AMD 4800 Series Discussion

[Neil]

Looks like AMD/ATI is heating things up with their upcoming 4800 series GPUs! How do the specs strike you? What are your thoughts on this?

Here are the anticipated launch expectations according to Tom's Hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ati-ra ... ,5375.html

Regards,
Neil

[metalqueen]

The specs look really good, but why is this important? S-3D has always been NVIDIA territory.

[Tril]

The specs look really good, but why is this important? S-3D has always been NVIDIA territory.

What matters is performance (high fps at high resolution).

[android78]

The specs look really good, but why is this important? S-3D has always been NVIDIA territory.

The reason it is important is competition. The more competition, the lower the cost of Nvidia. Also, I assume that these cards will be supporting DX9/DX10 natively so iZ3D drivers should work, maybe with a little tweeking, giving another alternative for S3D. That should make people who are annoyed with nVidia for not supporting the S3D for all devices happy as the best form of protest is to stop purchasing their cards.

[yuriythebest]

The specs look really good, but why is this important? S-3D has always been NVIDIA territory.

The reason it is important is competition. The more competition, the lower the cost of Nvidia. Also, I assume that these cards will be supporting DX9/DX10 natively so iZ3D drivers should work, maybe with a little tweeking, giving another alternative for S3D. That should make people who are annoyed with nVidia for not supporting the S3D for all devices happy as the best form of protest is to stop purchasing their cards.

right, but how does it make sense to punish a company that 'barely' supports s3d by buying cards that one that doesn't do so at all?

[LukePC1]

The specs look really good, but why is this important? S-3D has always been NVIDIA territory.

What matters is performance (high fps at high resolution).

Well I'd agree on the high FPS, but I don't need a high resolution. I'm completly fine, if it runs on a HMD like resolution with good FPS i.e. 25+ FPS in complex S-3D!!!

Now there are some of games (crysis), which have the same FPS at every resolution (down to ~12 at all settings&resolution in S-3D).

[Neil]

Hi Everyone!

Cuddles (Cuddles! ), you are correct that NVIDIA has had sole involvement with the stereo community with their stereo drivers for a long time. However, we have new players now from iZ3D and DDD who are supporting both AMD and NVIDIA GPU solutions.

I don't think this is about punishing one GPU company over another. I think it's more about having the luxury to benefit from a wider selection of GPU hardware and not having to permanently associate S-3D with only NVIDIA. Think from an industry point of view. Do game developers want to see S-3D supported only by one GPU company? Or is it better to see it supported by all the leading GPU manufacturers either directly or indirectly? I think it's very important that our community has a paradigm shift and begins to take an interest in a bigger slice of the pie.

Look at the suggested pricing of these cards!

Our sources indicated that 4870 GDDR5 cards will cost between $249 and $279, but somehow we feel that AMD might aim go for $199 and $249 at launch.

The 4870 cards are anticipated to perform higher than the 3870X2 which already runs a lot faster than an 8800GTS 512. I think these are very exciting options for our industry.

Regards,
Neil

[LukePC1]

[...]
Look at the suggested pricing of these cards!

Our sources indicated that 4870 GDDR5 cards will cost between $249 and $279, but somehow we feel that AMD might aim go for $199 and $249 at launch.

The 4870 cards are anticipated to perform higher than the 3870X2 which already runs a lot faster than an 8800GTS 512. I think these are very exciting options for our industry.

Regards,
Neil

I have to admit i didn't look into the cards from AMD for a while, because of S3d. I think most others - like me - don't have even informed themselves about ATI cards.

It's just now, that I see their pricing and think it's a real alternative.
I just wished they would have better 3D support and maybe less power consumption...

What do you guys think?

[yuriythebest]

[...]
Look at the suggested pricing of these cards!

Our sources indicated that 4870 GDDR5 cards will cost between $249 and $279, but somehow we feel that AMD might aim go for $199 and $249 at launch.

The 4870 cards are anticipated to perform higher than the 3870X2 which already runs a lot faster than an 8800GTS 512. I think these are very exciting options for our industry.

Regards,
Neil

I have to admit i didn't look into the cards from AMD for a while, because of S3d. I think most others - like me - don't have even informed themselves about ATI cards.

It's just now, that I see their pricing and think it's a real alternative.
I just wished they would have better 3D support and maybe less power consumption...

What do you guys think?

"better s3d support"?????

you mean native ati 3d support? hehehe

though in truth since my 8600gts isn't supported I guess it wouldn't make much difference atm. Just that I never learnt the to decipher ati model names.

[LukePC1]

ati model names? I think it's not too hard:
ATI Geforce
x800gt ~= 6800gt
x1800 ~= 7800
x1900xtx ~= 7900 gtx
HD2900 ~= 8800 (first with DX10)
HD3900 ~= 9800 (just an upgrade from the older generation, but not much better. AMD has DX10.1 at first time)

These are about the same 'generations' of cards. They have a different price tag and different performance, but they could be compared.
Both have sub-groups...

next cards - as far as I know
4800 ~= GT200

Please correct me, if I'm wrong

[Welder]

ati model names? I think it's not too hard:
ATI Geforce
x800gt ~= 6800gt
x1800 ~= 7800
x1900xtx ~= 7900 gtx
HD2900 ~= 8800 (first with DX10)
HD3900 ~= 9800 (just an upgrade from the older generation, but not much better. AMD has DX10.1 at first time)

These are about the same 'generations' of cards. They have a different price tag and different performance, but they could be compared.
Both have sub-groups...

next cards - as far as I know
4800 ~= GT200

Please correct me, if I'm wrong

Is there a HD3900? Or do you mean the HD3870X2?

