Thursday, November 11th 2010

Sapphire HD 5550 Rebranded to HD 6390 for Russian Market

Nov 11th, 2010 05:34 Discuss (62 Comments)

After the Radeon HD 6800 series, the rest of AMD's Northern Islands family of GPUs seem to be taking their own sweet time making it to the market. With the HD 6900 series almost certain to be off its November 22 launch date, lower-end GPUs slated for early 2011 are still far away. Meanwhile Sapphire reportedly took the opportunity to rebrand the existing "Redwood" based Radeon HD 5550 to "Radeon HD 6390", in a bid to make some monies in Russia.

The Radeon HD 6300, at least the HD 6350, HD 6370 are reserved for an upcoming GPU codenamed "Caicos", its AMD reference board even made it through a casual photo-session. The HD 5550 and HD 6390 were found to have the same device IDs. An older version of GPU Caps Viewer detects it as HD 5550, while the latest version sees it as HD 6390. The HD 5550 is based on the 40 nm "Redwood" GPU, it has 320 out of 400 stream processors enabled, and a 128-bit wide memory interface to typically connect to GDDR3 memory. Some premium models also feature GDDR5 memory.

Source: Geeks 3D

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62 Comments on Sapphire HD 5550 Rebranded to HD 6390 for Russian Market

#26

christian27

Who cares The the russian market?

#27

digibucc

DrPepperI'm hallucinating again.

ok this has gone too far

#28

Fourstaff

DrPepperI'm hallucinating again.

digibuccok this has gone too far

Take less Vicodin next time :slap:

#29

Steevo

5770 decent card = 6390 crap card?

How is this bad, Nvidia took a 8800, and made it a 9800, saying it had the next series power at the same level, but in reality if we were to compute it like this it should be the 6570 or 6580. but they are not.

If card a has 100% performance per dollar
and card b has 100% performance per dollar than
dollar a is equal to dollar b in performance levels

#30

JATownes

The Lurker

KreijHey, we're not always the bad guys.
We gave China secret nuclear technology in exchange for lead-tainted baby toys and poisonous pet food. That has to count for something !! lol

Hahaha how true this is! :roll:

#31

erocker

Well, it's obvious that there isn't much more to be had at 40nm, hence this rebranding. I don't necessarily like it but it is what it is.

#32

Plexter

Fake, fake, fake. Show me box with name Sapphire Radeon HD 6390, please.

#33

Swamp Monster

Not only Russia, but all countries around it will eventually have these cards in stores. It has always been this way. :shadedshu

#34

KainXS

no I don't think its fake, I think AMD is either going to rebrand a few to the low end versions and the higher versions will use the newer cores displayed on the caicos reference boards, or they flat out tricked us with the caicos cards that were displayed were fake because there are cards that look exactly like the caicos reference gpu aside(they must be pin compatible boards right)

"prays for caicos"

#35

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

FishHead69Nvidia do it ! So why the hell not AMD

meirb111this is one of the reasons some people hate Nvidia amd does not need to do the same

People quickly forget that before nVidia did it with G92, ATi has done it in the past as well. This is nothing new, but everyone wants to act like nVidia started it with G92...:shadedshu

#36

Steevo

ATI renamed some 9700 cards, but in reality they were 9800 cards, and some 9500's were 9600's.

I made good money soft unlocking them and selling them with systems.

Damn them.

#37

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

SteevoATI renamed some 9700 cards, but in reality they were 9800 cards, and some 9500's were 9600's.

I made good money soft unlocking them and selling them with systems.

Damn them.

You forget X1900XTX = X1950XT or X1300XT = X1650Pro or X300 = X1050?

#38

WarEagleAU

Bird of Prey

well if its a refresh of the GPU and not taking what it was and not making the enhancements or changes made for the 6850.6870 then that is sucky. However, if they make the changes then yay I guess. Kind of sad to see them doing this.

#39

crazyeyesreaper

Not a Moderator

i dont get whats so sad about anything they took a 5550 and dropped it down to a 6390 it went to a lower bracket with a new name now it they took a 5550 and made it a 6550 then there would be something to bitch about

how about the 500 series ooo a 580 but while there might be a 570 how much of the mid range will be ported over and renamed? There just a company and its not like anyone in here is moronic enough to by such a shitty gpu in the first place

#40

KainXS

newtekie1You forget X1900XTX = X1950XT or X1300XT = X1650Pro or X300 = X1050?

true but alot of people look at the 8800GT like it was the worst and what is scaring me isn't that but what they did with the 8800GS to 9600GSO and the countless rebrands and renaming and rehashing in that one series that continued, its not even comparable to anything previous.

if amd renames the 5500 to 6390 i have no problem with that and I wouldn't care if nvidia rebranded the GT240 to G420 if they did, but its what happens afterwards that makes me worried now, I never want to see another 9600GSO scenario ever again.

#41

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

KainXStrue but alot of people look at the 8800GT like it was the worst and what is scaring me isn't that but what they did with the 8800GS to 9600GSO and the countless rebrands and renaming and rehashing in that one series that continued, its not even comparable to anything previous.

if amd renames the 5500 to 6390 i have no problem with that and I wouldn't care if nvidia rebranded the GT240 to G420 if they did, but its what happens afterwards that makes me worried now, I never want to see another 9600GSO scenario ever again.

