DailyTech - AMD Plans Another GPU SKU

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Blog: Hardware AMD Plans Another GPU SKU
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - July 11, 2007 9:21 AM

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15 comment(s) - last by mmarq.. on Aug 3 at 4:26 PM

RV670 to join the lineup in next quarter

AMD has a new ATI Radeon HD 2000-series graphics processor in the pipeline slated for Q4’2007. The new RV670 GPU is not an ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT replacement, but rather an additional product to AMD’s current midrange lineup. Very little detail is known about RV670 right now.

DailyTech speculates the upcoming RV670 should fill in the large pricing gap left between the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT and the HD 2900 XT, similar to how RV570 joined the X1000-family as the X1950 Pro.

AMD has had a rough launch with its ATI Radeon HD 2000-series GPUs. After months of delay, the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT hit the market with performance barely able to keep up with the months old GeForce 8800 GTS. The 1GB ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT has essentially become a niche product, with low production numbers and performance that barely edges out its 512MB brethren.

Confusions also arose when there was miscommunication between AMD and partners in regards to features of the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT. The AMD ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT lacked universal video decoder, or UVD, capabilities when board partners believed the GPU had it. Nevertheless, not all was lost with the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT, with it winning tests in CrossFire configurations under Windows Vista.

AMD also recently released its value and mainstream ATI Radeon HD 2400 and HD 2600-series as well, which were met with disappointing performance. Not all is lost with the mainstream models however. The ATI Radeon HD 2600-series manages to shine when it comes to multimedia tasks.

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If ATI Won a Round, Would Anyone Notice?

By Le Québécois on 7/11/2007 11:36:52 AM , Rating: 2

Remember that blog right (you posted a link in your news)?

Well, www.ncix.com is beginning to sell OEM Diamond HD 2900XT 1GB DDR4 9". Any chance you guys(or anandtech) could do some benchmarks on THAT one?

It's not the 12" behemoth you tested and it seems to fit the description seen in the blog, so maybe this card IS really that good?

If it can compete with the 8800GTX with just a 90$(CAD) premium on the HD 2900XT 512MB, it could be a very good product for ATI.

RE: If ATI Won a Round, Would Anyone Notice?

By dubldwn on 7/11/2007 12:17:25 PM , Rating: 2

That's these, right?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...
Isn't this the "good" one?

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RE: If ATI Won a Round, Would Anyone Notice?

By maroon1 on 7/12/2007 6:13:06 AM , Rating: 2

8800GTX is faster than HD2900XT 1GB
http://hardware.gotfrag.com/portal/story/38332/?sp...

And 8800GTX is cheaper
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

And this one ^ is factory overclocked and you would get a free copy of Company Of Heroes with it

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RE: If ATI Won a Round, Would Anyone Notice?

By mmarq on 8/3/2007 4:26:46 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
8800GTX is faster than HD2900XT 1GB
http://hardware.gotfrag.com/portal/story/38332/?sp...

Yes generally it could be said that, but only by 5% as 3Dmark06 indicates( 2900XT 1024Mb = 12643 Geforce 8800 ultra = 13424)

Most of the tests with real games are with DX9.0 titles. There aren't any test including the 8800 series with Vista and DX10 titles... very strange!

What if a 2900XT 1024Mb could clearly outpass a Geforce 8800 ultra at those, as seems indicated by 'Call of Juarez' with only a normal 2900XT on this test:

http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q2/radeon-hd-290...

Then a 2900XT could be a good investment with good future proof... no ?

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RE: If ATI Won a Round, Would Anyone Notice?

By Chillin1248

(blog) on 7/11/2007 2:55:44 PM , Rating: 3

Here is a excellent review from the trusted website "Firingsquad.com":

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/diamond_radeon_290...

quote:
Looking over the benchmarks, there are only a handful of cases where the additional memory found in the Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB allows it to truly outperform the 512MB Radeon HD 2900 XT card. Those cases are limited to Oblivion with HDR+AA, Far Cry with HDR+AA (4xAA in both cases) and surprisingly enough, Half-Life 2 Lost Coast.

-------
Chiilin

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RE: If ATI Won a Round, Would Anyone Notice?

By Le Québécois on 7/11/2007 4:13:16 PM , Rating: 2

Thank you.

That's what happen when I don't visit Firingsquad every days...

I miss the one article I really need to see ;)

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HD 2900 PRO W/ 256 MEMORY INTERFACE

By Lightning III on 7/11/2007 10:39:31 AM , Rating: 2

DUHH THE REPLACEMENT FOR THE WIDLEY POPULAR X1950PRO

RE: HD 2900 PRO W/ 256 MEMORY INTERFACE

By Lightning III on 7/11/2007 10:47:46 AM , Rating: 2

The current leader for best bang for your buck (at least in the 150 price range) best performing 150 dollar solution

and finally 80nm or 65nm any clue

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RE: HD 2900 PRO W/ 256 MEMORY INTERFACE

By bryanW1995 on 7/13/2007 10:50:31 AM , Rating: 2

X1950XT is at newegg for 149.99 after mir.

