HD5870 / HD5850 Reviews and Discussion

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nvidia gt 300 wil be a cGPU
" Even though it shares the same first two letters with GT200 architecture [GeForce Tesla], GT300 is the first truly new architecture since SIMD [Single-Instruction Multiple Data] units first appeared in graphical processors.

GT300 architecture groups processing cores in sets of 32 - up from 24 in GT200 architecture. But the difference between the two is that GT300 parts ways with the SIMD architecture that dominate the GPU architecture of today. GT300 Cores rely on MIMD-similar functions [Multiple-Instruction Multiple Data] - all the units work in MPMD mode, executing simple and complex shader and computing operations on-the-go. We're not exactly sure should we continue to use the word "shader processor" or "shader core" as these units are now almost on equal terms as FPUs inside latest AMD and Intel CPUs.

GT300 itself packs 16 groups with 32 cores - yes, we're talking about 512 cores for the high-end part. This number itself raises the computing power of GT300 by more than 2x when compared to the GT200 core. Before the chip tapes-out, there is no way anybody can predict working clocks, but if the clocks remain the same as on GT200, we would have over double the amount of computing power.
If for instance, nVidia gets a 2 GHz clock for the 512 MIMD cores, we are talking about no less than 3TFLOPS with Single-Precision. Dual precision is highly-dependant on how efficient the MIMD-like units will be, but you can count on 6-15x improvement over GT200. "

 


What you are calling final design is far from that. I'm assuming you mean the basic concept and ARCH which is actually partly decided as far as three years in advance of a launch. From the test waffers to actual production silicon it takes ages and there can easily be many tweaks/alterations to the design before the actual production design is arived at.
Mactronix
 
To me the 5870 is an utter dissapointment....

35% faster than a GTX 285!? So the 5850 is going to be like 10-20% faster? What kind of achievement is that??? AND its STILL only 47fps avg. on GAMER quality on Crysis @ 1920x1200 not Enthusiast.

Suppose we cant say anything until we see DX11 results!!! (I think this will show MAJOR improvements on DX11 titles.)

I dont care what people say...I think Nvidia's card is gonna DESTROY this one in performance.

Eyefinity isn't that great either (for gamers)....who on earth would want like 6monitors to play games!?!?!?!? with all those bezels splitting up the screen.

The only thing i cant think is that DX11 is gonna bring HUGE performance increases...considering AMD showcasing Dirt2 on Eyefinity (6 monitors i believe?) and STILL getting playable framerates.

 
Well the 5870 seems to be what ATI did say before. Near 4870x2 but does not surpas it. It may be the memory bandwide issue, but when someone said that 512bit memory would remedy it... maybe so, but the price would not be fair in that solution.
Allso from previous post from ATI it seems to be so that ATI is hoping a lot of it's own manufacturing proses in 22nm. So it can be the reason for this "mammuth" sized ATI chip this time. It's somewhat funny to see if ATI goes to Intel TicToc strategy and only do a shrink with minor updates next time... It the G300 is not a huge improvement over 5870, then it may be enough. The maximum power usage is so big that two 5870 will beat 5870x2 easily, without so real power usage improvement. But it is nice to see how close they will be in the end...
All in all a good update! Now waiting some real DX11 titles and good competition from Nvidia...
 


http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_hd_5870_performance_preview/page7.asp

This is actually guite interesting page. The power balance between 5870 and 4870x2 depends on what kind of graphic power the aplication needs. 5870 seems to be better with textures, 4870x2 in pixel fill rate and so on. It would be nice to see some more comparison between these two cards in differend synthetic marks. So it woul be possible to analyse what has changed and why 5870 loses in some games test compared to 4870x2 even if everything seems to be doubled under the hood.
 
Look - the 5870 is a great card. No point in buying a 285 or 295 now.

But that wasn't my point.

Preliminary reports were that the card would beat the 295. It doesn't. NOW is not the time to hedge and say "But the 5870 does this, that, and the other thing."

The 5870 is *the* card of choice. But it doesn't beat the 295. So my reason for buying it at this time - ego - has sort of evaporated.
 


It will play the same and will surpass the GTX 295 in performance given a few months, but I see your point.
 

5870 X2 will push to upgrade if you are into FPS 😉 But its true for vast majority of players GTX275/4890 is more than enough, they wouldnt upgrade to GTX295 either :sarcastic: Crysis 2 on its way, lets see how demanding will it be.
 


A single card that nearly matches (and sometimes outperforms) what is essentially two cards and, at the same time, is more affordable plus better power consumption all on brand new drivers is pretty crushing in my mind.

Either way I really hope the GT300s are out by the end of the year. Not that I'd necessarily buy one, though I'm sure their performance will be monstrous, but at the very least the competition will mean more money in all our pockets 😀
 
I think ppl are missing the real deal here ,from all the benchmarks I've seen there is no reason to worry that 295 is beating 5870.With that said who cares its only a few fps when I say FEW its because I see beating occurs when both cards go beyond 60+fps and lets be serious for a sec do you really care as long as its 60fps ? 70fps ? 85 fps? I dont think so ,now on the other side of the fence you see crysis or stalker struggling with both cards and the max difference I see is 1-3fps in gtx295 favor .Now lets remove 295 because its dx10 you will propably see 295 struggling in dx11 titles and 5870 will win 100% sure of that and thats why 5870 will take the crown because its DX11 !!!!! at least this year.
 
I hope similar happens with 5870/Gtx as with last gen where 4870 roughly equals GTX 260.

So that would mean GTX360 would be as good as 5870 (or better! would be good haha) then obviously gtx 380 WAAAAAAAAAAY better....then hopefully they'll bring out a GTX 385 or 390 single GPU thats as good as 5870x2.

Jus thinking if what people are saying about die size on nvidia cards etc...
 


Very True.
 
Just got lucky and was able to snag a xfx 5870 from new egg before they were all gone in 2 minutes to put in my x58 build that is just sitting on my desk with no video card. So now i don't have to wait another week or 2. Should be a huge upgrade over my 3gz p4 agp :) build that i have been using for the past 4 or 5 years. Been saving up forever for this new comp.
 


These aren't big chips, far from it. They are about medium sized in gpu terms actually. Next series ATI will create a monster I feel, probably in excess of 500mm2 and ~5 billion transistors.
 

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