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Article with R700 Info

If that interconnect is what its all up to be... I may have one in the near future indeed!
 
Seen this coming a long way. Back when I put together my rig in xmas I chose a x38 board (P5E now flashed to Rampage Formula). And a 850W PSU with 2 pair of 6&8 PCI-E.

I knew ATI wasn't going to stay down for long.
 
Maybe we need a R700 speculation thread now :D

Chiphell seems to have the pcb shots of the R700 now. Black pcb and all...

Chiphell
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No surprise there as we see the smaller PCIE 2.0 PLX chip. Also of note is that the board is definitely much shorter than the R680 it looks like. RAM is on both sides as well.

Then there was that CNET article morfinx posted just now that mentions the new propietary interconnect.

CNET Article

For ATI, the execution of this chip-ganging strategy is the key. And this is where ATI appears to have been successful. "The inter-processor communications. Getting that to work has been the trick. This is what ATI has done. They've come up with this stellar way of doing inter-processor communications so they can in fact get the scaling," according to Peddie.
Click to expand...

AMD-ATI's upcoming R700 (rumored to be called the 4870 X2) two-chip graphics board will be the ultimate test of this strategy.

"It's a new proprietary inter-processor communication technology. If they put these two chips on one board and it does scale properly, then they have pulled off a coup," he said.

"When you gang up graphics chips (using the traditional Scalable Link Interface or CrossFire technologies) they roll off pretty fast. ("Roll off" implies that performance doesn't scale up well.) "So when you put two boards in, you don't get twice the performance but you (only) get one and a half. You put four boards in and you (only) get about 1.7, 1.8. What ATI is saying is that with two chips using (their) proprietary inter-bus, they will get 1.8 (the performance) with two chips. If that's true, you can expect to see four of them giving you something around 2.5."

Getting 2.5 times the performance from four boards would be a masterstroke for ATI.

The previous ATI dual-chip solution was very different, Peddie said. "The HD 3870 X2 was not a proprietary bus but a CrossFire connection. The CrossFire connection and the SLI connection are at the very, very end of the pipeline. Not the most efficient place to do an inter-processor communication. That's one of the reasons ATI has abandoned it."
Click to expand...

So basically the card will not be CF on a board but will be a new interconnect between the GPU's. Also, it seems to suggest that the CrossFire connection was redone in the RV770 or at least for R700 since Peddie suggests that the CF connection is no longer at the very very end of the pipeline. Maybe that's why recent CF results of the 4800's show incredible scaling when it works?

Anyways, with the plethora of information of R700 that was just released it seems like ATI is pushing hard to get these cards out fast.
 
I don't know but at least they're still using the VTEC chip!111 lols

On a more serious note, they havent settled on a name yet right?
 
So no crossifre issues with the x2... I'll definately get this one.
 
The power connectors on my 3870x2's are facing the same direction.

I like it better because the space at the end of ym card is VERY limited. If the power connectors came off the end of the card, facing towards the front of the case, they would be squished by my hard drives.
 
Digital PWM, killed it right there for me. They put it on the x1950pro first I believe (a card that I own), well on the x1950pro, the GPU didn't want to overclock for shit (instead of hitting an unstable frequency and seeing artifacts, it just turns your screen blank, and makes your computer inoperable). The x1950pro was the only video card I have seen with a digital PWM (they weren't on the x1950xt or xtx). The cheaper non reference x1950pros that came out later with analog PWM overclocked better (consistent) then their digital PWM counterparts.

I would like to see some reviews, but I remain wary. Also, you got the PLX pciE bridge chip on the board, what makes this "not crossfire"? I mean are there H/T links between the two chips? Its still crossfire on a card until proven otherwise.
 
Simpson5774 said:
Digital PWM, killed it right there for me. They put it on the x1950pro first I believe (a card that I own), well on the x1950pro, the GPU didn't want to overclock for shit (instead of hitting an unstable frequency and seeing artifacts, it just turns your screen blank, and makes your computer inoperable). The x1950pro was the only video card I have seen with a digital PWM (they weren't on the x1950xt or xtx). The cheaper non reference x1950pros that came out later with analog PWM overclocked better (consistent) then their digital PWM counterparts.

I would like to see some reviews, but I remain wary. Also, you got the PLX pciE bridge chip on the board, what makes this "not crossfire"? I mean are there H/T links between the two chips? Its still crossfire on a card until proven otherwise.
Click to expand...

One bad experience does not mean a technology is worthless. The Radeon 4870 uses digital PWM, and they are having extremely good overclocking results.

Presence or lack of a PCIe switch chip doesn't imply the Crossfire system. Two devices on one PCIe slot still need access to the slot, so a switch-chip is still an obvious choice. Otherwise, you would need one "master" device to access the PCIe and one "slave" that has to go through the master. The trick to the 4870X2 is GDDR5, which allows two devices to access the same RAM. This means the 4870X2 will have one shared 1GB buffer. See "clamshell mode" in this paper: http://www.qimonda-news.com/download/Qimonda_GDDR5_whitepaper.pdf
 
I wonder how the X2's will overclock, whether both cores will be affected or you can just OC one, not that I know why you would only want to OC one.
 
