Radeon HD 6800 coming sooner than you think?

[twistedneck]

Honestly I am waiting for Asus 5xxx Xonar version, where they combine graphics and sound card into a neat package for HTPC people. Very few people are using 5870 to its fullest, and fewer need such a beast.

Fourstaff, I'm HTPC too, and all of my 5xxx seem to do straight up hdmi sound OK, but i only have 5.1.. is it missing something that the xonar will add? and will the 6800 series have even better hdmi discreet audio? and wont nvidia have a superior audio built in? i mean they have led the way for a while with the multimedia stuff. ATI boards still can't play L5.1 h.264.. that means anything greater than 1080p is owned by nvidia even today.

 

[Yukikaze]

i mean, you can't possibly build a 6870 system on anything except the new 12 core, so these 'old' i5/ i7 's even though they are over clocked will have to be put out to pasture as quick internet boxes..

Eh ? What are you talking about ? An overclocked Q6600 is still more than enough for the HD5XXX series, and will also be good enough for the HD6XXX series, most likely, as well. If you play at high visual settings and at a high resolution, you don't need an i7 and you won't need it for a long time still.

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

good, cause me and my q6600 just getting warmed up

 

[cadaveca]

I currently using a 955 @ stock with Corssfire 5870's...just to give you an idea of how much cpu speed you need... very little, for most gaming, actually.

 

[twistedneck]

I currently using a 955 @ stock with Corssfire 5870's...just to give you an idea of how much cpu speed you need... very little, for most gaming, actually.

cadaveca, that does make me feel better about investing all this $ on i5 / i7 's..

I'm still scared, did a test on a non bottleneck game like BFBC2, its only got 17% processor usage at 2.66GHz i7, and it hits about 40FPS. Overclock same processor to 4.0GHz and its only a 12% cpu usage, but you still gain 3-4 FPS.

 

[cadaveca]

FPS gains like that are due to increasing bus speeds, not because the cpu can do more work. 3-4FPS isn't worth it, to me. I'd just buy another card, if I needed 15FPS more...right now, I don't.

That said, I do plan to add another card in the near future. IF low-voltage power modes start working...this is a big part of functionality of newer gens, for me. I hope the next gets it perfect.

To me, multi-gpu is optimal @ 3 gpus. But i also want 16x PCI-E 2.0 to each card...

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

8x is fine too

 

[cadaveca]

Heh. Fine isn't good enough for me, personally.

 

[Super XP]

doesn't CoD:MW2 do this?

as for the HD 6870, i have EXTREMELY high expectations from ATI. they've come back and made great headway. Now that they have the lead i can't see them doing what Nvidia did and just sit on their current chip(i kno i kno, ATI was far behind but still) and let it end up biting them in the ass. i think they'll keep the 5 series and refresh is the GTX 480's benchies are true(they're not that impressive imo) and just do a refresh and won't release the 6 series till Q1-2 next yr. I really think ATI has the better idea behind smaller/easier to produce than Nvidia's monolithic design, however once a monolithic design is perfected...its amazing.G80 is a good example.

Also, im curious as how the HD 6XXX series can release by the end of this year, weren't they saying it would be on 32 or 28nm? but there aren't any fabs that do 32nm GPU's are there?...well nvm lol i remember reading the article saying that GF had displayed 32nm waffers and one was ATI GPU's. hmmm i think this next gen from both companies will be one of the most interesting. Will Nvidia perfect fermi and with the respin/next gen really exploit its potential and come back? or will ATI release its new architecture with the 6 series and stay ahead even longer?

All we can do right now is speculate despite what I've heard here at home. But one thing is for sure and that is ever since AMD took over ATI, things have been different from ATI, they seem a lot more aggressive. And it all started with the HD 3800 series. The HD 2900 was sort of a joke where as it should have performed good and it did not. I have faith in ATI's upcoming next gen. I just hope they keep the pressure on NVIDIA
I would say we can expect new cards every 12 to 18 months, same formula for CPU releases

Fourstaff, I'm HTPC too, and all of my 5xxx seem to do straight up hdmi sound OK, but i only have 5.1.. is it missing something that the xonar will add? and will the 6800 series have even better hdmi discreet audio? and wont nvidia have a superior audio built in? i mean they have led the way for a while with the multimedia stuff. ATI boards still can't play L5.1 h.264.. that means anything greater than 1080p is owned by nvidia even today.