HD3870X2 is currently their best performing card, and is better than the lower 8800 series from nVidia

[LukePC1]

jep that was the one I was refearing to.
they are split in
3870x2 < 9800gx2 both are new and have dualGPU. However ATI seems to be a little behind the crown, but their pricing seems to bo ok...
3870 ~= 8800gts ?
3850 > 8600GT(S)


Maybe it would be a good Idea to test one of their cards with Iz3d. They were best in performance until GF8 series appeared...

[pixel67]

Neil makes a great point. If i can buy IZ3D Drivers AND a new ATI Video card for same amount of money as just an Nvidia video card, guess which one I will choose? But, and it is a big BUT, if Nivida's high end part is faster and has a larger frame buffer then the decision will be very tough. I am waiting for the day when I can run Crysis at 1080P with 4x AA and decent frame rate. First one there gets my money!

[Neil]

It's interesting that you say that. BlackQ points out regularly that the iZ3D drivers have fewer challenges with the AMD cards. I couldn't play the Crysis demo on my 8800GTS 512, and when I asked iZ3D about it, they pointed out that it works best on AMD cards.

Are there any AMD owners on the forums who can share their experiences?

Regards,
Neil

[LukePC1]

Neil makes a great point. If i can buy IZ3D Drivers AND a new ATI Video card for same amount of money as just an Nvidia video card, guess which one I will choose? But, and it is a big BUT, if Nivida's high end part is faster and has a larger frame buffer then the decision will be very tough. I am waiting for the day when I can run Crysis at 1080P with 4x AA and decent frame rate. First one there gets my money!

What you can't do that already?
Or did you forget to mention some things like
- highest Settings
- S3D
- S3D on DDD ???

I hope it's not a problem to play it with that resolution at medium settings in 2D with your rig...

If it IS a problem you might be better with an x1900xtx instead of 2 8800gtx


@ DDD drivers. Maybe they work better with AMD than with Geforce, too? Maybe it's the same as with the IZ3D driver

[Neil]

I'm really surprised you all didn't pick up on an important detail in the Tom's Hardware report about the 4800 series. AMD is implementing physics support in the GPU. It's everyone's guess who is supplying the physics engine given that AGEIA was acquired by NVIDIA, but if the physics work as hoped in stereoscopic 3D with things exploding all over the place - I think that sounds really cool!

Has anyone had experience with physics add-on cards in stereoscopic 3D? Can you share your experiences?

Is physics coding standardized somehow? That's one thing I don't get. If AGEIA was acquired, do you think game engines need to do something different or special to work with the AMD counterpart, or is it a standard implementation in DirectX?

Regards,
Neil

[gkv311]

I'm not a gamer, but I change my ASUS 7900GT 256MB (become totally buggy) to new Sapphire 3870 512MB GDDR4 .
The drivers more better than many years ago. Sure - no any stereo driver from AMD, but I don't see new one from NVIDIA many years...

About physics in GPUs - actually no information what kind of API will be used in RadeOn 4800 series. As you know - NVIDIA make Agea standarts free (and they work to make fully compatible GF8800 series with them in new drivers - NO any changes in games needed), so it will be greate to see support from AMD too. There are no actually hardware differents - just driver-interface must be implemented (latest GPUs is already can do universal computings as I know).

[yuriythebest]

Is physics coding standardized somehow? That's one thing I don't get. If AGEIA was acquired, do you think game engines need to do something different or special to work with the AMD counterpart, or is it a standard implementation in DirectX?

no- each game engine that has physics can either have it's own physics system or choose from:
havok
ageia
newton
etc
.
.
.


If the game you are running is not using agiea for phisics then all that hardware will be idle. However it is to be noted that the agiea physics are very widely used.


useful info: what is a game engine really? some think of it as a whole, but actually most consist of a 'core' that binds together the rendering, the sound, the phisics, the ai, the UI, and more depending on what game it is. And all of those libraries can either be written by the dev team, or since there are many open source and proprietary versions of each they can just use those. Sorta like a big game 3d salad.

[Neil]

Something else I noticed. The memory on the ATI cards are faster than the NVIDIA GPUs. It would be interesting to see if the 3870 performs proportionately better in stereo than it does in 2D because of the faster RAM. Anyone care to take an educated guess? Does DDR4 perform much better than DDR3? I'm asking because S-3D is more memory intensive than 2D gaming.

Regards,
Neil

[nubie]

Something else I noticed. The memory on the ATI cards are faster than the NVIDIA GPUs. It would be interesting to see if the 3870 performs proportionately better in stereo than it does in 2D because of the faster RAM. Anyone care to take an educated guess? Does DDR4 perform much better than DDR3? I'm asking because S-3D is more memory intensive than 2D gaming.

