Friday, September 11th 2009
AMD Cypress ''Radeon HD 5870'' Stripped
Here are the first pictures of the obverse side of Cypress' PCB, and the first pictures of the centre of attraction: the AMD Cypress GPU. CzechGamer dissembled two Cypress "Radeon HD 5870" cards for a quick blurrycam photo-session. The PCB shot reveals quite a bit about Cypress, particularly about the GPU.
To begin with, the GPU is AMD's overhaul on transistor counts, and a bold work of engineering on the 40 nm manufacturing process, given the kind of problems foundry partners had initially. Apparently they seem to have recovered with most of them, as AMD's AIB partners are coming up with new products based on the 40 nm RV740 GPU on a weekly basis. The package holds a "diamond-shaped" die that is angled in a way similar to RV740, RV730, or more historically, the R600. The seemingly huge die measures 338 mm² (area), and for 40 nm, it translates to "huge", and is vindicated by the transistor count of ~2.1 billion. In contrast, AMD's older flagship GPU, the RV790 holds 959 million, and NVIDIA's GT200 holds 1.4 billion.
The PCB has three distinct areas: the connectivity, processing, and VRM. To fuel the GPU is a high-grade 4 phase digital PWM power circuit, while the PCB has placeholders for an additional vGPU phase. The 8 (or 16 on the 2 GB model) memory chips, is powered by a 2 phase circuit. Power is drawn from two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors, but there seems to be a placeholder for two more pins, i.e., to replace one of those 6-pin connectors with an 8-pin one. Bordering the GPU on two sides are the 8 GDDR5 memory chips, which AMD calls says is generation ahead of present GDDR5, and supports reference frequencies as high as 1300 MHz (2600 MHz DDR, 5.20 GHz effective). In the 2 GB variant, 8 more chips seat on the other side of the PCB. This is what perhaps, the backplate is intended to cool. On the connectivity portion of it, are the two CrossFire connectors, DisplayPort, HDMI and a cluster of two DVI-D connectors. There has been a raging debate about how adversely the small air vent would affect the card, but AMD is promising some energy efficiency breakthroughs, plus given how roomy the card is, the vent seems sufficient.
Finally, information from ArabHardware.net suggests a pricing model on three of the first SKUs based on Cypress: HD 5870 2 GB, HD 5870 1 GB, and HD 5850 1 GB. All three use the same GPU and memory standard (GDDR5), but differ in clock speeds and GPU configurations. While HD 5870 sports 1600 stream processors, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, HD 5850 has 1440 stream processors, 72 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. Although 32 ROPs puzzles us for a 256-bit wide memory interface, we suspect low-level design changes that make "32 ROPs" more of an effective count than an absolute count. While HD 5870 features over 800 MHz core clock and 5.20 GHz memory, its little sibling has over 700 MHz core clock and 4.40 GHz memory. Price points expected are US $449 for Radeon HD 5870 2 GB, $399 for HD 5870 1 GB, and $299 for HD 5850. AMD is expected to announce all three models on the coming 23rd. You'll be able to find them at your favourite computer store a little later, availability is a certainty by the time you're ready to buy Windows 7. AMD's newest products will be more than ready to squat under X-mas trees all over.
Sources:
Czech Gamer, Arab Hardware
To begin with, the GPU is AMD's overhaul on transistor counts, and a bold work of engineering on the 40 nm manufacturing process, given the kind of problems foundry partners had initially. Apparently they seem to have recovered with most of them, as AMD's AIB partners are coming up with new products based on the 40 nm RV740 GPU on a weekly basis. The package holds a "diamond-shaped" die that is angled in a way similar to RV740, RV730, or more historically, the R600. The seemingly huge die measures 338 mm² (area), and for 40 nm, it translates to "huge", and is vindicated by the transistor count of ~2.1 billion. In contrast, AMD's older flagship GPU, the RV790 holds 959 million, and NVIDIA's GT200 holds 1.4 billion.
163 Comments on AMD Cypress ''Radeon HD 5870'' Stripped
^ but ati is already doubleling it's spec why nvdia can't do the same (with a result of bad yield, power hungry, big die, and hot like hell)
www.techpowerup.com/img/09-09-11/132b.jpg
The picture you posted its just a bad angle and the bottom bit of plastic looks as if it is part of the top piece.
They may still be decorative, but they're defitnitely holes.
Oh man, I laughed my ass off!
Any way looks like I'm going to need to sell my pair of 4870's before nvidia's cards come out.
Anyway, if history should be taken into account... RV790' slide:
Actual consumption:
So there's no way we could know the actual Maximum consumption, but I think that a good estimate would be around RV790's. But if I'm correct and 188w is the TDP, absolute maximum could be anywhere between 225 and 275 W, depending on how much time they thought the card would be 100% loaded and idling during actual use when they calculated the TDP. TDP can be tricky if the variance between idle and load is huge and in RV870 it seems so. The GTX295 is a good example of how much it can change too.
I'm so going to find a way to utilise those holes for something!
And, it's true those things are purely decorative? I know I don't like them...
img.donanimhaber.com/resimler/R700_4870-x2-slide.jpg
285 W according to the slide, 381W acording to Wizzards measurements. That's 100 W of difference. In the end it doesn't matter because a card will never reach those levels during actual use, that's just the consumtion it reaches in one odd clock cycle in which all of it's units are working together, and that happens, what, 1 time every complete 3dmark run??
Just google HD4870 X2 slide or something... You might even find one with a different number, I don't know. I'm not trying to say "ey guys this is like this!!", just that unless we know something (ahem Btarunr ;)) everything is possible... Or am I missing something else?