ATI's 2950 Series Thread...

[OC-Master]

I bought Command and Conquer 3 last night and I'm getting SimCity Societies and Crysis when they come out, the problem is I know i need to upgrade. So I'm very interested and have been keeping an eye on ATI's next generation RV670 and R680 series GPUs. In the past three weeks, several articles emerged featuring specifications on RV670 with speculation still standing on the R680. This is what I've come up with;

** All cards listed below support PCI Express 2.0, DX 10.1, Double Precision FP, Quad Crossfire and UVD **.

RV670; 55nm (November) UNOFFICIAL NOW @ 10/18/2007
ATI RadeonHD 2950 Pro Revival Edition
750MHz Core : 1.80GHz 256-bit DDR3-Ram : 320 Streams :


RV670XT; 55nm (November) UNOFFICIAL NOW @ 10/18/2007
ATI RadeonHD 2950 Pro Gladiator Edition
825MHz Core : 2.40GHz 256-bit DDR3/DDR4-Ram : 320 Streams

R670; 65nm (November-February '08) UNOFFICIAL NOW @ 10/18/2007
ATI RadeonHD 2950 XT
900MHz Core : 2.00GHz 512-bit DDR4-Ram : 320 Streams

R670XT/U; 65nm (February '08) UNOFFICIAL NOW @ 10/18/2007
ATI RadeonHD 2950 XTX
1.00GHz Core : 2.60GHz 512-bit DDR4-Ram : 320 Streams

R680; 55nm (Dual RV670 Cores) (February '08) UNOFFICIAL NOW @ 10/18/2007
ATI RadeonHD 2950 X2X
750MHz Core : 2.60GHz 512-bit DDR4-Ram : 640 Streams

RadeonHD 2950 Pro Photos,
http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?id=16211&catid=2&highlight=RV670

Look carefully, you'll see that these cards return ATI to the single slot design! I guess it doesnt take much to cool 55nm GPUs.


Half these specs are still speculation but its as close as I've found soo far! My question is whether there will be 1GB RV670s or not. If there is, I'm getting two of those cards for sure. If anyone else knows anything else, please post..

UPDATE : 10/18/07

Appearently ATI has renamned the entire series so what specs are under what name are all but confusing untill the official launch date , see here,
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?p=5299057#post5299057


OC-Master


OC-Master

 

[PhysX]

mmmmmmm baby

 

[deathman20]

Wow... a 1Ghz Core and 2.6Ghz DDR4... thats a new one I haven't heard on, as well didn't relaize the 2950XT had a 900Mhz core as well... thats some nice improvements on stock clocks and surely they will OC just as nicely.

 

[SeasonalEclipse]

RV670; (November)
ATI RadeonHD 2950 Pro Revival Edition
750MHz Core : 1.80GHz 256-bit DDR3-Ram : 320 Streams


OC-Master

Hopefully it will be a "revival" for ATI.

 

[satandole666]

Let me know when it is time to do the seance.

EDIT: Can we go to the 3000 series already? Aside from the HTPC uses the 2000 series has been fairly lackluster. Poor AA/AF, image quality (comparatively, of course) and massive power draw. Let's pretend this never happened and return to the X800 days.

 

[deathman20]

Let me know when it is time to do the seance.

EDIT: Can we go to the 3000 series already? Aside from the HTPC uses the 2000 series has been fairly lackluster. Poor AA/AF, image quality (comparatively, of course) and massive power draw. Let's pretend this never happened and return to the X800 days.

Only the high end 2900's have had major issues with power at least, all the rest run very low power. Even then the 2900's while they said they had that high power draw really don't use much more power than a 8800GTX.

As well if not mistaken the Poor AA/AF/Image Quality have only been for the 2900XT's as well.

 

[PhysX]

driver problem ?

 

[satandole666]

Only the high end 2900's have had major issues with power at least, all the rest run very low power. Even then the 2900's while they said they had that high power draw really don't use much more power than a 8800GTX.

As well if not mistaken the Poor AA/AF/Image Quality have only been for the 2900XT's as well.

Right...I made it to general. The 2400 and 2600 cards seem to be superb cards. I would never use one for gaming (don't they get outpaced by last generations cards for less?) but I would use them for HTPCs, as mentioned.

I realize now I made the entire series sound bad but I was actually thinking about the 2900 series since we are discussing the 2950 refresh or whatever it is.

I'm still planning on building an HTPC around xmas based around one of those passive 2600s. MMmmmm

 

[wildcard*]

I believe the general consensus was that it had quite a bit to do with the poor drivers, I'm not sure how exact this is but I was put under the impression that the poor AA performance was due to the ATI's drivers relying heavily on the shader based colour resolve and that seems to be what a lot of technicians say. ATI is supposedly revamping their drivers in preparation for the RV670 launch but there's no telling if they'll be hard-hitters just yet it seems. I'm very interested in seeing how these 2950 cards perform, I might as well put the P5K Crossfire capability to use with something and I doubt investing in a pair of 2900 XT's right now would be a wise bet

Specs look pretty impressive for the Gladiator, the R680 is going to be a beast as well...

