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For the most part, AMD's 5xxx series of GPUs have stood up well against the competition,and that includes Nvidia's Fermi architecture. If the Sunnyvale graphics chip maker wanted to, it could probably sit on the sidelines for the rest of the year and still remain competitive.
That isn't in AMD's cards, so to speak. Citing "sources from graphics card players," Digitimes says you can expect AMD to start shipping videocards built around its next-gen GPU -- codenamed Southern Islands -- in November, with an official announcement preceding the launch a month ahead of time. This new GPU will come manufactured on a 28nm process. The original plan was to make these upcoming chips using a 32nm manufacturing process (and called Northern Islands by AMD), but Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) ended up skipping its 32nm R&D and jumped straight to 28nm.
Around the same time, and perhaps even earlier, AMD is said to be cutting prices for its ATI Radeon HD 5000-series graphics cards, both in preparation for the upcoming 6xxx series, and to fend off Fermi from chewing into its market share.
Comments are closed on this article
AMD4298
August 17, 2010 at 9:16am
I like AMD and ATi but one things is for certain, Nvidia had a long long time to make a good DirectX 11 gpu and they made one thats hotter than the center of the sun!!!!!! Honestly where has Nvidia gone? i wouldnt reccomend the gtx 480 unless you watercool it REALLY good.
AMD4298
August 17, 2010 at 9:03am
Will there be a DirectX12 Standard soon? And will it be supported by ATi's 6000 series GPU's? Sounds kinda nutz because DirectX 10 is still the most common and DirectX 11 is still starting. But think, ATi's 2000 series supported DirectX 8, the 3000 series supported DriectX 9 and the 4000 series supported DirectX 10. Or mabye there going to release Next-gen DirectX 11 videocards to compete with Nvidia.
WardTheSteak
August 15, 2010 at 9:18am
Honestly I would just get a new gpu because 2 8800gts's will not handle dx11 games very well and most definitely will not hold you off for 2 more years.
shalashaska
August 13, 2010 at 12:11pm
First of I would like to understand why do you guys at Maximum PC let someone like "Paul Lilly" totally change an article with misinformation and unfundamented points. You see, what I mean is that the Author of Digitimes says clearly that in response to the cancellation of the 32nm. process, AMD decided to continue adopting the 40nm. process; while on this article the author says that it'll be built on 28nm. So I don't know if it's a typo or if the Digitimes article is too technical for Paul Lilly but please get your facts right the next time and stop confusing people.
---Southern Islands will be built on TSMC's 40nm. that is a fact and has been confirmed by AMD.----
Now, as far as some of the comments that I've seen here on this article well I think that it is in the best interest of all of us to get some facts right.
--The first thing fact is that Northern Islands, AMD's 28nm. GPU will be built by Globalfoundries and not TSMC.
--Northern Islands has a planned release time of late April or early May according to some rumours. This will be a new architecture as some people in the comments have already mentioned, but what they don't mention is that N.I. will target the high end market, while Southern Islands will target the mainstream market.
--Since S.I. will target the mainstream market it is safe to assume that the mentioned price cuts will come for the 56xx and 57xx parts and not for the 58xx parts. However, when as the realease time for N.I. gets closer you can expect some price cuts on AMD's high end parts.
--As far as the last part of this article where it says something like "fend off Fermi from chewing into its market share" I really don't get what the Author is saying since the most recent market share figures for GPU's show that AMD has gained a good amount of ground overall while Nvidia has lost some to end up like this.
--Overall GPU Marketshare--
Intel 54.3
AMD 24.5
Nvidia 19.8
So while AMD's lead over Nvidia is not huge, it would be very difficult for Nvidia to gain marketshare on AMD since in the next month or so Nvidia will be finally releasing its mainstream GPUs just to face stiff competition from AMD's S.I. GPUs , and the lowering of AMD's mainstream GPUs prices.