I think the Fermi may have some awesome sound but I do know for a fact ATI's has lead the way ever since the release of the HD 4800's which offers full 8CH High Def audio via HDMI. The 5000's series leads everybody by producing better audio along wth bitstreaming TrueHD & DTS HD MA all via HDMI. You really don't need a sound card if you own a HD 5000 series card. But I do like my SteelSeries 5Hv2 though for heart pounding Zombie Bashing fun

 

[Solaris17]

commenting on solaris wall of text:

By the time a card hits retail, the successor (be it a die shrink, board re-design or a brand new GPU) is at least one year in production. Whether that equals a card in 6 months or in 18 months, depends on how long it takes - this is why die-shrinks or a board that works at higher clocks (4890) tend to not take long to produce (most of the works already done) whereas totally new designs that would take 2-3 years, only take us 1-2 (with the die shrinks/refresh) filling the gap

which already brings me to the point that the R&D teams are already that far ahead

 

[OmfgCoke]

MikeX, good point - the fermi on paper could destroy cypress what ever ati has now, what do we do with our old graphics boards and pc's? i mean, you can't possibly build a 6870 system on anything except the new 12 core, so these 'old' i5/ i7 's even though they are over clocked will have to be put out to pasture as quick internet boxes..
.

If you are referring to the new 980x as the 12 core cpu, its a 6 core cpu.
You make some good points, but benches on the 6 core 980x put it just barely faster than a 920, and i mean barely. I think you could get away with a 920 and two 6800 series cards. That is the gaming perspective. Those two cores certainly make other tasks much faster such as rendering and editing. By the time the 6800 series would probly hit, we wouldn't be into 12 core consumer cpus. Granted the 6800 series comes out next year, we are just getting the 6 core cpus now, and only one. Thuban isn't suppose to be released for a few months. At the most, I'll go out on a limb and say Intel will release a new Extreme Series 1000 USD 8 core cpu. For gaming though, no matter if its a 6800 series or 7800 series, god willing, they better start building better multicore support into games. That new Extreme 980x 6 core CPU at many times gets spanked by the "simple" AMD Deneb cpu series. Once theres better multi gpu support, we can really get around to using our 1000 Extreme CPU, and stop getting our Frames Per Second spanks from those sub "200 USD" dual cores


Now to throw two xeon 6 cores into that evga double socket 1366 board. Lets test some benches then
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/take_sneak_peek_evgas_dual_socket_lga_1366_motherboard

I'd like to see my $4000 USD Dual Socket 1366 Quad GPU setup get 10 percent more performance in games then a $1000 setup. Gotta have my e-pen


Benches here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-980x-gulftown,2573-2.html

 

[MikeX]

@OmfgCoke
I think with anymore core than 4 with current motherboards will have board and memory bottle necks. overclocked 920 is still good all round atm.
with $4000 USD I'd better get 4 fermi's.

 

[strick94u]

Seems like they are heading back to 9700 9800 my 2 faveorite ati cards my 9800 pro was the only card I kept more than 3 years I made the mistake of buying a 1600 thinking it would be better the 9800 ate its lunch and poped the bag in its face.I'v been green ever since ATI is looking good now.

 

[KainXS]

@omgcoke

it depends on whether the application is multithreaded to use all the cores properly, in apps that are, the difference is up to 60%, the CPU is a monster

Bottom line: the 3.33GHz-clocked Intel Core i7 980X Extreme Edition is, by a long, long, way, the fastest desktop CPU ever released. It has wish-list status stamped all over it. The only choice for the ultra-high-end PC, we'll have to wait for AMD's Thuban for a mid-priced six-core chip.

