Friday, October 8th 2010
AMD Rebranding HD 5770 and HD 5750 to HD 6700 Series
Earlier today, we were treated to the first picture of the Radeon HD 6870, a new and upcoming performance graphics card from AMD. It was also learned that the HD 6870 is based on a new GPU codenamed "Barts", which is intended to be a successor to the previous-generation "Juniper" GPU, which was at the center of the Radeon HD 5700 desktop and Mobility HD 5800 series. That left some uncertainty as to what GPU was going to drive the sub-$199 HD 6700 series. AMD may have found an answer, rebranding.
AMD seems to have been on the crossroads of which naming scheme to adopt. The first scheme based on conventional logic tells users that Barts-based SKUs should sit in the HD 6700 series, and Cayman-based single-GPU SKUs in the HD 6800; while the second scheme promotes Barts to the HD 6800 series, and Cayman to the HD 6900 series, pushing the low-volume, high-end Antilles (dual-Cayman) graphics card to the HD 6990 SKU. Evidently, AMD chose the newer, second scheme. The only rationale that makes sense is that the x800 series seems to be very popular, and if Barts, with its radically redesigned SIMD components can perform on par or better than the HD 5800 series SKUs, that's enough to justify its upwards push.
Since the new performance SKU will be labeled HD 6800 series, that leaves some vacuum with the HD 6700 series. The solution to this came in the form of a perceptually bad practice of rebranding Juniper-based SKUs to HD 6700 series. There is a possibility of AMD stepping up clock speeds, or adding software features to the HD 6700 series, but that's as far as we can see the Juniper going. "Turks" and "Caicos" are new GPUs, that trail behind in the HD 6600, HD 6500, and HD 6400 Series, respectively.
Source:
ATI-Forum.de
AMD seems to have been on the crossroads of which naming scheme to adopt. The first scheme based on conventional logic tells users that Barts-based SKUs should sit in the HD 6700 series, and Cayman-based single-GPU SKUs in the HD 6800; while the second scheme promotes Barts to the HD 6800 series, and Cayman to the HD 6900 series, pushing the low-volume, high-end Antilles (dual-Cayman) graphics card to the HD 6990 SKU. Evidently, AMD chose the newer, second scheme. The only rationale that makes sense is that the x800 series seems to be very popular, and if Barts, with its radically redesigned SIMD components can perform on par or better than the HD 5800 series SKUs, that's enough to justify its upwards push.
140 Comments on AMD Rebranding HD 5770 and HD 5750 to HD 6700 Series
On a more related note; if its good for one, its good for all.
Damn marketing departments, i agree with bill hicks view on them :laugh:
They probably should have given it a new codename to confuse all of you angry folk though.
(still buys a 67xx card anyway)
When basically the entire "new" generation was really the same tech with extra shaders and memory controllers bolted on, with a die shrink or two thrown in, rebranding the old cores to the newer generation when they still fit into the scheme of the "new" generation makes perfect sense.
Most seem to not realize that what they are calling "old tech" is really the same tech, and what they are considering "new generations" are only new generations because ATi decided so. It was obvious from the beginning that nVidia actually had no intentions of moving away from the 8800 generation and naming when they released the G92 cards, but ATi released RV670 under a new generation tricking people into thinking it was a new generation when it was still RV600 tech, they just wanted to get away from the HD2900 stigma.
A few generations ago, a die shrink a new memory controller or two and some extra shaders would not have been considered a new generation...
where the 8770's at?
It's just a refresh and they essentially both are in the same class. Both are full featured DX11 cards.
If anyone remembers Radeon 9000 series where 9000, 9100 and 9200SE models were in fact rebranded 8500 series (DX8) where 9500 and upwards were in fact newer series (DX9).
Same was with NVIDIA in the old days. GeForce 4 MX and GeForce 4 Ti.
Besides, this is just a refresh, so i really don't know why all of you were expecting something dramatic. The only real question is how will they position them now inside the HD6000 series and what will be the price.
If existing HD5750 and HD5770 replace upcoming HD6550 and HD6570 with a price tag well below 100 dollars, isn't that great? It's still a DX11 hardware just like new 6000 series. However if they aim of rebranding HD5750/5770 directly to 6750/6770, well then that is indeed bad, unless they provide even further price drop. Then, even if the cards are directly rebranded, they could still be an interesting option, mostly because of the massive proce drop. As for the 5800 series or the new 6800, they really have to use new cores as these are their flagship products.
It also makes me wonder how they will position higher end 6800 models, considering old 5800 in fact increased in price in the couple of last months (yeah, the same card i bought few months agoo is now even more expensive instead getting cheaper through time). Either HD6800 series will be damn expensive or we can expect massive price drp on the HD5800 series...
Now you are getting silicon back and you find out that the 66x0 dose not preforms as well as you expected but your 67x0 preforms a lot better, now you have a little gap in your lineup, not a big problem but its neither great eider.
But hey you still have the 57x0 series that fits right in to the gap, it still got all the goods the new line got except UVD3.
So what you do, place the 57x0 in the spot of the 67x0 and rename it 68x0 and the planed 68x0 you rename it 69x0.
Leaving the 57x0 name on it just confuses people, and they think when buying a card ''Ehh a 57x0 has to be slower then a 66x0 its a older gen.'' new is always better.
Now in this case i think it is not, but we have to see whats cards are really going to come out.
Is it nice, not really and the imho they should have upgraded the UVD2 to version 3 to make it on par whit the rest of the 6xx0 line, that properly would not have bin a big job, but maybe it could also be impossible due to differences in GPU build up.
But at least its not nearly as bad as renaming DX10.1 cards in a DX11 line, if they done that i would be the first to say, ''this really stinks''
And before anyone thinks i am a ATi fanboy, no i am not a ATi/AMD fan, got just in my rig my 3th GTX480s in SLI, as SLI scales mouths better then CF-X, but have in my HTPC a set of HIS HD 5770 IceQ in CF.
I get what i think gives me the best bang for buck, and don't care if its from team green, red ore blue