::Just to put it in simpler words this is based on speculated and actual performance::
(Possible new AMD Southern Islands part 10-15% faster than current 58xx parts) ~=AMD 5970> Nvidia 480> AMD 5870> Nvidia 470>AMD 5850 >Nvidia 460 >
AMD 5830 ~= Nvidia 465 >AMD 5770 ~= (Possible new NVIDIA mainstream parts) >AMD 5670
So as you can see theoretically AMD will retain the top of the performance table before Christmas, while the new Nvdia parts will sit on very deep waters and could lead to further sinking in Nvidia's boat if they don't perform better than their counterparts.
--So Paul Lilly could you please add to your comment that AMD would have to lower its prices or otherwise lose marketshare? Beacause I find it fascinating that you can write an article like this for Maximum PC without knowing the basics of how the GPU market works... ---
Muerte
August 13, 2010 at 5:35am
My 8800gts still works fine for most games and if I get a second one I can't imagine I'll need to upgrade for another year or 2 and even then I won't need the top or even high middle end of the graphics card spectrum. I still can't believe I can't find a match to my gc for under 100 bucks.
Biceps
August 12, 2010 at 4:36pm
WHY can't you people log in THEN hit reply? You've been using MaxPC long enough to know that if you are going to reply to someone's comment you have to log in first. It is really difficult to follow a conversation when it is spread all over a damn page. Geez!
Cooketh
August 12, 2010 at 3:51pm
I don't believe this. Not for a minute.
It doesn't make sense. No games coming out this year, or next year, will challenge the 5xxx series or Fermi GPUs. I don't understand the marketing behind this. Sure it be nice to have the 5xxxx go under $300 but that still doesn't explain why I need to buy a 6xxx card.
Maybe ATi is trying to really seal the deal here and take back the top performance crown they had way back in 9800 days. Since then, they've been successful on price/performance but it's no suprise that they want top performance in the market as well.
Yet there is one thing I understand about getting another generation out asap, aside from whatever competitve marketing plan that may be tied to it. We have to remember that this current generation of GPUs is the 1st generation of DX11 GPUs. While they are strong, I suppose it's possible that next year if DX11 games start slamming on the gas that generation 1 DX11 cards will fall behind.
Still, at 28nm, I don't see 6xxx being affordable for the average consumer.
They should wait till spring at the least. Next spring is when alot of PCs will need replacing/upgrading to accomodate for full USB 3.0 support, PCI-E X16 2.1, and SSD storage. At that point, consumers may bite the bullet and upgrade their GPU as well if they don't already have Fermi or 5xxx.
baker269
August 14, 2010 at 2:34am
"It doesn't make sense. No games coming out this year, or next year, will challenge the 5xxx series or Fermi GPUs."
Really? There's games out now that can easily challenge any single GPU, let alone next year. Sure you can turn the settings down but you can buy a $100 card and turn everything down/off and you can play most games but come on. A blanket statment like that is just stupid.
net_neutral
August 12, 2010 at 6:20pm
The entire graphics market is moving beyond games into GPGPU computing (General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit). The High Performance Computing field is heating up as GPU architecture is proving itself in massively parallel computing, where there are many billions to be made and a lot of technological progress to be had. So basically, new "shoot 'em ups" or not, Nvidia and ATI are going to keep product cycles and performance increases going regularly, because the professional field is STILL not getting optimal performance from GPU technology. Southern Islands IS coming out this year, and by next year; Northern Islands(which is really the architecture to look out for since this is totally new). SI is kind of a hybrid between Evergreen and NI, but should offer a very good performance jump over the last generation.
BuLLg0d
August 12, 2010 at 2:40pm
With PC games being hindered by the aging Console standards, isn't "upgrading to bleeding edge graphics" a waste when it comes to visually stunning next gen graphics? The framerate issue has been settled for the most part by the last couple of rounds of high end cards but hell, Even Crysis 2 will now be a console port. What will these new cards do that the current gen does not already do? Yeah, I know, smaller chips, more efficient use of energy, blah blah... What will these cards actually do better to make my visual experience worth all that money? In the early part of the millennium the race was on... These days, there is no real need to have top tier. Of course, this will all change once the console's finally get more than a refab to a smaller form factor...
