter of if the extra expense is worth it.

Well, there have been a few developments in both camps at the moment. Nvidia looks to be slashing the prices of its GTX 280/260 cards. Why?

All the while (no doubt from a little misinformation from AMD), we thought that the RV770 would have 480SP' s. Nvidia planned everything to this tune, and decided to price its cards toward the high end. It knew it wouldn' t face any competition and it would be easier to recoup the incredibly high manufacturing costs.

This in fact turned out to be wrong. RV770 will have 800SP' s. 800. I have no idea how AMD managed to fit such a massive amount of SP' s onto a die half the size of G200. I' m sure Nvidia don' t either, which is why they said " oh shit" and are going to cut prices. This is definitely going to be painful considering how much it costs them to make G200.

For us consumers, this is awesome. A price war is definitely what we want. AMD can aggressively price RV770 and for price/performance it looks like Nvidia has nothing to answer back with.

Source
Source

I' m going to to call BS on the 800 SP rumours. You can' t multiply your TMUs by 2 and you' re shader processors by 2.5 while increasing you transistors by mearly 25%. Given the clock speeds they' re suggesting it wouldn' t make a huge difference anyways.

Even at the original specs of 480SP, 32TMU, 16ROP ATI is in a good position for the price they stand at. It' s going to look ugly for Nvidia this round. Even when they have the single card performance crown, it won' t matter. The vaste majority of people buying videocards are not hardcore gamers/PC enthusiasts. No one outside of this remote group will want to spend 300$ more towards a GTX 280 over a HD 4870.

If Nvidia drops their prices that will be why, they' re just too expensive compared to the competition given what they both have to offer. However, I don' t think they' ll be able to drop prices too much if at all. The 280 is an expensive chip to produce as it is. We' ll see I guess. They have slashed the prices of the current gen though, NCIX has prices so low they don' t even have the prices listed. It' s a good time to find a sweet deal if you don' t neccessarily need the cutting edge. You can get a 8800GT for 160$!

The math is there, try it out:

HD 4850: 625Mhz * 800Units * 2flop/unit = 1 teraflop.

HD 4870: 750Mhz * 800Units * 2flop/unit = 1.2 teraflops.

The information about 800 SP' s is coming from many different areas and not just a single rumor. I think it' s pretty safe to say that somehow AMD managed to do it. AMD even have an official teaser site about it.

What do you mean by " the math is there" ? The answer doesn' t proove anything, unless I' m missing something.

I can do the same with the actual specs:

480*2*1050=1008 Gflops

480*850= 816 Gflops

It still looks like a hoax to me, it happens all the time. Someone photoshops a document, says it' s official and they all report the news. In a few weeks they' ll all make retractions.

The only way this can be real is if ATI deliberately gave out false information about what I consider to be the real specs, just to f.uck with us.

In order to have 800SPs they' d have to have more than 800 million transistors that was originally spec' d. The 3870 had 666 million transistors with 320SPs, and as I said in my previous post, the 48** series is also doubling the TMUs. The 4850 would absolutely need a two slot cooler if this was the case. The die size would be much bigger and the cost would be close to what Nvidia has. If the HD 4870 has 800SPs and thus 40TMUs even at 750Mhz, a HD 4870 would rape a GTX280.



The bandwidth, texture and pixel fillrates are probably off due to incomplete drivers.

The teaser site is about one tera flop, the 4870 will do 1.008 tera flops, based on my specs. The site can still be for the HD 4870.
http://www.unleashonetera.com/

It' s possible I' m wrong, it has happened before but I' m confident I' m right.

The GPU-Z screenshot there isn' t correct either. GPU-Z goes off a database to get its information, not drivers or firmware. The creator said he based it on what was speculated at the time.

But granted, there' s still a lot we don' t know. Regardless, even with 800SP' s, the RV770 will not beat the GT200 in a single card scenario. Flops are not everything. 4870 might go toe-to-toe with GTX 260 but the only thing that can get close to a GTX280 will be a crossfire solution. Nvidia cards will still have a massive texture fill-rate advantage.

Who' s to say any information given previously is correct? RV770 might have a die size closer to 300mm2. Why wouldn' t AMD release false information? It certainly would help to build up some hype.

A couple of places are starting to get some solid looking information:
http://fxvideocards.com/VisionTek-Radeon-HD-4850-p-16381.aspx
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3059788

Judging from the die shot in the XS forum thread, it looks to be fairly large.

If the HD 4870 had 800 SPs it would have 40 TMUs instead of 32.

