Radeon 4800 series chips ahead of schedule- shipping to partners

I am most interested in the 10 watts @ idle on the new card.
If the claim is true, Power consumption comparison of the ATI and NVIDIA cards will make NVIDIA's solution... well,... not-so-"Green".

*Edit*
In the USA, a KWH is around 9 cents depending on where you live (and time of day, etc). A 100 watt light bulb running 24/7 for a month would cost you roughly
((24x100X30)/1000)X.09 = $6.48, or $77 per year.

Assuming an Idle power difference of 100 watts, you can buy a new $150 mainstream video card every 2 years from just the electricity cost savings!!

I'm glad I waited on my build now. I'm curious to see how the RV770 will perform. Specifically if the 4870 will outperform most if not all of nvidia's offerings! What are yalls thoughts on it?

Wouldnt that slow down the 4850 to the speed of the 3870X2?

Sure it's possible, as long as the GPU can shut down the 3D acceleration parts of itself when not in use, lower the clockspeed / mem speed and drop the voltages too.

I definitely plan on getting a 4870 this fall. Then I can put the 3870x2 in a spare gaming PC because not every game supports dual GPU's all that well.

I'm still trying to figure out if there's a problem with my MSI 3870x2. GPU-Z reads its the first GPU as 421/421 and the second as 421/850, with the memory at 901. The older CCC read it the same. Catalyst 8.4 doesn't seem to have Overdrive in the list for my supposedly factory overclocked card.

So, I know the GPU clocks down when not in 3D mode, that accounts for the 421, but shouldn't both GPU's read 421/850? I'm wondering if I have a bad card with one GPU failing to clock adequately. My benchmarks seem a bit lower than what I've seen on review sites.

So, do I have a defective card that's actually doing Crossfire at 421 megahertz per GPU? Which GPU does it use when Crossfire's not supported? The 421 or the 850. It seems fast to me regardless, but my prior card was a 7600gs so even an underclocked 3870 would seem fast.

At any rate, I think I'll send this back for warranty replacement when I can afford to get a 4870. Then, when I'm sure I have a good 3870x2 that's 850 with each GPU, it can go in the other gaming PC.

If I do decide on CrossfireX when I get a Deneb and a new board next holiday season, a 3870x2 and a 4850 would be clocked the same except for memory, though it's the 4870 that Nordic Hardware said was as fast as a 3870x2.

You cant predict where the future will be especially for the technology sector. I really hope that the 4870 will igve me a reason to ditch my 8800GT, but from the supposed 50% increase i heard, i might stick with the GT and keep waiting. That 4870 better perform better than everything out today if ATI really struck gold. RV770 was meant to compete with GT200/G100, so i guess that means that it should breeze by the 9800GTX and the GX2 right, it better, 480SPs aint no joke, although technically only a fraction of those are 'real' shaders.

This could liven things up, hope for something well and truelly beating the antiquated GTX and ultras in single gpu mode... Would be nice to finally let my gtx's retire to my kids computers...

Lets hope its more than hype and a new a coat of paint on the old chips...

I'm sure they will be, retailers will always try and make a quick buck on the newest stuff...

The 421 clock has something to do with what the first card cab actually do, and in 2D its doing 421, so the other card has to clock down to it. It clocks up in 3D mode, and the second card follows.Im interested in the MCM that supposed to be coming out, and may be the "thunder" rumors weve been hearing about. It allows a 2chip (X2) to share the memory within each card, so no mirroring of memory. So with this, when you have a say 4870 with 1 gig memory, both chips will have access to all 1 gig. This should do 2 things. Speed up the process (how well, guess we will soon find out) and makes for a cheaper, cleaner product

Yeah, and I can see the confusion once this hits " I have a 3870x2 with 1 gig of memory, doesnt this mean I have a whole gig like the 4870s?" and then having to explain all this.... but be that as it may, if this works like the IMCs in cpus, then bandwidth will never ever be a problem, and youll actually have the gpu processors going full tilt and not ever waiting, and when you buy a card with 1 gig, itll all actually be used, instead of mirrored and wasted

Theres been a little confusion on whether the clocks would be 1Ghz or 850Mhz. I just saw a chart showing that the chip will run at 850Mhz, and the shaders at 1050Mhz. Thats why maybe this has been reported several ways. They can lock the shaders at +200Mhz, and it looks like thats what they did

screw SLI, CF scales better across the board, maybe with the exception of the 9600GT which scales really well. Anyone else dissapointed with ROPs and TMUs? 1GHz core will run very hot BTW, and consume lots of energy. It'll be a while before we move onto 45nm process, how much smaller can those things get, really? 60 femto meters? sheeesh

Schoolboy error on the GPU-Z screenie there!

Well they're already at 13.5W on the HD3850 according to Xbit labs, and 18.7W on the HD3870;
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect0



So depends on whether they disable unused portions of the chip and also reduce the lane useage (which is something the do with powerplay onthe laptops since the original mobile X series).
10W seems very doable at idle, but I would expect that to probably double at peak 2D and not change that portion much from the previous generation.

Yeah it will be interesting to see how that works and if you look at the command and addressing schemes as outlined by that Qimonda link you posted the other day, it may offer some interesting insight into another potential for such a design.

all that is still ahead of the game, but it's nice to think of potential R700 configurations simply from from a design standpoint, not as anything to compare A vs B.

Isnt TSMC soon to try out their 40nm?

Technology advances so fast. There has to be something to fix the fact that so much hardware ends up laying around doing nothing. Manufacturing companies should buy it from its consumers and recycle the parts or something. Im sick of having graphic cards lying around.

looks like im not alone switching from intel to amd.im looking forward to get my spider platform ready and rolling in 3 months time.BTW you just gave a head shot to the nV fB .LukeBird what mobo would you probably choose to run the 9850BE?

hahaha..........even though i own intel proc, ive been an AMD fan all along.i took a long decision to get intel.but quadiees,for the pooriees,hell who wont want one

lol 790 is the new king of chipsets.id stick to spider platform to be future proof.that way i can hold upgrading for about 3 to 4 years! are you going to get spider as well?

ive benn using Ati all my life.but my first card was the TNT RIVA 64

Yeah but I'm talking about shipping parts, 40nm is still in the early phase where it's targeted mostly at things like memory and low frequency high density chips
45nm is expected sometime this year (but IMO for the lower end and mobile parts.
40nm is just starting testing, so product built on the process likely won't arrive until the end of the year around Xmas, or depending on yields and process success may even be 2009.

Here's Xbit's recent article on the two 40nm processes they're testing 40LP (for small devices) and 40G (for CPUs / GPUs);
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other [...] ocess.html

Looks promising, but I would expect 40LP to get useable yields first and then they would tweak 40G to give the high frequencies for processors.

But if it was just launched now it's usually 9-18months until we see any of the first fast processor products depending alot on if there are any issues (similar to the 80nm HS problems). Usually we would se something like a chipset or small part first before something as complex as a VPU, they may come quick, but usually the very very first are memory and simpl ICs.

The confusion is really the two memory types that will be used on the card. Do believe DDR3 and DDR5 (forgot actual names, too tired to look it up). One is a slow speed, the other extremely high.
I'm looking forward to it, hoping it will be much faster. It's been a LONG time (years) since waiting for a video card to actually perform much better then my 8800 card.

We all are jaydeejohn, cuz WE all wondered why the HD2900XT didn't massacre the G80. Maybe this is it? Nvidia is on pace to freefall, the bigger they are the harder they fall.