I guess I just don't see the point in reselling me something that is stagnated by consoles. It's like owning a top fuel Funny car and only cranking it up and letting it idle.
machew100
August 13, 2010 at 10:52am
If you look at Dead Space, in no way was that stagnated by consoles to look amazing on PC. Doom 3 looked wayyyy better on PC and it was on Xbox as well. Battlefield Bad Company 2 has a huuuuge difference between the console's visuals vs the pc's visuals (antialiasing out of everything else was baaad on console versions). Modern Warfare 2, even though it's not graphicaly demanding, looks a good deal better on PC. Just Cause 2 requires a lot from your graphics cards to max everything out, and it looks amazing. Metro 2033 is a huge example of PC rape and "okay" visuals on consoles. There's many more, you just have to see what's out right now, and the best part is that consoles HAVE to be at their graphical breaking point soon. They're juicing it with 360 Natal and PS3 Move, but I'm not buying it and forcing them to update by voting with my wallet.
paschal
August 12, 2010 at 1:19pm
Let's see....Intel seems to come to mind...AMD seems to come to mind....They both develop and market a line of processors from time to time with pretty much the same factory process and then price them based on the marketplace demand and perceived value to the consumer based on the performance. Let's use Intel for example. They came back into the market with a vengence with the Conroe dual core and turned an almodt oddity (Dual Core CPU's) into a mainstream product. Conroe ran a pretty fair gamut in performance across it's line.....but the point is....it was one huge R&D cost that they had to recover, and the best way was sell the chips in a price to performance scale that would appeal to the masses, not to one market segment......Yes I know.....AMD was there first while Intel was using duct tape sticking wafers together making thermal waste products.....but the Conroe broke the old mold for Intel. I have finally used up all of my old DDR2 building my last 775 based on the Wolfdale....clock for clock against the Conroe, the Wolfdale blows it right out of the water....a different design, different process, way better thermal design, and less power consumption for better performance. Again also, a different and separate recovery expense for the R&D of that line of CPU's.
My understanding is that digital cameras are even more extreme at the cripple game. I am a little foggy on this one, but there is one company that an "enhacement group" likes in particular, and since mine is now on their list, I will be learning more...Supposedly features are enabled, not created, by using an alternate boot file on the SDHC card.
Hmm.... Honda or Acura? Toyota or Lexus? Nissan or Infinity?
Need a hard drive? Retail or OEM?
It's all economics anyway you look at it.....Somebody makes a product. By being creative they find a way to sell it by trying to appeal to as many segments of the consumer market as possible. How many scoops of ice cream would you like on your cone? You do have to pay extra for every scoop.
bergie berg
August 12, 2010 at 11:27am
I think you're confused. Graphics chipmakers don't create wildly powerful cards, gimp them, then activate features over the next few years. They make wildly powerful cards, release them as wildly powerful as they can be (nVidia GTX 480 and AMD 5870/5970), then shrink power and performance from those cards to make mainstream ones and budget ones. There are no "features" on any card that are "locked."
alex911
August 12, 2010 at 10:45am
Pretty much all these brands were common market place in new computers and add in cards at one time. Hell 3dfx was the whole 3d market till nvidias riva flopped and they made the tnt. Ati did mainly onboard stuff till the rage fury which came late and sucked but was carried by onboard till the radeon ddr.
Matrox, S3, 3DFX, VideoLogic, PowerVR, Intel, SiS, Number9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_graphics_chips_and_card_companies
misha573
August 12, 2010 at 10:25am
Yup, can't wait for the 6970s (or whatever they're called by the time they are released). I need to replace my tired 4870x2s. I have always upgraded every other generation, so its time for the upgrade.
AMD4298
August 17, 2010 at 9:10am
it would be even better if there's a 6870X2 because a 6970 is not as good if you compare the ASUS Ares to the 5970 the Ares wins.
WardTheSteak
August 15, 2010 at 9:24am
I would honestly wait till the Northern Island architecture is released if you truly wanna wait 2 generations, because Southern Islands is just a hybrid between the two and is of result of TSMC screwing up the 32nm process. NI will be mighty powerful on a 28nm process so I would thing that's worth waiting for. Unless you just sell your 6970 whenever NI is released.
