Today (10th September or 11th September for us Aussies) sparked the first offical presentation of ATi's next Generation graphics cards code name "Evergreen" that use the new R800 GPU chips.
Within this Evergreen codename is the Cypress codename, more commonly refered to as the HD5870, which uses a GPU chip codenamed RV870 and sports 1600 stream processors clocked at 800MHz. 1600 stream processors is double that of HD4870's 800 stream processes theortically making the HD5870 card double the power of the HD4870. However in reality this number would probably be in the order of 60% performance gain with small performance gains after each driver update. Which is still a VERY impressive jump (Core 2 Quad to Core i7 was only about 10-20% max).
3 cards were introduced today on the USS Hornet (an aircraft carrier that fought durring the second world war, but now on display). The 3 card were the HD5850, HD5870 1GB and HD5870 2GB.
HD5850 1GB of GDDR5 memory will cost around $US299
HD5870 1GB of GDDR5 memory will cost around $US399
HD5870 2GB of GDDR5 memory will cost around $US449As I said before the HD5870 will come with 1600 stream processors (twice HD4870) clocked at 800MHz. The chip will have as many as 2.1 billion transistors, where the HD4870 "only" had 956 million transistors. The GDDR5 memory will be clocked at an insane 1.3GHz (which is effectivly 5.2GHz for the GDDR5 memory in Quad mode). At full load it will comsume around 180W, but at idle it will drop down to as low as 27W making it the most efficent card at idle to date.
The release of ATi's flagship the HD5870X2 will be delayed by a month. The HD5870X2 is basically 2 HD5870's on a single board. Currently not just info about this card yet.
The HD5850 and 5870 (1GB & 2GB) will be lauched on 22-23rd of September making the HD5870X2 being launched around October 23rd (very close to my birthday
).
On to another interesting feature that ATi is going to release. "ATi's Eyefinity". This enables to use of up to 6 screens. ATi presented this with the game H.A.W.K on six screen with a crazy resolution of 5760x2400. Eyefinity enables either you to have 1 large array of "up to" 6 sixs or use a the computer to deliver various experiences for a group of people. "E.G. one can watch a movie on two displays, others can do whatever they like on other four."
Here are some amature pictures of the reference card of the HD5870 (Meaning stock cooler on it).
http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15454/1/It appears to have a similar cooler to the HD4870X2 which it uses a Centrifugal fan (so an air pump instead of a fan
) . It does look massive though, but should be smaller then the HD4870X2. The exhaust hole is VERY small, but appears to have 2 intake holes for the air pump cooler. This is just the reference cooler on this card and companies like ASUS, Gigabyte, Sparkle will all put their own cooling variations on it. I am personally a bit worried about the cooling performance of this reference cooler, however ATi card have always been design to handle much higher tempreatures then Nvidia cards (note X1950XTX where it happily sits around 80 degrees C (176 degree's F)). However these high temps will affect the surrounding components in a case such as the CPU.
Should hopefully get some benchmarks from now the end of this month to see where these cards truely sit on the performance scale.
References:
http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15434/1/http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15436/1/http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15435/1/http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15456/1/http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15457/1/I might continue exploring other sites for some info or better yet a benchmark based review. From my guestimate HD5870 will walk all over the GTX 285, however just short of the "dual" GTX295. However when the HD5870X2 comes it will become the new performance crown. Nvidia have plans to release their GT300 based graphics cards as well, however due to poor manufacturing of the silcon die's these cards wont get released proably til Early 2010.
P.S. I am currious to see what is better HD5870 or HD4870X2.
Cheers
- Taipan