Well, Intel has done it again. The Core i7 980X is grand and majestic - It's their USS Enterprise, big and powerful. I quite honestly did not expect the processor to be this good. Now before we continue, I must state this, roughly a year or two ago we changed our benchmark suite drastically. Pretty much all our tests have been picked because they can measure multi-core performance. Our tests results are comprised by accumulated performance per core. As such the benchmark results can be a little clouded. See, the majority of software applications used maybe two and at best four threads. So while our tests show massive gains, the reality is that with say a Core i7 975 processor, in almost any scenario you'd not notice the performance difference unless the application is very suited for multi-core processors and thus heavily threaded.

the problem isn't the cpu its the applications and alot of games even now aren't too coded well for multi core cpu's with multiple threads.

For example in 3D Mark Vantages CPU oriented tests, the 980X beats every other cpu by 10,000 points

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-980x-review/19
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=22801&page=12

 

[OmfgCoke]

@OmfgCoke
I think with anymore core than 4 with current motherboards will have board and memory bottle necks. overclocked 920 is still good all round atm.
with $4000 USD I'd better get 4 fermi's.

I don't know how often they are bottlenecked, but I'm sure sometimes. I'm no engineer or programmer tho. As I mentioned in my last post, more often than not, our hardware is being bottlenecked by the software we run. By the time we have 12 core cpus, I'll be lucky if a 3rd of my cores are being properly used.

I've been using ATI exclusively, but I'm in the middle of building a new setup, and I'm very anxious to see some Fermi benchmarks, if I have 4000 USD after my probly $500 dollar multi socket 1366 board, and 2000 USD for processors, atleast 500 USD in ram, and 1000 USD for case, hard driver, optical drives. Maybe I'll buy 4 fermi's. That would bring my setup to 6400 USD. Two years later I'll have to sell it for 600 USD to spend another 6400 USD. Granted the 480 runs for about $600.

^Thats all sarcasm

I'm just know starting to bottleneck my 5600 x2 AMD setup.
Stock at 2.8 Core
A whole 2 gigs of ram, ddr2 800!
ATI 4870 512
WD 74GB Raptor Sata 150

I just bought a corsair 800d case, a 920 (microcenter $200 score), and 6GB of corsair 1600 DDR3. I just recently found out I might be traveling South East Asia, and now I'm kind of stuck in a debate.

Should I sell my corsair 800d, and grab a matx box, stuff my 920 in a matx board, and grab one of the next gen GPU's after March 26th benchmarks and price permitting of course. I'd love a SFF setup and recently stumbled upon a SFF box that supports dual 5970's

Not that I would get dual 5970's but its nice to know I wouldn't have to settle for a laptop or a cheap GPU setup. Speaking of which if any of you guys frequently sell or trade on here, could you send me a PM to give me some advice if I decided to list my case on here. I've never used it, the Corsair 800D is beautiful, and big. I could never get it on to a plane, and I wouldn't dare ship it from country to country as I travel.

I also have two replacement side panels new from Corsair. (The side with window)

 

[OmfgCoke]

@omgcoke

it depends on whether the application is multithreaded to use all the cores properly, in apps that are, the difference is up to 60%, the CPU is a monster





the problem isn't the cpu its the applications and alot of games even now aren't too coded well for multi core cpu's with multiple threads.

For example in 3D Mark Vantages CPU oriented tests, the 980X beats every other cpu by 10,000 points
http://img.techpowerup.org/100313/Untitled.jpg

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-980x-review/19
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=22801&page=12

No doubt, I was just saying it's overkill to the fifth for gaming. It's definitely a nice cpu, but for gaming the software isn't even at 50% proper utilization. That may change, but not till far after this CPU's reign. If I had thousands in the bank to burn, you'd bet I throw it in a game setup, just for e-pen sake

 

[Super XP]

Yesteryear probably CPU's and/or GPU's would bottleneck each other in different ways, but today its highly unlikely. Today games heavily depend on GPU's with the CPU performing the odd task.