AndyYankee17
August 12, 2010 at 10:08am
aw, I just got my 5830 installed :'(
I don't think there's a single commodity the depreciates more than computer hardware. I think the only time it has ever appreciated in value was when NASA bought legacy CPUs
Scootiep
August 12, 2010 at 12:49pm
"I don't think there's a single commodity the depreciates more than computer hardware."
Especially if you bought a 5830! Did you somehow miss the advice on nearly every single tech forum in existance that the 5830 was a terrible card for the price point it was put in? Or did you somehow manage an amazing deal on one? Performance per dollar, the 5830 was complete junk compared to the 5850 and the 5770. If it's still under warranty, take it back and pony up the extra change for either a 5850 or dual 5770's. You won't be dissappointed.
Silver925
August 12, 2010 at 9:25am
I wouldn't count nVidia out that easy. People were predicting doom-and-gloom for ATi not all that long ago, when nVidia was releasing the GTX 2xx line. When you look at the landscape now, it's almost hard to remember. The momentum has swung back-and-forth between these two makers for years.
I will completely agree that GPU makers can't stumble or lag too much for too long, however. nVidia's next offering better not be plagued with the same snags that the 4xx line has seen, or it might be a different story.
Also, this is based on an unconfirmed rumor. Even if it's based on fact, November seems very optimistic when the 5xxx series is still swinging strong. I wouldn't be suprised if there would be a delay, considering that ATi can milk the 5xxx series a littel longer, giving them some breathing room.
I'd hate to see the GPU market become dominated by a single company either way. Competition is a good thing for many reasons.
YORE353
August 12, 2010 at 10:30am
Last I read southern islands was staying at 40nm, because 28nm is not ready for prime time.
eric_c11
August 12, 2010 at 9:03am
AMD graphics chips are designed in Markham, Canada. AMD head office and CPU is in Sunnyvale, two different locations for two different things. You have to give Canadians credit once in a while...
Keith E. Whisman
August 12, 2010 at 8:52am
What scares me the most is one or both of these companies producing huge advanced GPU's with lots and lots of features and tons and tons of stream processors, that each card that gets released will have just a few features turned on with just a little power here and there and then next year they take the same chip and activate more processors and poor on some more mhz and features and then next year with the original chip they turn on even more processors and features until the every feature of the same chip is fully activated and turned on to it's fullest potential 5years down the road. Look at all the return in investment such a processor can bring. The only thing wrong with it is that it's not all that ethical at all. In fact the masses would be really pissed off if after five years we found out that we've been buying the same processor each year.
That would make a great book.. Nobody take that idea I am copy righting the idea. This Idea has a personal copyright Keith Whisman 2010 to infinity.
someone87
August 12, 2010 at 10:18am
Who gives a crap? Even if ATI or Nvidia did that, the free market will pick who is best best, and that company will reap the benefits.
Never in my business experience, has anyone ever intentionally crippled their product, and sold a half crap piece of sh!t, just so they could turn a few more things on, and sell the next generation. If certain features are not working right, or it's still under development, then sure, they might hold it back, but never intentionally do that.
ATI is eager to crush Nvidia in market share, tech, product and anything else that will give them a leg up. Not only would it hurt their business to not unload on Nvidia with both barrels, but it would give their competition a change to over-take them.
This is precisely why "greedy" business are good for the free market. ATI is "greedy" and wants more money, market share, prestige, and be up-held as the best video card maker around. Because of that, their #1 goal is to make the best cards, at the lowest cost, so more are sold, thus improving their bottom line, and making more money.
If the only thing that ATI changes for their next GPU is a die shrink (as mentioned in the article) and they increase the speed because everything runs cooler/more efficient then great! I win, you win ATI wins. We should applaud their innovation, creativity, and "greed" as most call it.
I am 100% convinced, that the media, our current president and this "people", are anti-business, and are attempting to turn the general public against wealthy, smart business men, who actually are good at what they do. Good business that are sticking it out for the long hall are always looking to make the customer happy, and stay ahead of the competition. If a business actually does screw their customers over, then take your money elsewhere, and let them suffer, fail, and go bankrupt. Unless our wonderful government bails them out (which should never never never happen, ever!) the free market will even out in the end, every time.
