ATI 4 series delayed

[John Aiton]

source - toms
http://www.tomshardware.com/



We previously published several details about AMD’s next-generation graphics card lineup and as we get closer to the launch we are getting more details about the launch date, feature set and prices. The good news: The new boards will come with “physics processing capability” and prices that will start below $200 for a 512 MB board. The bad news: The 4800 series will launch after Nvidia’s GT200.

Yes, we know, we previously said that the 4800 series would launch in May, but as it stands right now, we won’t be seeing the first new cards until mid-June. According To AMD’s current introduction schedule, the Radeon 4800 series will launch in week 25, which puts the day of the introduction somewhere between June 15 and June 22. What is significant about this time frame is that ATI will trail Nvidia and their new high-end chip GT200.

This comes as a major surprise, because it was widely expected that ATI will debut its RV770 chip first, followed by Nvidia’s summer part. But as it stands right now, Nvidia has the pole position in a new round of the graphics wars. Of course, the GT200 and RV770 are actually not entirely comparable, because of their huge price difference. But performance-wise, we’re in for a possibly close race.

ATI’s Radeon 4800 series will be introduced in three flavors - as 4850, 4870 and 4870 X2. The company will also offer a “4850 256MB” (as opposed to 512 MB in other versions), but this SKU is a so-called "option" and is geared towards to the OEM/ODM/SI crowd to support them with cheaper parts for the back-to-school period and beyond.

The Radeon 4850, code-named “Makedon,” is AMD’s launch board. The name, by the way, is likely to refer to Terry "Catalyst" Makedon, group manager for software and video in the AMD (ATI) graphics division. Of course, there is a small chance that Alexander Makedonski (Alexander the Great) may have influenced the naming, but somehow we feel that Terry has won this time.

The 4850 board features 512 MB of GDDR3 memory and is expected to be available in volume at launch. We heard that card vendors will start printing their boxes next week, which means that the specifications are final at this time. According to our sources, the 4850 will come with single-slot cooling; CrossFireX is supported with up to four boards in a single system (if you have the appropriate board based on AMD 790FX, 790GX, Intel Skulltrail, X48) and each board will require a single 6-pin PCIe power connector.

AMD will follow up in July and launch the Radeon 4870 512 MB GDDR5 and the 4870 X2 1024 MB GDDR5 (R700). The Radeon 4870 chip is built onto a board codenamed “Trojan” (could be named after a condom brand or a horse; we pick the latter) and comes with a dual-slot cooler, following the tradition of earlier XX70 boards. Our previous information about the memory buffer was a bit inaccurate, since the cost of Qimonda’s GDDR5 memory apparently was not compatible with the targeted pricing of these cards. The 4870 includes 512MB GDDR5 memory and surpasses upcoming Nvidia cards in terms of bandwidth. However, if any ATI partner wants to build a 1024 MB GDDR5 board, ATI will not say no, we were told. But don’t expect this to happen until early fall, since everybody wants to move as many units as possible.

In terms of performance, we heard some interesting claims. A 4870 should perform on par with or better than a dual-chip 3870 X2. Our sources explained to us that using a PCIe Gen1 controller 3870 X2 was a mistake, since the board was hungry for data and didn’t sync well with this interface. Don’t expect the ATI team to repeat that mistake with the 4870 X2. However, we admit that we have no idea what kind of connection two RV770 GPUs will have.

Looking at features, ATI will promote DirectX 10.1, PCI Express 2.0, dynamic geometry acceleration and other functions that were introduced with the Radeon 3800 series. What surprises us is that the manufacturer is highlighting a "Game physics processing capability" in its launch materials. Since ATI didn’t bid for Havok (which ended up in Intel’s lap) and Nvidia snapped up PhysX we wonder who provides a physics engine for ATI. Perhaps the company took a completely different direction and it simply expanded its GPGPU capabilities from professional FireStream cards to the desktop.

The Radeon 4800 series also includes 7.1 channel-via-HDMI support and color output also got a “significant” boost, our sources said. We were unable to confirm HDMI 1.3 support, but we would not be surprised if that in fact is the case. The Unified Video Decoder is now in generation 2 and is called "UVD2".

Every aspect of the GPU is monitored by PowerPlay, since ATI will be very aggressive on the power side: The boards have been designed with power in mind and the 4850/4870 won’t require 8+6-pin combinations (exception: The dual-GPU 4870 X2). Power supply requirements call for a 450 watt unit for a single card and a 550 watt version for two cards. Given the fact that ATI has to state this for PoS power supplies, CrossFire should do just fine with a top notch 400 watt power supply.

