Ati radeon hd 5870 - Ati News!

AMD has announced a new graphic card aimed for the graphic workstations. The graphic card belongs to the FirePro family and it’s called AMD FirePro V8750, based on the same RV770 GPU that is used by ATI on the Radeon HD 4800 series. The new card is the evolution of the AMD FirePro V8700, card based on the same GPU that was presented by AMD by the end of 2009.

AMD hasn’t changed the base architecture, but introduced a few performance optimizations connected to the video memory. Twice more memory on the new solution, going from 1GB for the V8700 to 2GB on the V8750. Also enhanced the GDDR5 memory frequency, from 8500Mhz (3400Mhz effective) to 900 Mhz (3600 Mhz); the maximum bandwidth goes from 108Gbytes/second to 115 Gbytes/second.

More important than the clock frequency enhancement is the frame buffer increase: in desktop solutions, the memory increase is hardly noticeable, while for a graphic workstataion, it does make a difference. The other specifications remain untouched: 750Mhz clock with 800 stream processors built using the 55nm technology. The power requirements include two 6-pin PCI-Express connectors and the card is as big as an HD4870. Two DisplayPort connectors and a traditional DVI Dual Link connector are also present.

The price for this card, in the USA, is around $1799.

The Digitimes website reports informations about one of the famous ATI partners that has decided to leave the graphic cards market in order to dedicate themselves to the development of other solutions.

We’re talking about GeCube, a company that belonged partly to Gigabyte Technology, more precisely 61.5%. Gigabyte has sold their part on the GeCube stocks to another company (unknown for the moment) who has decided to use a different commercial strategy. The graphic cards division was then sold to another company, while internally, a cooperation with a partner not connected to the graphic world has started, aiming at the development of multimedia and mobile solutions.

GeCube was one of the most active ATI partners when it came to the customization of their own graphic cards, developing designs that were not completely similar to ATI’s reference boards. This had allowed the manufacturer to gain the attention of the most passionate users that look for original solutions.

It seems that Mushkin has serious intentions of introducing themselves to the graphic card market with the announcement of a new card based on an ATI GPU. The first Radeon from the famous RAM manufacturer is a HD 4850 with different frequencies than ATI’s reference board.

The cooling system seems to be an Artic Cooling and the card features HDMI, D-Sub and DVI outputs. The frequencies are 700 MHz for the core and 1010Mhz for the memory. The availability is yet to be determined, but we hope to see it on the market soon.

ArcSoft has announced that SimHD, the company’s software that executes video upscaling from the standard resolution to high resolution, while keeping the maximum quality possible on the final image, now supports the ATI Stream technology. SimHD is proposed on the market as a plug-in for TotalMedia Theatre, a video software that is compatible with many video formats, including the high-definition ones.

SimHD now takes advantage, with the new release, of the ATI Radeon GPUs, accelerating the upscaling operations and taking the load from the CPU, allowing users to have the possibility of using that tool even with less powerful processors without losing frames.

AMD prepares its attack to the integrated chip market: the company is apparently ready to present their new AMD RS880 chipset, that will feature an ATI Radeon HD4200.

Together with the launch of Windows 7, AMD should launch their new line of ATI video cards, compatible with the new DirectX 11 API’s, currently known with the codename Evergreen. According to recent rumors, AMD would have the intention to release the new chipset before the release of Evergreen. Some motherboard manufacturers have confirmed that the AMD RS880 chipset will feature a new integrated graphic chip that is compatible with the DirectX 10.1 API’s, called ATI Radeon HD4200.

The graphic core will support the ATI Stream technology and will have 15% better performance than the most powerful integrated solutions currently on the market.

Despite the direct competition, the nVIDIA cards are still preferrable to this ATI model simply when it comes to test results, although the GeForce GTS 250 costs a bit more than the HD4770. Although the price for this new ATI model is under €100, it’s definitely not a card for those who are looking for the best graphic performances in games with maximum resolution and all filters enabled.

If nVIDIA ever decides to lower the prices of their cards on this same range, ATI could have a little bit of trouble, since the overall performances of the GeForce 9800 and the GTS 250 are better than the HD4770.

Luckily, many of the ATI parners have changed the original cooling system to a single-slot one, as it would have been expected for a card on this range. Obviously, the bigger heatsink and fan have allowed an overclocking up to 3400 Mhz for the RAM and 830MHz for the CPU, leaving the fan on default. Despite the raised frequencies, the GPU temperature remained almost the same as if using the standard RAM and GPU clock settings.

The standard frequences are, in fact, 750MHz for the CPU, 750Mhz for the stream processors and 3200Mhz for the 512MB of DDR5 RAM. The card should be a direct competition with the GeForce 9800 or the GTS 250 from nVIDIA.

In the “40nm run”, ATI has beaten nVIDIA and proposed the first video card with a GPU manufactured with 40nm. The GPU is called RV740, and a new model has been manufactured, the ATI Radeon HD4770.

It’s clear to see how the product could be successful thanks to the price: around €95, and users can have a discreet graphic card to play most games in the market, as long as played with medium-low resolutions. If the users want to play their games in the maximum settings, the card cannot give a good playable framerate, however.

One bad point about this card, on an initial, superficial analysis, is that despite being a medium-low entry card, it was still built with a double-slot cooling system and despite being made with 40nm, it still needs an extra power supply, as the power provided from the PCI-Express slot doesn’t seem to be enough.

Bill Dally, nVIDIA’s chief scientist released an interview to Techradar, in which he mentions the possibility of the CUDA technology being supported also by ATI video cards. Quoting directly from the website: “In the future you’ll be able to run C with CUDA extensions on a broader range of platforms,so I don’t think that will be a fundamental limitation.”

Although ATI’s name wasn’t directly mention, the choice of removing obstacles that limit the CUDA development and distribution could be a true possibility, and it would give room also to ATI video cards. Bill Dally has also mentioned Brook, the programming language that AMD Stream uses, indicating it as one of the biggest reasons for the limitations the ATI solution has.

Dally obviously takes the time to praise his own company: according to him, the graphic cards produced by nVIDIA are definitely better. Do you agree with that?