Keith E. Whisman
August 12, 2010 at 1:05pm
I should have stated that I was meant that as a scenario and not what is really happening. It was just an idea of something that may happen one day, in the future perhaps. That's why I put a copy right on the end of it, because it seems like a decent plot for a story.
Muerte
August 12, 2010 at 1:45pm
It already happened to Creative Labs. The sound card biz was pretty weak anyways with all the onboard sound but when that one guy started turning on features of older sound cards basically giving the same features of the newer ones the stuff really hit the fan.
Can only imagine what would happen with graphics cards.
Biceps
August 12, 2010 at 11:35am
I agree with you MOSTLY, however, you need to be aware that both NVIDIA and ATI disable (ahem - cripple, if you like) certain portions of their chips. A matter of fact, here is a quote from the MaxPC review of the Nvidia 460:
"While they’ve been priced differently and offer differing performance levels, they’ve all consisted of the same chip: the three-billion-transistor monster that was the original GF100. Each one—even the top-of-the-line GTX 480—has had varying numbers of functional units disabled in order to hit power, thermal, and price targets."
Here is the link: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/nvidia_geforce_gtx_460_handson_preview
So, in a way, our friend Kieth is correct. While I disagree that we have been purchasing 'the same chip for 5 years' you can see above that even the top-of-the-line models (from NVIDIA, anyway) do have portions disabled.
Just thought you might want to know that you were talking out your ass. :) Don't worry, we all do it sometimes.
Oh, and WHY is the 'captcha' below a wingding of a bed?? WTF am I supposed to write for THAT? lol. Copy and paste.
tweeve
August 12, 2010 at 8:48am
Yeah but if you look at ATI's history, they had a big lag for awhile too, the HD2XXX series sucked. They only redeemed themselves on the 3xxx series, and they have only been getting better. What Nvidia needs to do is ditch the ubar large nuclear reactor of a GPU and do a full redesign that is cheaper to produce and runs not as hot.
Keith E. Whisman
August 12, 2010 at 8:43am
I've got a feeling there's going to be a new Nvidia card released sometime in the 1st or 2nd quarter of 2011 that's even more powerful than Fermi. I only hope that whatever comes next from AMD and Nvidia, it's not just a die shrink with a few extra mhz here and a few extra stream processors there and a few extra megabytes of graphics memory there.
igoka
August 12, 2010 at 8:32am
Nvidia needs a miracle . It's barely keeping up with 5000 series now AMD brings 6000 ???
bergie berg
August 12, 2010 at 11:33am
GTX 480 > 5870. GTX 460 also wins its price point. nVidia has CUDA, 3D Vision, Tesla, Quadro, etc. I fail to see where you get that. Both companies will just continue to wail on each other just as AMD and Intel do.
zakn
August 12, 2010 at 7:59am
History has shown me that once a videocard maker loses it's mojo it's done. You produce substandard product for a 3 or so quarters and you are fing toast. Looks like Nvidia is on that end this time
Keith E. Whisman
August 12, 2010 at 9:22am
Matrox is a great example. Matrox used to produce some pretty decent gaming graphics cards but couldn't keep up technologically with the other 3D graphics cards back in the day. I used to have a Matrox Mistyque video card and it was great but it couldn't produce smoke like the other 3D video cards were capable of doing. What surprises me is that Matrox is still alive, at least I think they are still alive but not producing gaming graphics cards.
There's alot of different companies that produced graphics cards that just couldn't keep up with the technology mostly because of financial issues.
Keith E. Whisman
August 12, 2010 at 8:58am
I wouldn't call Fermi or the Nvidia GTX 480 GPU substandard. Though the processor is freaking hot as hell and sucks down enough power to piss off Al Gore, I wouldn't call it substandard. Fermi is faster than the ATI 4870 and now prices are pretty close to being the same as well. Though I think the 4870 is a better buy, I don't think the 480GTX is a bad card at all, in fact the 480GTX is supperior to the 4870 in every way except heat output and power consumption.
Keith E. Whisman
August 12, 2010 at 9:36am
Typo... LOL.. I meant 5870lol.... I've got the 4870myself... LOL..