 

[dem0lish3r]

mmm, well if its true that there are still drivers coming out that will boost AA performance, does this mean that there is still hope for the 2900? cos if there is, then the 2900PRO just looks better and better.

 

[Velocity]

R680 (Dual RV670 Cores) (February '08)
ATI RadeonHD 2950 X2X
750MHz Core : 2.60GHz 512-bit DDR4-Ram : 640 Streams

CRAZY!!!!!

 

[deathman20]

mmm, well if its true that there are still drivers coming out that will boost AA performance, does this mean that there is still hope for the 2900? cos if there is, then the 2900PRO just looks better and better.

If its the die shrink theres better chance the AA will perform better and they fixed the issue within the die itself. Truely on the 2900XT core the AA is broken, its taking way to long to processes the info and well with that lowers the performance when its on. Since they did a die shrink, its possible they fixed that issue in which case, the 2900Pro and future cards might not have that problem at all.

 

[Neural Net]

If its the die shrink theres better chance the AA will perform better and they fixed the issue within the die itself. Truely on the 2900XT core the AA is broken, its taking way to long to processes the info and well with that lowers the performance when its on. Since they did a die shrink, its possible they fixed that issue in which case, the 2900Pro and future cards might not have that problem at all.

I seem to remember ATi essentially stated how this was going to be: They had yet to release the 2900 series earlier in the year, the spec made people believe they'd easily outperform the 8800s, but ATi admitted they were having problems which would be fixed in the later generation but not the one they were about to release (the 2900XT). So I guess the 2950 is fixed then... I seemed to remember ATi stating the fix would coincide with a die shrink.

I'm tired I may be inaccurate.

 

[deathman20]

I seem to remember ATi essentially stated how this was going to be: They had yet to release the 2900 series earlier in the year, the spec made people believe they'd easily outperform the 8800s, but ATi admitted they were having problems which would be fixed in the later generation but not the one they were about to release (the 2900XT). So I guess the 2950 is fixed then... I seemed to remember ATi stating the fix would coincide with a die shrink.

I'm tired I may be inaccurate.

Well hopefully that would be sweet. If so might wait and see how the shrink goes and how well the newer cards clock.

 

[Phrenetical]

maybe i should have waited, my 2900xt sapphire is on the way.

Oh well not like these would be available for a reasonable price in Aus till January anyway.

Bring on UT3!

 

[OC-Master]

Let me know when it is time to do the seance.

EDIT: Can we go to the 3000 series already? Aside from the HTPC uses the 2000 series has been fairly lackluster. Poor AA/AF, image quality (comparatively, of course) and massive power draw. Let's pretend this never happened and return to the X800 days.

satandole666,

Well the 2950 series is supposed to not only allow AMD to have a competitive product but to also become the leader in GPUs for several months or more. The RV670 series is supposed to be the most effecient GPU ever built energy wise. Its aparrently supposed to draw 125+ watts less than the 2900XT at the same clock speeds due to the large die shrink (80nm>>55nm). So we could see 2950 Pro cards consuming as little as 140Watts and outperforming the 8800GTX cards in many tasks. With DX10.1, there will be performance gains in the streaming pipelines. Drivers will also give large performance boosts to these cards as well as the original 2X00 series.

EDIT: Technically, the 2950 Pro will outperform the R600U (2900XT 1GB model(825MHz) due to the DX10.1 Revision which helps boost performance in many DX10 software titles.

I just wanna say that this card sure looks promising so far. Of course nothing is official untill AMD drops the bomb on the launch date, but its sure nice to stay up to date on whats going on over at AMD/ATI.


OC-Master

 

[satandole666]

satandole666,

Well the 2950 series is supposed to not only allow AMD to have a competitive product but to also become the leader in GPUs for several months or more. The RV670 series is supposed to be the most effecient GPU ever built energy wise. Its aparrently supposed to draw 125+ watts less than the 2900XT at the same clock speeds due to the large die shrink (80nm>>55nm). So we could see 2950 Pro cards consuming as little as 140Watts and outperforming the 8800GTX cards in many tasks. With DX10.1, there will be performance gains in the streaming pipelines. Drivers will also give large performance boosts to these cards as well as the original 2X00 series.

EDIT: Technically, the 2950 Pro will outperform the R600U (2900XT 1GB model(825MHz) due to the DX10.1 Revision which helps boost performance in many DX10 software titles.

I just wanna say that this card sure looks promising so far. Of course nothing is official untill AMD drops the bomb on the launch date, but its sure nice to stay up to date on whats going on over at AMD/ATI.


OC-Master

Yeah...I miss-bashed on this one. I was referring specifically to the 2900 series cards. I have high hopes for the 2950, hence the call for a seance.

 

[Kuroimaho]

200 USD for it ? Man that seems to be a bargain, if it isn't significantly slower than XT, I might swap just to have a cooler silent card.

 

[OC-Master]

200 USD for it ? Man that seems to be a bargain, if it isn't significantly slower than XT, I might swap just to have a cooler silent card.

The rumor is $199US for the Revival, $249-$299 for the Gladiator, $399 for the XT, $499 for the XTX and $599 for the X2X.


OC-Master

 

[Velocity]

Can't wait to see some benches so I can find out what the sweet spot is. The X2X looks like a good investment for a 2-4 years.