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RE: HD 2900 PRO W/ 256 MEMORY INTERFACE

By ChronoReverse on 7/11/2007 11:20:42 AM , Rating: 2

If they manage to make a card priced the same as the 8600GTS but performing far better, it won't matter how badly ATI screwed up on the high-end. They'll have earned my dollars.

Time will tell, but I'm not holding my breath

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RE: HD 2900 PRO W/ 256 MEMORY INTERFACE

By PaxtonFettel on 7/11/2007 8:20:59 PM , Rating: 2

Agreed cards like the 1950pro and 7900gs (which I own) from the last generation provided best bang for buck, but thus far in this generation, we haven't seen anything that represents as good a deal as those cards. If ATI can get this right, I can see this card going in lots of machines.

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Modular desing? 55nm?

By hardwaremister on 7/11/2007 10:48:26 AM , Rating: 3

I've read around they were saying at amd they wanted to make modular the gpus starting in rv670. Didn't they want to try the 55nm sauce too?

It's not a good idea to try to change two things at a time, but if they just focus on modularity, better yields could be achieved on a probably modular r600 shrink 65nm derived chip. They say modularity -read multi-dice GPUs- is the way to go for future HP GPGPU, so maybe this could be a nice testground on a mid-range (less complex) GPU... or a total money-draining failure!

If both goals are to be achieved I foresee another delayed product, and i'd rather preffer to see a stronger top-to-bottom line product portfolio for amd's graphics division (to be called ati by the friends).

Anyway, if they manage to bring to market on time a chip which is attractive enough and bridges the amazing gap between this ridiculuosly expensive high-end and ridiculuosly underperforming low-end of the actual market, they'd really have a winner. And most importantly, US, consumers would finally enjoy a healthy midrange!

... after all, midrange savvy consumers as I, would preffer to buy something priced in the 150-200euroDollar range and still pretty satisfyied with that brand-new and future-proof graphics-card. And that accounts for a LOT of people willing to spend money.

RE: Modular desing? 55nm?

By Furen on 7/11/2007 12:42:35 PM , Rating: 2

The "modular design" part is supposed to be the R700, not the RV670, this one is just a part based on the R600. I dont know if there are any actual differences between this and the R600 but since it has been heralded as the X1950 pro replacement, I'd guess it will have something like 40-48 SIMD units (so 200-240 "scalar units") on a 256-bit memory bus.

As for the 55nm thing... Older roadmaps indicated that this would be a 65nm part but the newer rumors/news say that it will be a 55nm part. I'd guess that it could be launched next quarter if it IS a 65nm part, or probably Q1 2008 as a 55nm part.

With regards to pricing, I'd expect it to be between $200-$250 depending on final performance.

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RE: Modular desing? 55nm?

By hardwaremister on 7/11/2007 1:16:13 PM , Rating: 2

Great! It would just be OK if they just simply managed to get a simple, working, fairly-priced SKU right for this year.

Mmmmm 55nm seems SO unlikely, given TSMC is just sampling those wafers, and if they are working, i guess it's on simple designs. A way more complex part like a GPU needs a more mature manufacturing or just to face the process adjustments and subsequent delays... I hope they don't do the same mistake again and again, given they don't really control the manufacturing part but just the design. Real factory tweaks are beyond ati's reach right now.

However you've led me to approach to the situation from another perspective...
Mmmm... testing the modular approach in a middle-range product wouldn't be such a bad tactic, given that a high percentage of buyers are really not-clever-enough to avoid following the halo created by the flagship parts.

So, if they fail and the modular aproach rv670 doesn't perform completely well in the first revision, it wouldn't really matter that much because its not designed from a starting point to beat the 2900xt, and would still be sandwiched between the 2600 and the 2900.

That's why if it doesn't perform well enough to shine in its pricerange... it wouldn't matter anyway, because people buy on the 'halo effect' of a brand's flagship. So, even if it would perform nicely, unfortunately it would still remain as a niche product.

I'm sorry to be repeating myself this much about that 'halo effect', but it's the reality... just go to newegg and you'll see 8600s and 8500s are really selling like hotcakes while underperforming at the same price point as last-gen parts!

So... it wouldn't be that bad idea to try the modular approach now, with a fully working product, and then apply it to the more complex, future flagship parts; which would really generate more short/mid-term revenue for the whole 2xxx family.

Just some thoughts...

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AGP?

By Rocket321 on 7/11/2007 11:38:03 AM , Rating: 3

Here's the mandatory post hoping this comes to AGP :)

I'll be looking forward to Anand's review of how well this card plays Gears of War. I'm really hoping AMD/ATI gets this right as it should not only fill a large gap in the market but also prompt compitition ("cough" nvidia) to do something in response.

"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007