Let’s talk about pricing. AMD decided to remain aggressive in an effort to win back market share. Pricing is actually set to a point where Nvidia is unlikely to be able to compete (that is at least what somebody is hoping for). Pricing guidelines are not finalized at this time, but according to several sources, the Radeon 4850 will succeed the 3850 512MB and should cost about $189-$219 at launch. Our sources indicated that 4870 GDDR5 cards will cost between $249 and $279, but somehow we feel that AMD might aim go for $199 and $249 at launch.

Given the current market, these prices could stir up the market and create quite a circus. Radeon cards could be getting lots of design wins for the back-to-school market, but our sources warned us that ATI is a bit late to the party. Qualifying of systems takes time, and tens of thousands of machines take time to be manufactured and shipped to North America. For Europe, things are more lenient, since nobody works in August and schools/universities start in September or October.

All in all, ATI will have one helluwa June and July. All eyes are now on Nvidia: Will Nvidia create a decent competitor for the sub-$300 range (55nm G92 is being prepared), or will AMD/ATI will gain market share?

[cottonvibes]

nVidia wins again :O

[Thanakil]

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

nVidia wins again :O

Overreacting ftw.

[John Aiton]

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

nVidia wins again :O

how do you figure?

you do realise ATi could very well delayed to increase performance,
the 4 series will be a lot cheaper than the 9900s

remember the leaked nvidia emails a while back stating the future ati models will be more than a match?

consider that the 9900gtx wil eat power, run hot and have a HUGE die
(big dies = big production cost)

why would nvidia pull such a card out unless the were struggling to best ati?

Originally Posted by Thanakil

Overreacting ftw.

indeed

[tuanming]

Fanboy ftw? Too early to tell! At least it's not half a year delay...

[John Aiton]

Originally Posted by tuanming

Fanboy ftw? Too early to tell! At least it's not half a year delay...

I hope you don't mean me,
fanboys are the definition of arrogant

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by Thanakil

Overreacting ftw.

only losers say "ftw", you noob.

Originally Posted by John Aiton

how do you figure?

i figure because just as Intel is pwning AMD, nVidia is pwning ATI right now.


and even if ATI releases a good card, if its drivers suck, then its worthless.

and i've heard alot of complaints about problems with ATI drivers.
so its not like they're suddenly going to get amazing drivers out of their asses.

[Thanakil]

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

only losers say "ftw", you noob.

Wow, such a great argument! Obviously you are not back to the wall with nothing to back up your claim!

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

i figure because just as Intel is pwning AMD, nVidia is pwning ATI right now.
and even if ATI releases a good card, if its drivers suck, then its worthless.
and i've heard alot of complaints about problems with ATI drivers.
so its not like they're suddenly going to get amazing drivers out of their asses.

Yeah, comparing the CPU side to the GPU side and then saying that nVidia wins because of a delay.
That's obviously making a LOTS of sense.
"See, this orange is beating this apple on a bicycle because the shop opens 1 hour later".

ATI drivers usually take more times to be polished, yes, but the cards aren't worthless, far from it. The first batch of drivers are usually not taking much advantage of the cards, but they usually catch up later on and take advantage of the card just like they should.

Which makes it pretty pointless since yes, they do make good drivers if you just wait (ZOMG!) instead of buying the card right as it's released and then going "WHAT?! IT'S NOT WORKING AT 100% YET? UNPOSSIBLE!". It's not like nvidia cards either were running at their maximized potential right at the start.

They may be slower compared to nvidia on the driver side, but you're seriously overreacting if you think they're worthless and don't make any good drivers. They just take more time to launch, and they sometime have a few more bumps on the road.

But the card being worthless because of horrible drivers? If you're thinking of emulation ONLY then it could be right with some versions. But if you buy a new GPU (like the 4 series) for emulation ONLY then the problem doesn't come from ATI, but from you.

Now if you think of the card as a WHOLE (which is the whole point of it) then no, you're wrong. The cards are far from being worthless because of the drivers.

[John Aiton]

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

i figure because just as Intel is pwning AMD, nVidia is pwning ATI right now.


and even if ATI releases a good card, if its drivers suck, then its worthless.

and i've heard alot of complaints about problems with ATI drivers.
so its not like they're suddenly going to get amazing drivers out of their asses.

