On the eve of the GeForce GTX 280 launch just last week, ATI unveiled a bombshell—a brand-new GPU architecture that utilized better process technology and a more power efficient design to outperform Nvidia's gargantuan new GPU. ATI eschewed the huge, hot monolithic GPU for a more compact, but modular core. With twin goals of decreased power consumption and more efficiency per die area, ATI looks poised to dethrone Nvidia, and all without building a videocard that sports an aural footprint roughly equivalent to a Dyson vacuum cleaner.
With the new RV770 GPU comes two products, the $200 Radeon 4850 and the $300 Radeon 4870. While their prices vary wildly, the videocards all use the same GPU. Let’s find out what makes it tick.
ATI says the day of the giant monolithic GPU is over. Instead of using giant, power-hungry GPUs, ATI is planning on designing smaller, more efficient GPUs that can work together to handle big workloads.
We’ve walked this path before. When Intel’s Netburst architecture reached the end of its life, we were seeing the largest, hottest, most power-hungry CPUs ever, but performance wasn’t scaling up as fast as the power and heat were. In order to see a 10% performance increase, the new CPU would generate 30% more heat and require 30% more power. This was an untenable situation, so Intel and AMD quickly moved away from monolithic cores to more efficient multi-core designs. If your applications can take advantage of all the CPU cores in your system, you should see significantly better performance with a much slower, cooler multi-core design than you would with a similar sized single-core design running at twice the speed.
The two main GPU manufacturers are at a similar crossroads, and each chose a different direction with this generation of GPU. Nvidia has launched its GTX 280 boards, which sport a massive monolithic GPU design. These are among the largest chips ever put into mass production—a single GTX 280 chip is 576mm^2, features a 512-bit memory interface, and draws 236W when it’s running at full bore. To contrast, the RV770 chip that ATI is using in its new line of GPUs is just 260mm^2, features a 256-bit memory bus, and draws about 170W when running at full bore. But, despite a much smaller die, drawing less power, and running a memory bus about half the width of the GTX 280, the Radeon 4870 delivers about 75% of the speed of the faster card in most of our benchmarks.
Comments are closed on this article
robbyyung
April 19, 2010 at 3:02pm
Someone please help me and tell me what the HD 5970 is and why it is so special in this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dWziA_u5OU
pcfxer
June 28, 2008 at 5:31pm
For those that don't know, OpenCL is C-code compiled into OpenGL code to make graphics processing/debugging quicker and easier. The C-code is first written, debugged, compiled with llvm, debugged some more (or sent back to C for more debugging), etc., etc.
If you hack compilers, you'll love llvm.
dc10ten
June 27, 2008 at 1:55pm
could ATI/AMD be finally coming out of the disaster that was this past year?
the_river
June 25, 2008 at 12:00pm
I paid like $240.00 for my HD3870, which I hooked up to a 47" LG 1080p HDTV. Sweet through HDMI. Quality is amazing! I'm thinking of reselling my 3870 for like $150.00 on eBay or something and paying the extra $50 for a jump Of course, my clock is about 775MHz+ with an OC tool, so that is a trade off for the cheaper card. The way I see it, pros are as follows:
- 2.5x the procs (800 vs. 320)
- Single slot card over my mammoth of a 3870 Asus cooler
- Less power hungry
- Dirt cheap for the performance increase.
- Crysis at higher resolutions? (only played the demo, but DX10 is so sweet looking). I'd by it then for sure.
DRAGONWEEZEL
June 25, 2008 at 11:20am
I am glad that they will be able to compete again. I hope that they are secretly building a megafast top end card, just waiting for Nvidia to roll out one more geforce XXX so they can drop the bomb.
Price /performance is what matters to all but the affluent. Why sport extra heat in your case when most of the time good enough will do? I personally don't want to apply Degree to my case to keep it from perspiring, especially with warmer weather coming up (here in some parts, but not where I am at).
For those of us who do the best we can with what we got, this sounds like the perfect upgrade and right price to anyone who has a 1 1/2 year old & older videocard, yet wants to play modern games.
THERE ARE ONLY 11 TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD. Those that think binary jokes are funny, those that don't, and those that don't know binary
n0t_a_n000b
August 21, 2008 at 11:59am
Well, I guess you could consider the 4870 X2 the bombshell, but I agree something even better will come out soon.
I found the bombshell! Visiontek has a new watercooled beyond superclocked 4870 Black Edition. Sounds sick, eh!
N0t a n00b
mikeart03a
June 25, 2008 at 1:46pm
I'm inclined to agree with you there. I've been a bit of an ATI fan over the years as their cards performed pretty well at a decent price and they were Canadian owned prior to the AMD buyout. I'd recommend nVidia more for the performance freaks. However, I find that ATI boards generally performed well for most people as well as budget shoppers, including myself.
- mike_art03a
IT Technician Gov't of Canada
da_samman
July 28, 2008 at 10:31am
Ditto here. In my next rig I plan to build, I'm putting in an 8800GTS 512 MB by EVGA, with an EVGA mobo that supports SLI. However, if you feel that the 4870's are better for a budget box, please let me know.
Sincerely yours, from FOB Striker, Iraq,
SGT Samuel E. McClard II
Life's a journey, enjoy the ride!!
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