Countless? There were like 3... 8800GT -> 9800GT and 8800GS -> 9600GSO -> 9600GSO 48SP. And as I've said before, the main reason for the 8800GT to 9800GT rename was that nVidia beat ATi to market with their tweaked GPU and stuck it in the same generation's naming scheme, then ATi went to market with the R600 derivative RV670 and called it a new generation making nVidia's offering look like old tech.

#42

naoan

Big deal, the performance should be the same or above for the price.

#43

wolf

Performance Enthusiast

newtekie1People quickly forget that before nVidia did it with G92, ATi has done it in the past as well. This is nothing new, but everyone wants to act like nVidia started it with G92...:shadedshu

I keep telling people that they are both businesses... oh well. some even like to entertain the thought that Nvidia is evil and shady, they're not, it's called business.

newtekie1And as I've said before, the main reason for the 8800GT to 9800GT rename was that nVidia beat ATi to market with their tweaked GPU and stuck it in the same generation's naming scheme, then ATi went to market with the R600 derivative RV670 and called it a new generation making nVidia's offering look like old tech.

I hadn't actually thought of it that way but you make a great point, the 3800 series was as-good-as the same performance as the 2900's, yet it was ATi that decided it would fall under their next generation naming. and we have Nvidia that had the G92 GPU ready and willing far before that and they decided to keep it an 8800. this makes me :laugh:

#44

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

wolfI hadn't actually thought of it that way but you make a great point, the 3800 series was as-good-as the same performance as the 2900's, yet it was ATi that decided it would fall under their next generation naming. and we have Nvidia that had the G92 GPU ready and willing far before that and they decided to keep it an 8800. this makes me :laugh:

Yeah, if you look at it. Basically G92 was released in Oct 2007 under the 8800 generation. Then ATi released the RV670 under the 3800 generation a month later in Nov 2007. What I believe happened was that nVidia expected ATi to keep the same generation naming, since the GPU was just a tweaked R600, but ATi decided to bump up to the next generation and nVidia was stuck with their dicks in their hands because now from a marketting stand-point ATi is releasing a new generation and they aren't.

IMO, RV600 should have been the 2800 series, and G92 should have been left as 8800, then G92b should have been 8850 and G200 should have been 9800 while RV670 should have been 2900 and RV770 should have been 3800. But that would have been too logical, and wouldn't have been good business from a marketting standpoint...

#45

Super XP

Nothing new here. This is quite rare though for ATI/AMD to re-brand. But I have to admit Nvidia is King of Re-Branding, they've been doing it for many years now.

#46

KainXS

newtekie1Countless? There were like 3... 8800GT -> 9800GT and 8800GS -> 9600GSO -> 9600GSO 48SP. And as I've said before, the main reason for the 8800GT to 9800GT rename was that nVidia beat ATi to market with their tweaked GPU and stuck it in the same generation's naming scheme, then ATi went to market with the R600 derivative RV670 and called it a new generation making nVidia's offering look like old tech.

it was more about the situation with the GSO, I think Nvidia only intended for the G94 16rop variant to replace the old GS and that would have been fine but then partners(or nvidia, im not sure) downgraded it and to 48sp 12rop and then some used the G92 with 8rop designs then it continued and continued until it finally ended up with a G94 48SP with 4 rops with DDR2 and the performance of the original design a G92 with 12rops is incomparable with something like that, there was alot of rehashing with that card it wasn't as simple as 8800GS -> 9600GSO -> 9600GSO 48SP.

I don't think thats how nvidia wanted it to play out but thats how it played out.

#47

wolf

Performance Enthusiast

Super XPNothing new here. This is quite rare though for ATI/AMD to re-brand. But I have to admit Nvidia is King of Re-Branding, they've been doing it for many years now.

:nutkick: so have ATi/AMD, they both have, neither one is the king of re-branding. They do it when they have to. Sometimes it's their own choice, sometimes what the other company does forces their hand if they don't want to be left with their pants down.

#48

Unregistered

newtekie1Countless? There were like 3... 8800GT -> 9800GT and 8800GS -> 9600GSO -> 9600GSO 48SP. And as I've said before, the main reason for the 8800GT to 9800GT rename was that nVidia beat ATi to market with their tweaked GPU and stuck it in the same generation's naming scheme, then ATi went to market with the R600 derivative RV670 and called it a new generation making nVidia's offering look like old tech.

yes its countless

try this :
8800 GS -> 9600 GS -> 9600 GS (48 sp, 256 bit ) -> 9600 GS (96 SP, 128 bit) -> 9600 GS (48Sp, 128 bit).

that was i know and show up in indonesia market.

EDIT :and nvdia didn't change the name, that was make me mad

ups and i forget about the rops variation so they have 16 to 4 rops and ram variation as well

#49

Unregistered

Semi-LobsterI believe this is similar to Sapphire releasing the 'Chinese-only' Radeon HD 4860 (which was a hacked down 4890) a couple of years back (that, ironically got sold in North America eventually). Sapphire receives permission to do this itself, including support.

It was released in CANADA as well, it was on newegg.

www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102866&cm_re=4860-_-14-102-866-_-Product

No longer available though.

#50

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator

newtekie1You forget X1900XTX = X1950XT or X1300XT = X1650Pro or X300 = X1050?

I agree with the rest, but the X1900XT and X1900XTX relation is not that of a rebrand. It's just like GeForce 8800 GTX and 8800 Ultra (higher clocks, so different product).

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Sapphire HD 5550 Rebranded to HD 6390 for Russian Market

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