I wouldn't consider nvidia to be owning ati

check the die sizes compared to performance




even the new 4 series will be smaller than the g92 cards
while nvidia has to go near 600 which is freaking HUGE!
just to fit nvidias faster card status this generation

imagine if ati pulled a 4 series with a 9900gtx size die
I think nvidia would lose by a large margin

ati's drivers are better than nvidias, sure the opengl support suuuuuuuuuuucks
but only wow and emulators are big opengl players nowdays
vga companies don't give a *** about anything other than pc game support
- for which any recent gpu can max wow no sweat anyway


......but for dx games ati is owning nvidia
hl2.exe has encountered an unexpected error anyone?

or dx10.1 support

I couldn't care which company I buy as long as it's the fastest card at a price i'm willing to pay

nvidias upcoming parts are expensive and power-hungry,
and I would bet on atis equivalent offering coming close for less

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by Thanakil

Yeah, comparing the CPU side to the GPU side and then saying that nVidia wins because of a delay.
That's obviously making a LOTS of sense.
"See, this orange is beating this apple on a bicycle because the shop opens 1 hour later".

ATI drivers usually take more times to be polished, yes, but the cards aren't worthless, far from it. The first batch of drivers are usually not taking much advantage of the cards, but they usually catch up later on and take advantage of the card just like they should.

Which makes it pretty pointless since yes, they do make good drivers if you just wait (ZOMG!) instead of buying the card right as it's released and then go "WHAT?! IT'S NOT WORKING AT 100% YET? UNPOSSIBLE!".

They may be slower compared to nvidia on the driver side, but you're seriously overreacting if you think they're worthless and don't make any good drivers.

look at all the problems people with ATI cards have with various emulators and you have your proof that ATI's drivers are worthless.
if they can't preform correctly, then they are worthless.

if a calculater says 2+2=5 then are you going to use it on a math test?
hopefully not.

so why should i buy a graphics card that fails to output graphics correctly?





and when i compared the battle between nVidia and ATI, to Intel and AMD, you failed to notice my intention.

once 1 competing corporation gains dominance in a feild, its very hard for the loosing party to regain its stand.

AMD is pretty much f***ed in the ass right now, and theres not much they can do to regain their possition unless they release a chip thats more powerful than intel's CPUs, and at a cheaper price... which dosn't look likely.


ATI is in the same situation.

with nVidia's 8800 and 9XXX series of cards, they really took the lead against ATI.
and now ATI will have to release a card thats alot more powerful than nVidia's cards to get back their recognition.

if they release a card thats only on-par with nVidia, then people would just get the nVidia card since they were most-likely pleased with their previous 8800/9XXX series card and would expect to be pleased with their next nVidia card.

[Thanakil]

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

look at all the problems people with ATI cards have with various emulators and you have your proof that ATI's drivers are worthless.
if they can't preform correctly, then they are worthless.

if a calculater says 2+2=5 then are you going to use it on a math test?
hopefully not.

so why should i buy a graphics card that fails to output graphics correctly?

John pretty much already covered that. And you're overreacting on that one, especially with "fails to output graphics correctly" since it doesn't affect the card as a whole either.

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

and when i compared the battle between nVidia and ATI, to Intel and AMD, you failed to notice my intention.

once 1 competing corporation gains dominance in a feild, its very hard for the loosing party to regain its stand.

AMD is pretty much f***ed in the ass right now, and theres not much they can do to regain their possition unless they release a chip thats more powerful than intel's CPUs, and at a cheaper price... which dosn't look likely.

I didn't fail to notice your intention, I simply don't find it valid. While ATI is now under AMD, it still doesn't change the fact that you're comparing CPU to GPU. Just because AMD with the CPU is doing horribly doesn't mean the GPU side is BOUND to do horrible either.

And HOW is that related to delaying meaning loss? It still doesn't make sense. You still failed to see MY intention .

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

ATI is in the same situation.

with nVidia's 8800 and 9XXX series of cards, they really took the lead against ATI.
and now ATI will have to release a card thats alot more powerful than nVidia's cards to get back their recognition.

if they release a card thats only on-par with nVidia, then people would just get the nVidia card since they were most-likely pleased with their previous 8800/9XXX series card and would expect to be pleased with their next nVidia card.

Obviously, but that's unrelated to what the conversation was about.
But ATI can still regain some grounds anyway. Some people who don't feel like paying a huge price for a 9900 card can still find the 4 series appealing with the cheaper price but good perfs (if they perform good).

Call that the "Wii principle" .

Edit :

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

if nVidia has a bigger die size and performs better than ATI cards, then that just means nVidia is doing better than ATI.

a smaller die should in theory be faster and thus perform better, but since nVidia's perform on-par (or better) than ATI's cards, and they're running on a bigger die, then that just means if they shrink the die to the same size as ATI's card then they'll totally pwn them.