Regards,
Neil

Um, the bandwidth on video cards is determined by the width of the bus and the speed (just like a PC, but most PC's have the same width memory bus, GPU's are free to change any time they like as their RAM is non-upgradeable)

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ati-ra ... ,5223.html

4850 GDDR3 models will come with 256 MB or 512MB of GDDR3 memory, clocked at 1.14 GHz (2.29 GTransfer/s), resulting in a memory bandwidth of 73.2 GB/s. 4850 GDDR5 versions integrate 512 MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1.73 GHz (3.46 GT/s), supporting a bandwidth of 110.5 GB/s. 4870 GDDR5 models will get 1 GB of memory clocked at 1.94 GHz (3.87 GT/s), achieving a maximum bandwidth of 123.8 GB/s.

Flagship dual-GPU 4870 X2 cards will include 2048 GB of GDDR5 mem

I am pretty sure that the GT200 (or whatever the new nvidia card is going to be called) will have them covered, the current crop is already there on the memory bandwidth front: http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce9.html http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce8.html

8 series GB/s:

103.7
86.4
64 (this would be a ~$120 ebay 8800GTS 320MB)
64
57.6
38.4 (~$110 8800GS from Newegg.com)

9 series GB/s

128
70.4
57.6
38.4

(Do these last two look familiar? You guessed it, these "9 series" are really just the same kit as the 8800 series, it would have made more sense if the 8800 G92 chips were labeled the 9 series, a damn sight less confusing too.)

Basically this is all good news, if AMD can keep halving prices and keeping the same performance as nVidia prices will drop. nVidia will compete (and hopefully get off their lazy asses.)

The bandwidth is not nearly as important as the actual performance of the card, which we will just have to wait and see. The nice thing is that AMD is quoting single 6-pin connection and recommended PSU at 450watt (the article mentions that likely a good quality 400watt will provide enough power, and AMD was accounting for poor-quality PSU's)

I am all for the iZ3D driver, it is a shame that they couldn't get a mirrored secondary monitor in time for the 1.8 build, I am eagerly awaiting the 1.9 build, maybe by the time there is a solution I can have a 24" planar and enough graphics power to game on it in native resolution , at a reasonable price. say ~$1,000 (which I don't have, hmm.)

[LukePC1]

Is 3D gaming so much more memory 'expencive'?
I know, that crysis stopped to display in S-3D sometimes, because of 'overflowing' memory

and about GDDR 3, 4 or 5...
in one of nubies links is said, that GDDR5 needs about a third less power than GDDR3.

And I think saving power isn't a bad Idea, since electricity costs $ as well and it warms up the earth (greenhouse effect).
And if you always increase power consumption it won't be affordable to many people anymore. You have also think of companies, who have such cards in the 'working' computers. Most of the time they don't need all the power, but saving energiy is the key.

How much is a kWatt*h? Here it is about 0.20€ ~= 0.30$

Now take that number * the hours you play/3... (for about 333watt)

It's easyly 100 bucks each year - only for energy of one computer running (about 3 hours per day). So you see, what impact it might have to reduce that $ for 20 or 30%.

If you use each pc about 2 years - and maybe a little longer per day you could invest about 100$ more into a power saving system.

[Neil]

When you ask if S-3D gaming is more memory expensive, do you mean is it more demanding on memory than 2D gaming? YES!

You make a good point about power savings. Computers used to be a lot more power friendly. My 650Watt PSE is tame by today's standards.

Regards,
Neil

[LukePC1]

When you ask if S-3D gaming is more memory expensive, do you mean is it more demanding on memory than 2D gaming? YES!

You make a good point about power savings. Computers used to be a lot more power friendly. My 650Watt PSE is tame by today's standards.

Regards,
Neil

when you have a 650watt PSE it does not mean, that it actually consumes the 650W, but more that it can output them if realy necessary. Most of the time some of your components are idle (HDD or CPU or GPU or DVD slot).
Depending on board CPU and GPU the consumed power should be around 300W - at least I hope something like that

Just read a German review. They measured the power Consumpion of the whole test-systems.

Stromverbrauch IDLE:

HIS Radeon HD 2900 XT 512 MB 155
PoV GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB 118
ATi Radeon HD 3850 CrossFire 109
ATi Radeon HD 3870 512 MB 94
HIS Radeon HD 3850 256 MB 88


Stromverbrauch LAST:

HIS Radeon HD 2900 XT 512 MB 287
ATi Radeon HD 3850 CrossFire 224
ATi Radeon HD 3870 512 MB 192
PoV GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB 172
HIS Radeon HD 3850 256 MB 169

Stromverbrauch IDLE = power consumption of the system while IDLE

Stromverbrauch LAST: = power consumption of the system on LOAD.

Power consumption is basically on the same level. Performance of the HD 3870 is a little higher than from a 8800 GT, but it's cheaper - at least it was once.
That made the HD 3870 the performance/price winner

A little research on Ebay tells me, both cards have prices according their performance now (HD 3870 is slightly more expencive).