Friday, February 20th 2009
RV790 Essentially An Overclocked RV770
A lot has been said about AMD's rather mysterious new performance GPU, the RV790. Clues about the new GPU surfaced as early as in November last year, when we first reported about AMD working on a successor to the RV770 before the RV870 comes to be. During the course of time, we were given several scoops about its specifications, with some reports hinting at increased stream processor and TMU counts alongside increased clock-speeds to give out early projections of as much as 20% performance increments, taking its single-GPU flagship product to the domain of the GeForce GTX 285, but as multiple sources confirm now, none of that looks plausible.
The RV790 is essentially a reworked RV770 with higher clock-speeds. AMD seems to have reworked the design of the RV770, perhaps altered or removed rudimentary components that facilitate slightly higher clock speeds. While samples of the RV790 are spec'd to run at 850 MHz, one can expect a slightly increased overclocking headroom. The samples also carried Qimonda IDGV1G-05A1F1C-40X memory chips that are originally specified to run at 1 GHz, yet running at 975 MHz on the samples. The core continues to have 800 stream processors, 40 TMUs and 16 ROPs. It features a 256-bit wide memory interface to support GDDR5, GDDR4 and GDDR3 memory standards. It will be built on the existing 55 nm TSMC manufacturing node. Products based on the RV790 can be expected only by April.
Source:
X-bit Labs
The RV790 is essentially a reworked RV770 with higher clock-speeds. AMD seems to have reworked the design of the RV770, perhaps altered or removed rudimentary components that facilitate slightly higher clock speeds. While samples of the RV790 are spec'd to run at 850 MHz, one can expect a slightly increased overclocking headroom. The samples also carried Qimonda IDGV1G-05A1F1C-40X memory chips that are originally specified to run at 1 GHz, yet running at 975 MHz on the samples. The core continues to have 800 stream processors, 40 TMUs and 16 ROPs. It features a 256-bit wide memory interface to support GDDR5, GDDR4 and GDDR3 memory standards. It will be built on the existing 55 nm TSMC manufacturing node. Products based on the RV790 can be expected only by April.
51 Comments on RV790 Essentially An Overclocked RV770
whats the point of making a whole new core for a stupid oc maybe im missing something i dunno
gddr5 is better but not spectacular just average better
The problem with GDDR5 is that the top end cards that it is currently on don't benefit from it a whole lot. Memory bandwidth isn't what is holding the high end cards back. Drop it on some mid-range cards and then you will see it shine. I would have love to see it on a HD4670.The GTX285 at least had a die shrink, this doesn't even have that, and all the news about RV790 up until now said it would be 40nm.
But this is certainly dissapointing, a mere overclock, and not even an outstanding one. Even if the cards launched at ~950 Mhz (very unlikely), that's around a 25% higher clock. That 25% applied to a GTX260 puts it at 720 Mhz, that is what most (to not say all) 260's can reach with a good cooling. Some people can say whatever they want, but the more I see, the more I believe Nvidia's architecture is way superior. Things like this expose that reality.
Let's hope good websites will review the product and we won't see it at hardocp or some other kiss ass website.
GTX2xx cards have a significantly better lower fps's ingame and when playing at low fps's (40 average) that trully helps for a better experience.
Anyway, the single GPU Radeons touching the 280?? What did you smell? Maybe in a pair of games, but that's all.
And you can overclock them further with no problem too.
There are lot's of games where gtx260 in high resolutions and details doesn't do so well against a 4870 1gb.
Please present some proof ( google tons of reviews until you find one that suits your argument ) that the GTX2xx is having a much better minimum framerate and don't post me one two games , you generalized like it's happening in most of the games if not all of them so please , show us the proof.
I know you like your video card very much ( Nvidia fan , stated as a good thing of course ) , but there has to be some limits to where you defend your video card.
I'm not going to argue with you today and I'm definately not going to spend one more minute showing you anything. People that matter to me know what I'm talking about, or at least have enough brains to understand what a comment like the mine above means and act and decide acordingly.
Have a nice day.
PD: When you take the time to answer (and provide proofs to) the questions you still owe me, maybe, and I mean maybe, I'll try to find some benchmarks that show what everybody who has seen both cards in action knows already. i.e DrPepper.
In the meantime, you could troll me less and show me the opossite benchmarks, the ones that show the HD4870 having better lower fps, WHEN at the same time has the same average ones. If average are faster, that just shows the card is faster at those games, and it doesn't contradict my point. Again. Have a nice day.