ATI Radeon HD 4850 Preview: AMD Delivers Performance for the Masses
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on June 19, 2008 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
AMD: The Peoples' GPU Maker
This week AMD came out and codified its new GPU strategy, but in reality it's the same strategy that has been in place since the release of the R600 GPU (Radeon HD 2900 XT). On paper (or LCD), it's the best idea ever, take a look:
Obviously this mythical GPU that can let you play at any resolution with any detail settings doesn't exist, but the idea is that AMD will continue to target the $200 - $300 market segment with its GPU designs.
The buck doesn't stop there though, AMD will continue to build more and less expensive GPUs, they will simply be derived off of this one mainstream design. Again this is nothing new, it's exactly what AMD did with R600 and RV670.
NVIDIA's approach is markedly different as this week's GT200 launch clearly illustrates. NVIDIA continues the approach of building a very large, monolithic GPU, eventually scaling the architecture down to lower power and price points. The GT200 is the latest example of the large monolithic die and subsequent mainstream parts will be based on some version of that GPU.
AMD argues that NVIDIA's approach means that there's too long of a time to market for high speed mainstream GPUs and it keeps power/costs high. There is truth in what AMD is saying but not entirely.
NVIDIA could just as easily introduce a brand new architecture with a mainstream part, it simply chooses not to as it's far easier to recoup R&D costs by selling ultra high end, high margin GPUs.
The power/cost argument is a valid one but AMD's approach isn't actually any better from that standpoint:
A pair of RV770s, AMD's new GPU, end up consuming more power than a single GT200 - despite being built on a smaller 55nm process.
A pair of these RV770s only costs $400 compared to $650 for a single GT200, but I suspect that part of that is due to differences in manufacturing process. If NVIDIA hadn't been so risk averse with the GT200 and built it on 55nm (not that I'm advocating it, simply posing a hypothetical), the cost differences would be smaller - if not in favor of NVIDIA since GT200 is built on a single card.
When the smoke clears, AMD's strategy is to simply build a GPU for the masses and attempt to scale it up and down. While NVIDIA is still building its GPUs the same way it has for decades, starting very large and scaling down.
AMD isn't taking a radically different approach to building and designing GPUs than NVIDIA, it's simply building one market segment lower.
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npp - Thursday, June 19, 2008 - link
This is a fantastic card, and if it really sells for around 150€ here in Europe, this is the way to go. Very impressive offering from AMD, I'm simply amazed!The 4870 will often outperfotm the latest nVidia card, I guess... Combined with the supposed refusal of Intel to grant nVidia rights for designing chipsets featuring QPI links, this may mean hard times for the guys in green. They were a little early announcing a war on so many fronts, as it seems. Honestly speaking, I was tired from their domination and insane prices anyway, so this is a very nice turning point.
js01 - Thursday, June 19, 2008 - link
I knew there was a reason why I've stuck with amd for the last few years, because I always get my money's worth. It must be painful to be an early owner of a 9800gtx right now considering the huge price drop.BikeDude - Friday, June 20, 2008 - link
Why do you have to stay with a particular brand? Are you not free to pick and choose the best deal when you need it?Those who bought the 9800GTX a couple of months ago have been able to get a lot of good quality gaming going while some of us have been waiting for the next great thing. Personally I have been waiting for a while now, I still have a 7800GTX! Was the waiting worth it? I doubt so.
That said, I would really welcome some insight into the driver quality of nVidia drivers vs ATI. nVidia has been disappointing for the past two years. Instability, features gone missing, anomalies introduced (like resetting the colour profile in Vista after login), etc...etc... At one point I was unable to play a DVD for more than 30 minutes before my computer froze. Downgraded the driver and all was fine again. Luckily nVidia fixed that in a later release, but come on... That one was bad, and there's nowhere I can file bug reports.
brentpresley - Thursday, June 19, 2008 - link
Would be great if someone can run Folding At Home on this card and publish the performance.The new NV client is smoking right now, and lots of us are pondering buying cards to fold on.
KCjoker - Thursday, June 19, 2008 - link
it gets way too hot for a single slot card dumping the hot air inside the PC. Should be better when some aftermarket cards come out. But why does it draw that much power when the chip is much smaller than Nvidia's?epsilonparadox - Thursday, June 19, 2008 - link
From the hints in the article, I would assume this is a very large chip that nullifies any benefits the smaller process would have provided. Plus AMD chose a single slot solution which probably isn't doing a good job of cooling the chip.fungmak - Thursday, June 19, 2008 - link
Well the power that is drawn is about the same as a 9800 GTX.However, the 4850 is rumoured to have 950 million trannies compared to the 750 million of the GTX. Also, the die size is rumoured to be around 275mm2 compared to 330 mm"2, so slightly higher density, though i would imagine this is offsite by the reduciton in power due to 55nm compared to 65nm. So all in all the power draw is actually not too bad.
andreschmidt - Thursday, June 19, 2008 - link
956 million transistors on 55nm fabrication process ;)ImmortalZ - Thursday, June 19, 2008 - link
The Multi-GPU pages seem to be broken - they go straight to the search page.derek85 - Thursday, June 19, 2008 - link
No the links are fine actually... Anandtech took this article offline for a very short moment for some reason and I hit the same problem during that time.