I'm totally gonna let John take care of that

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by John Aiton

I wouldn't consider nvidia to be owning ati

check the die sizes compared to performance




even the new 4 series will be smaller than the g92 cards
while nvidia has to go near 600 which is freaking HUGE!
just to fit nvidias faster card status this generation

imagine if ati pulled a 4 series with a 9900gtx size die
I think nvidia would lose by a large margin

if nVidia has a bigger die size and performs better than ATI cards, then that just means nVidia is doing better than ATI.

a smaller die should in theory be faster and thus perform better, but since nVidia's perform on-par (or better) than ATI's cards, and they're running on a bigger die, then that just means if they shrink the die to the same size as ATI's card then they'll totally pwn them.

[John Aiton]

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

look at all the problems people with ATI cards have with various emulators and you have your proof that ATI's drivers are worthless.
if they can't preform correctly, then they are worthless.

if a calculater says 2+2=5 then are you going to use it on a math test?
hopefully not.

so why should i buy a graphics card that fails to output graphics correctly?





and when i compared the battle between nVidia and ATI, to Intel and AMD, you failed to notice my intention.

once 1 competing corporation gains dominance in a feild, its very hard for the loosing party to regain its stand.

AMD is pretty much f***ed in the ass right now, and theres not much they can do to regain their possition unless they release a chip thats more powerful than intel's CPUs, and at a cheaper price... which dosn't look likely.


ATI is in the same situation.

with nVidia's 8800 and 9XXX series of cards, they really took the lead against ATI.
and now ATI will have to release a card thats alot more powerful than nVidia's cards to get back their recognition.

if they release a card thats only on-par with nVidia, then people would just get the nVidia card since they were most-likely pleased with their previous 8800/9XXX series card and would expect to be pleased with their next nVidia card.

you're forgetting some of the important points

1. Graphics cards are not made or marketed for emulator use
2. the uber high end performance market isn't much of a priority

on price/performance ati certainely competes very well,
and people want as cheap a card as possible to play their games

just take a look on the pcsx2 forum to see all the noobs asking about 8500 cards -_-

they may be noobs but it's real money they spend on s*** cards
and how to many of them wanting to really cheap out have we told to get a 3850 instead of an 8500/8600?

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by John Aiton

ati's drivers are better than nvidias, sure the opengl support suuuuuuuuuuucks
but only wow and emulators are big opengl players nowdays
vga companies don't give a *** about anything other than pc game support
- for which any recent gpu can max wow no sweat anyway


......but for dx games ati is owning nvidia
hl2.exe has encountered an unexpected error anyone?

or dx10.1 support

I couldn't care which company I buy as long as it's the fastest card at a price i'm willing to pay

nvidias upcoming parts are expensive and power-hungry,
and I would bet on atis equivalent offering coming close for less

i play more emulators than PC games.
and i expect a card to be able to handle both.

and even on DirectX emulators, ATI cards still have problems.
Look in the GSdx thread of the PCSX2 section and see people talk about their ATI problems.



and since nVidia has the lead now, that means game developers are going to be testing more thoroughly on nVidia cards, as thats what more people have.

focusing more on ATI cards as a game developer would be retarded.

Originally Posted by John Aiton

you're forgetting some of the important points

1. Graphics cards are not made or marketed for emulator use
2. the uber high end performance market isn't much of a priority

on price/performance ati certainely competes very well,
and people want as cheap a card as possible to play their games

just take a look on the pcsx2 forum to see all the noobs asking about 8500 cards -_-

they may be noobs but it's real money they spend on s*** cards
and how to many of them wanting to really cheap out have we told to get a 3850 instead of an 8500/8600?

a graphics card should just be made to handle OpenGL and DirectX correctly.

its not the emulators fault that the cards fail to output graphics correctly, its ATI's drivers that fail to handle correct algorithms for OpenGL and DirectX functions.


and i always tell the n00bs to spend a bit more money and get a 8800gt or 9600

[Thanakil]

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

and since nVidia has the lead now, that means game developers are going to be testing more thoroughly on nVidia cards, as thats what more people have.

focusing more on ATI cards as a game developer would be retarded.

Nvidia has the lead on top-of-the-range hardware. It doesnt mean they lead EVERYWHERE or on all markets.

Developers focusing only on the top-of-the-range demographics ARE retarted. Look at Crysis and how "well" it sold.

[John Aiton]

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

i play more emulators than PC games.
and i expect a card to be able to handle both.

and even on DirectX emulators, ATI cards still have problems.
Look in the GSdx thread of the PCSX2 section and see people talk about their ATI problems.

yeah, I was that poster

the problem was that nvidia cards take more stress off the cpu,
and we all know pcsx2 needs moar cpu!

remember emulators are still viewed by people in the game industry negatively
and we're in the minority anyway so getting no help should've been expected