I believe omfgCoke (nice name haha) got it right with "gaming the software isn't even at 50% proper utilization". This is the real problem, hardware is advancing and the software is not catching up fast enough.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

FPS gains like that are due to increasing bus speeds, not because the cpu can do more work. 3-4FPS isn't worth it, to me. I'd just buy another card, if I needed 15FPS more...right now, I don't.

I think scaling in general highly depends on the software itself. but on a good day having an overclocked processor can give you more then just '15fps'

as this graph here proves

but the the system which was used for benching did have 2 5870's in crossfire. but thats not the point im trying to make.

 

[MikeX]

future games logic will run on openCL + direct compute to avoid CPU bottle neck. CPU speed will be less relevant. Still its better to add more xfire/sli in now than getting an extreme CPU.

 

[cadaveca]

Freedom, those graphs don't apply to me, as I'm running 5670x1080(eyefinity). My specific situation is gpu-limited, not cpu. And yes, I have the same cards, and adding a third will net me about 15FPS, as I've already done it. Overclocking my cpu gets me almost nil.

MY point, was that an increase of 37% or so in cpu speed, but only minimal gains, like 3-4FPS, generally, is due to increasing bus speeds. CPU wasn't a limitation, so increasing it's speed doesn't matter. But cpu is more than just numbercrunching..also memory control, and Super-IO, which can account for the minimal gains. But you make a good pouint about the software.

Also, BFBC2 is hardly a good app to check cpu performance, as it isn't cpu-limited. Something is wrong with that graph, btw. If ya can't see it...have you taken statistics in school?

 

[niko084]

but the the system which was used for benching did have 2 5870's in crossfire. but thats not the point im trying to make.

Exactly it's all about curing bottlenecks, and they are a bit harder to calculate than water pressure and line size.

As said above it is a bad game for showing that... Run the Supcom benchmark lol, that game eats cpu's for lunch.
No matter what my clock is I can slow it down and I even notice a difference from 3.8-4.04, no matter what my graphics are set at.

 

[Goodman]

I really do think that the 6000 series wont be out before the end of this year maybe just before Christmas time... until then we'll see some refresh 5000 series with higher clocks & maybe one more add to the list like 5890 or 5990... who knows??

Anyhow i can't wait for Fermi (GTX 470-480) to get out in the market & see what ATI is going to do about it... i hope a good price reduction on all their 5000 series cards , that would be a good start

 

[OmfgCoke]

future games logic will run on openCL + direct compute to avoid CPU bottle neck. CPU speed will be less relevant. Still its better to add more xfire/sli in now than getting an extreme CPU.

Exactly the case. So many of my friends are like I bought this 300 cpu, a 400 motherboard, 400 ram, and then I ask how much money they saved for the GPU, they are like around $100. I then facepalm

Anyhow i can't wait for Fermi (GTX 470-480) to get out in the market & see what ATI is going to do about it... i hope a good price reduction on all their 5000 series cards , that would be a good start

+1 I'm saving my bank till I see how the 480 performs, and how ATI prices settle after launch

 

[OmfgCoke]

Yesteryear probably CPU's and/or GPU's would bottleneck each other in different ways, but today its highly unlikely. Today games heavily depend on GPU's with the CPU performing the odd task.

I believe omfgCoke (nice name haha) got it right with "gaming the software isn't even at 50% proper utilization". This is the real problem, hardware is advancing and the software is not catching up fast enough.

Thanks, I love my name, and coke

Totally agree, we are getting huge hardware performance increases every year, but barely does the software catch up.

Software gods, please build support for 4 core cpu's, so by the time i get my octomom cpu, I can atleast use half its potential

 

[nt300]

Thanks, I love my name, and coke

Totally agree, we are getting huge hardware performance increases every year, but barely does the software catch up.

Software gods, please build support for 4 core cpu's, so by the time i get my octomom cpu, I can atleast use half its potential

I totally agree with you, dam software catch up by now will ya