(Neo) Woah...

Looks amazing... maybe I will hold out for it after all :D.

Blueagle87 said:
I wonder how the X2's will overclock, whether both cores will be affected or you can just OC one, not that I know why you would only want to OC one.
Click to expand...

I'd imagine with this new connection they would both be overclockable.
 
I think I'll wait for it too.

I had been thinking about a 4870... but this looks amazing.
 
ZerazaX said:
I don't know but at least they're still using the VTEC chip!111 lols
Click to expand...
Waffles. I should put a VITEC sticker on my car.
-----

So there's no real R700 chip after all? AMD is just calling 2 RV770 chips a R700? I can't help but think that wouldn't be acceptable for the other major GPU maker and they would be savaged daily about it if the tables were turned.
 
Looking very good with a black pcb, this one must have shared memory since 512 megs will be a bottleneck otherwise.
 
I doubt though that this new interconnect tech (if it proves to be true) will resolve microstuttering...
 
Simpson5774 said:
Digital PWM, killed it right there for me. They put it on the x1950pro first I believe (a card that I own), well on the x1950pro, the GPU didn't want to overclock for shit (instead of hitting an unstable frequency and seeing artifacts, it just turns your screen blank, and makes your computer inoperable). The x1950pro was the only video card I have seen with a digital PWM (they weren't on the x1950xt or xtx). The cheaper non reference x1950pros that came out later with analog PWM overclocked better (consistent) then their digital PWM counterparts.

I would like to see some reviews, but I remain wary. Also, you got the PLX pciE bridge chip on the board, what makes this "not crossfire"? I mean are there H/T links between the two chips? Its still crossfire on a card until proven otherwise.
Click to expand...

Look at the CNET article I posted.. or at the least the quotes. Basically, it isn't CF on board but a new interconnect. What that interconnect exactly does, nobody knows, but it is isn't CF on board anymore.
 
The guy they're quoting is full of crap:

ATI has more processing units than Nvidia inside its chip too. "The other thing is that ATI has 800 processors in their chip and Nvidia has 240. That has a processor count advantage," Peddie said.
Click to expand...

Sounds like he read the marketing materials and suddenly became an "expert". I highly doubt these guys have any valid insider information.

If you go to his website you can see all his "analysts" are in the marketing business, not the tech business.
 
Xeth said:
The guy they're quoting is full of crap:



Sounds like he read the marketing materials and suddenly became an "expert". I highly doubt these guys have any valid insider information.

If you go to his website you can see all his "analysts" are in the marketing business, not the tech business.
Click to expand...

I concur. You can't directly compare two m-architectures without having a complete picture.
 
He might be incorrect about the processors, but I bet its dumbed down anyways for public consumption, given the website its on. But you bet he knows some insider stuff cause while he analyzes markets, he probably gets contracted for a lot of his analyst work by those very companies.

Anyways, this isn't the first time we've heard the interconnect (its on their leaked slides for R700) - its just a confirmation that it *isnt* CF on board
 
I don't think the 4870 CF works the same way as the 4870x2 will - chances are this new interconnect is somehow linked to the two GPUs sharing the same memory. Maybe they talk through shared memory instead of through a separate onboard PCIe link the way the 3870x2 did. This is pure speculation, of course.
 
Heh Guys, it is exactly crossfire on a board. Its just a better way of doing it. Its more engineered now instead of a software thing. So my bet is this is what will cure microstutering.
 
I will wait for 4870X2 reviews. If it wont have problems with scaling and microstuttering I will buy it - if not I will buy 4870 and wait for nex gen.
 
Xeth said:
The guy they're quoting is full of crap
Click to expand...

First of all, don't take anything I posted as 'canonical info'. I don't have any regular contacts with the R700 team, so I don't really know the implementation details. And even if I did, I can't reveal anything for obvious reasons.

Anyways, Jon Peddie is not some marketing guy. From his website:

Dr. Jon Peddie is a pioneer of the graphics industry, starting his career in computer graphics in 1962. After the successful launch of several graphics manufacturing companies, Peddie began Jon Peddie Associates in 1984 to provide comprehensive data, information and management expertise to the computer graphics industry. With those same goals in mind, he left JPA to form Jon Peddie Research in 2001 to provide a more customer intimate environment for clients, and to further explore the business of multimedia. Peddie lectures at numerous conferences on topics pertaining to graphics technology and the emerging trends in digital media technology. Recently named one of the most influential industry analysts, he is frequently quoted in trade and business publications, and contributes articles to numerous publications including as well as appearing on CNN and TechTV. Peddie is also the author of several books including Graphics User Interfaces and Graphics Standards, High Resolution Graphics Display Systems, and Multimedia and Graphics Controllers. Jon Peddie is recognized as one of the leading analysts in the country by AdWeek Magazine.
Click to expand...
 
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