HD 4870 (800SPs)
40*750=30

480SPs
32*850= 27.2

GTX 280
80*602=48.16

Not really a huge difference. The 8800GTX only has a fillrate of 20 ish. TMUs will be much less of a bottleneck for the HD 4870 compared to Nvidia this round regardless of the specs. The 4870 would be close to GTX 280 if this was the case, it would win in some games and lose in others. The 4870 will do better with AF disabled compared to the GTX 280. The drivers and the way the game is coded can make it favor one architecture over another.
The big advantage that Nvidia has is memory bandwidth. I' m hoping the ram on the HD 4870s will overclock well.


I' m estimating the HD 4870 will be very close to the GTX 260 overall. It won' t be long before we find out.

edit: lol guess it wasn' t a double post.

AMD, Havok team up for physics processing

AMD and Havok announced this week that they plan to optimize physics processing for AMD hardware. Havok already has a well defined user base with over 100 developers using its Havok Physics engine and it says that 300 leading game titles currently use its Havok engine.

AMD says that Havok’s physics engine will scale well across the entire AMD line. This includes its processors and its ATI Radeon video cards. AMD says that it and Havok will investigate the use of the Radeon GPU to manage aspects of in-game physics.

I wonder what Intel' s reasoning behind this is? We all know Havok was bought by Intel a while ago and it' s interesting to see that they' re willing to help AMD in order to hurt Nvidia.

ORIGINAL =Agent Ghost

If the HD 4870 had 800 SPs it would have 40 TMUs instead of 32.

HD 4870 (800SPs)
40*750=30

480SPs
32*850= 27.2

GTX 280
80*602=48.16

Not really a huge difference.

RV770 could most definitely have 32 TMU' s even with 800SP' s.

32TMU' s = 5:1 TMU:ALU ratio
40TMU' s = 4:1 TMU:ALU ratio

40TMU' s would be far more desireable though. As for texture fillrate, I' d say it' s pretty significant. Going by those numbers there, the GTX 280 has a ~62.5% lead over 4870. That' s bound to work in its favor quite a bit. Memory bandwidth for the 4870 will be quite large with GDDR5, and I don' t think it' ll be as much of an issue. The 4850 may run into a few bumps though.

40TMUs:800SP would give it the same 1:4 TMU:SP ratio as the HD 3870.

I think I would rather 480SPs and 32TMUs clocked at 1050Mhz and 850Mhz respectively rather than 800SPs and 32 TMUs clocked at 750Mhz.

800SPs/40TMUs@750Mhz is the ideal obviously.

EDIT:
The 800 SP rumours are spreading like wildfire. I don' t know what to believe anymore. Everyone seems to trust 32 TMUs though.

--------------------------------
GTX 280 reviews:


http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_gtx280/
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-gtx-280,1953.aspx
http://guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-280-review-test/
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14934/1


It does exactely what I expected it to do. 50% more performance above the 8800GTX placing it close to the 9800GX2 in most cases.

I' m not impressed.

I think I was wrong about the 4000 series, they seem to have 800 steam processors like you said Unlucky. It also looks like it has a single clock for both core and shaders like the 3000 series.



HD 3870 architecture. There are 64 shader processors on the HD 3870 grouped up in clusers of 4 (16 clusters). Each of the 64 shader processors contains 5 stream processors making the 320 stream processors that ATI advertises.

The die of the 4850 is upside down compared to the architecture pic of the HD 3870.


HD 4000 die

The shaders are to the right of the image.

It appears to have 40 clusters. 40*4*5=800. On the left we can see a row of what looks like 10 texture clusters of 4, 40 TMUs. It' s possible that two clusers are disabled to make 32 TMUs, but I think I read that the TMUs are locked to the shaders. In other words the HD 4870/4850 should have 40 TMUs if the HD 4870 has 800 stream processors.

Yeah. I still have no idea how AMD managed to fit everything on such a small die.

It' s amazing to see how the same architecture can go from the horrendous R600 fuckup (massive, hot and effectively broken) to RV770 (small, efficient and surprisingly powerful).

What' s even more surprising is how early some people actually called the 800SP feature, but were just laughed off. This info comes from 3 months prior. Given AMD' s past efforts, it' s understandable why.

It' s good to see some competition again. Even with early drivers, word is that the 4850 is turning out to be a ripper of a card. It' s price is already falling below $200, and two of them in crossfire seem to get close to a GTX280. The 4850' s are probably going to sell much more than the 4870' s, due to GDDR5 availability. Given the amount of intel boards out there with CF capabilities, it' s probably going to be a boon for AMD.

So with the GTX 280 being outperformed by the 9800GX2 at resolutions closer to what i' m playing at, the 4870 looks to be my next card. Probably 2 in Crossfire.

The question i need answering though is whether i need to upgrade my QX6850 now?