ATI new Gen GPU on schedule for 2nd half of 2010.

[20mmrain]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20100121233418_ATI_s_Next_Generation_Graphics_Processors_on_Track_for_the_Second_Half_of_2010_AMD_s_CEO.html

ATI’s New-Generation Graphics Processors on Track for the Second Half of 2010 – AMD’s CEO.
ATI Looking Forward to Refresh Entire Graphics Lineup in the Second Half of 2010
[01/21/2010 11:33 PM]
by Anton Shilov
Chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices said during a conference call with financial analysts that the company’s graphics division ATI was on-track to refresh its lineup of graphics cards in the second half of calendar 2010. The mystery, though, is with what the family of graphics processors will be renewed.

“We are ramping the ATI Radeon HD 5000 series now and look forward to refreshing the entire lineup in the second half of next year*,” said Dirk Meyer, chief executive officer of AMD, during quarterly conference call with financial analysts.

A little earlier this month AMD’s worldwide developer relations manager said that ATI hopes to maintain leadership position in terms of product performance “for the majority of 2010”. Still, it is not completely clear with what does AMD plan to refresh ATI’s lineup going forward.

The company has two ways of getting even faster products to market: it can redesign existing ATI Radeon HD 5000-series graphics chips so that to boost clock-speeds tangibly or it can introduce a brand new family of ninth-generation Radeon chips code-named Northern Islands, which is widely believed to feature a new architecture.

Not a lot is known about Northern Islands. Some sources claim that the new chips will be made using 32nm fabrication process, but the others believe that the new chips will be made on 28nm node. There are also reports that Northern Islands will have richer feature-set compared to Evergreen. According to some other reports, ATI’s next-generation family is code-named Hecatonchires and will feature code-named Cozumel, Ibiza and Kauai chips, which are not northern, but southern islands. As a result, it is possible that ATI may be working on two new architectures.

Earlier this week TSMC said that it would start mass production of chips using 28nm process technology in Q4 2010.

* Considering the fact that the call was dedicated to AMD’s financial results in the Q4 of fiscal 2009, the AMD executive referred to the second half of fiscal 2010 as to the “next year”, which is basically the second half of calendar 2010.

What do you think. A refresh on the 5800 series? Or do you think this will be the new architecture we ATI people have been waiting for? Me personally I am hope for the later of the two.
The 5800 series is a great card. Also the architecture is awesome. But with the exception of raising the clocks, upping the memory bus and doing another die shrink. I think that architecture is almost at it's limits. But what do I know right?
This is kind of old news because it has been speculated for awhile. But it seems that it has just been verified. Or this might just be a ploy already to stop Femi before it starts.

 

[pantherx12]

Doubt it will be new architecture so soon after releasing the 5 series.

I imagine ATI just deliberately held back the the highest binned chips until they saw what NV had to offer.

 

[troyrae360]

Well they did say that they have "somthing up there sleeve" for when Nivida releases the Fermi,
Lets hope ATI get sick of waiting and just release the supprise

 

[20mmrain]

But the 5800 series was just a highly tweaked 4800 series basically wasn't it? At least that its what I read on an article at Andy tech.
Either way I think that ATI does have something up their sleeves. ATI has stated several times "They will have the performance crown for most of the year." Whether the refresh is what they are talking about or not is another question.
I would love to see a possible 6870 with a 384 bit bus a Clock speed of 1200MHz, GDDR5 Memory clock of 1800MHZ and a Die shrink of 32nm or 28nm. (making this up here)
I could care if it's new architecture ...... as long as it kills Femi!

Although I wouldn't mind seeing something new either!

 

[pantherx12]

But the 5800 series was just a highly tweaked 4800 series basically wasn't it? At least that its what I read on an article at Andy tech.
Either way I think that ATI does have something up their sleeves. ATI has stated several times "They will have the performance crown for most of the year." Whether the refresh is what they are talking about or not is another question.
I would love to see a possible 6870 with a 384 bit bus a Clock speed of 1200MHz, GDDR5 Memory clock of 1800MHZ and a Die shrink of 32nm or 28nm. (making this up here)
I could care if it's new architecture ...... as long as it kills Femi!

Although I wouldn't mind seeing something new either!

And smaller fab process size so they fit more tech in the same space

The actual chips are a little bigger then the 4 series equivalents too, so that's more transistors per square mm and its a bigger chip in general.

hence more power.

 

[Sensi Karate]

I haven't even bought a 5 series card yet and theres already speculation of a 6 series with two new architectures! Technology moves to fast. At least this will make NVIDIA diehard fans cry at night.

 

[eidairaman1]

What im really waiting for is 3rd party designs from XFX, and Visiontek, Meaning PCB Re-engineer- higher quality parts, different cooler. It doesnt necessarily need to be overclocked to wow me, as I can push board limits myself.

 

[20mmrain]

What im really waiting for is 3rd party designs from XFX, and Visiontek, Meaning PCB Re-engineer- higher quality parts, different cooler. It doesnt necessarily need to be overclocked to wow me, as I can push board limits myself.

+1 I have a new set up waiting to Xfire one of those bastards when they release them. I have a 5870 right now that I will xfire it with.
I know I won't get the high clocks on my other 5870 but when I am benching just one card at a time that's when it will come in handy!
Who nows if I like it enough I will sell my reference design card and then maybe buy two 5870 Atomic editions.

OOOOHHHH Atomic that sounds nice

 

[troyrae360]

I haven't even bought a 5 series card yet and theres already speculation of a 6 series with two new architectures! Technology moves to fast. At least this will make NVIDIA diehard fans cry at night.

LOL, Not only that I will turn them green with envy.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

But the 5800 series was just a highly tweaked 4800 series basically wasn't it? At least that its what I read on an article at Andy tech.

Nah, the 5870 is no highly tweaked 4870 trust me on that. The 4890's ASIC physical design was changed to facilitate higher clock speeds. There were changes to timing, power distribution and also added de-coupling capacitors to reduce noise and increase signal integrity. This allowed the 4890 to reach 1 GHz clock rates.

Either way I think that ATI does have something up their sleeves. ATI has stated several times "They will have the performance crown for most of the year." Whether the refresh is what they are talking about or not is another question.
I would love to see a possible 6870 with a 384 bit bus a Clock speed of 1200MHz, GDDR5 Memory clock of 1800MHZ and a Die shrink of 32nm or 28nm. (making this up here)
I could care if it's new architecture ...... as long as it kills Femi!

Although I wouldn't mind seeing something new either!

The rumors are running wild as to what AMD has in store for Fermi. It's hard to say for certain what that might be. At first we thought it might be the 1800xt to 1900xtx again but it's not certain if that will happen or not. Or it maybe something like 4870 to 4890. But it's not that hard to overclock the 5870 and the performance is really good.

In the end it's very hard to say what they got planned. But the news does indicate a refresh more so then a complete new product skus.

 

[Sensi Karate]

LOL, Not only that I will turn them green with envy.

LOL, love crappy puns.

 

[surfingerman]

guys guys guys.. this is just CEOs trying to make financial analysts happy to help their stock prices..

they will say almost anything and paint a rosy rosy picture.. CEOs lie / stretch truth to financial analysts ALLLL the time,

but hes not going to say an outright lie to hurt his credibility.. hes probably referring to 2GB models.. and models 5890 with higher clocks and the 6 edition ect...

 

[aCid888*]

Here comes the 5970x2......

 

[beyond_amusia]

With ATI/AMD this fast on their feet any advantage Nvidia gains in March may be very short lived. Now if only AMD could pull this stunt with their CPUs... *sigh*

 

[bobzilla2009]

Indeed, but aren't AMD kind of playing the long game at the moment, by making a brand new cpu architecture for late 2010/2011? they're also releasing some 6 core cpu's to stay in competition with the i5's ect.

 

[pantherx12]

Here comes the 5970x2......

4 chips on one card

Shit the bed you'd never have to turn heating on ever

 

[HalfAHertz]

It's just financially viable to release a new architecture at this point in time, even if Fermi obliterates the 5780, at best ATI will release a higher clocked version or a 5890 card...
Come on an entirely new architecture in less than a year? It's too good to be true

 

[pantherx12]

It's just financially viable to release a new architecture at this point in time, even if Fermi obliterates the 5780, at best ATI will release a higher clocked version or a 5890 card...
Come on an entirely new architecture in less than a year? It's too good to be true

Unless they've developed the internet attitude of doing things for the lulz.

 

[Benetanegia]

It's just financially viable to release a new architecture at this point in time, even if Fermi obliterates the 5780, at best ATI will release a higher clocked version or a 5890 card...
Come on an entirely new architecture in less than a year? It's too good to be true

+1

No 28nm until 2011 so it just doesn't make sense to make a completely new chip until then, unless they have completely changed their mind and start doing chips as big as Fermi in the near future. Cypress is already big at 330mm^2 and something similar but with increased SPs and maybe 512 bit memory is condemned to be just as big as Fermi.

 

[20mmrain]

Here comes the 5970x2......

I don't know ..... but it has been rumored for quite a long time that ATI was making there chips smaller and smaller and cheaper and cheaper .... so they could do just that very thing.

Acid I think you might be on to something here possibly!

 

[HalfAHertz]

Considering that TSMC has just started R&D on their 28nm production, unless GF magically makes an amazing scientific breakthrough in 28nm production, I don't see it happening.
Edit: I think thread this should be merged with the one in the news section.

 

[1Kurgan1]

What im really waiting for is 3rd party designs from XFX, and Visiontek, Meaning PCB Re-engineer- higher quality parts, different cooler. It doesnt necessarily need to be overclocked to wow me, as I can push board limits myself.

I don't think the board matters that much on high end cards, I havent ever switched boards and been able to OC a noticeable amount more that could be attributed to a board swap over just a slightly better chip. Cooling it is a different story, or a lower end chip, but on the high end, it just doesnt seem to matter much.

 

[Apocolypse007]

a 28nm fab process would be one hell of a development. They could squeeze a huge number of transistors on a small die with that. Not to mention the boost in cooling and higher possible clock rates.

I am wondering if this will be a complete overhaul or if it will be more of just an update and die shrink as was the case with the 2900 > 3800 move. I am leaning more towards completely new architecture but it is quite the daunting task to move R&D so quickly.

 

[HalfAHertz]

Well history has taught us that you should never start a new fab process with an enthusiast chip. That's why Ati's first chip on the 40nm process was the mainstream 4770 instead of the full-blown Cypress...So even if Ati imediately started production at GF, it'd not be a new performance monster, but a mediocre chip with great thermals and energy usage.

 

[20mmrain]

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/01/09/global-foundries-28nm-wafer-spotted/

This is an article I found awhile ago. It could be nothing! But speaking of 28nm...... If GF is already this far? Would it be too much to say that a 28nm 6870 this year would be to far off?

Again No one really knows what this is a pic of. I also understand that it comes from semi accurate. But again... at best case if this speculation is true.... we could see a new card the second half of 2010.

Again Highly doubtful though! But it would be awesome!