R700 Launches on 14th July

[Heinz68]

From Sampsa, great news! :)



http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3132311&postcount=469
Awesome, many people did worry about the microstuttering from they own experience on previous Crossfire,SLI and x2 cards.

For few who might not know yet, Sampsa Kurri is famous Finnish overclocker and he did receive the card for testing.

[CaptNKILL]

I fully understand how current dual-GPU cards opperate... I'm thinking you're not understanding what I'm saying.

By sharing, I mean this:

Each GPU will have full access to the total available framebuffer.

That is the only thing that has anything to do with what I was talking about, and I explained why the cards most likely will not have full access to the total framebuffer (ie, sharing it). This means they would work just like current cards (which you fully understand :bleh: ).

All of this...
If that framebuffer is 2GB, then each GPU will have full access to all 2GB (sharing the same pool of RAM, if you will). Under a 32-bit OS with 2GB or more of RAM, the full 2GB of framebuffer will not be addressable. In this situation the driver could "disable" however much of the framebuffer is neccessary to fit within the addressable space. Example... with 2GB of system RAM 512MB of framebuffer would be "disabled" by the driver. This then leaves 1.5GB total available framebuffer that each GPU would have full access to. With current dual-GPU cards the 1.5GB I mentioned above would be divided into about 768MB per GPU- each GPU would not see the 1.5GB total but instead only the 768MB it had access to... that's not really sharing the framebuffer at all. With what I'm saying, each GPU on the 4870X2 would have full access to that 1.5GB. Remove 512MB of system RAM and the driver then "enables" the remaining 512MB framebuffer and now each GPU can access the full 2GB. Does that make more sense now?

Is a completely different discussion, and as Viral and I pointed out, it isn't possible, even if the cards shared the total frame buffer... which they won't.

How am I not understanding you? :p

[CaptNKILL]

From Sampsa, great news! :)



http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3132311&postcount=469

Wow this is good news.

I may be interested in getting one of these afterall...

[Redeemed]

That is the only thing that has anything to do with what I was talking about, and I explained why the cards most likely will not have full access to the total framebuffer (ie, sharing it). This means they would work just like current cards (which you fully understand :bleh: ).

All of this...


Is a completely different discussion, and as Viral and I pointed out, it isn't possible, even if the cards shared the total frame buffer... which they won't.

How am I not understanding you? :p

My bad. :o It was incredibly late when I was typing those responses. I just misinterpreted your posts. :(

[CaptNKILL]

My bad. :o It was incredibly late when I was typing those responses. I just misinterpreted your posts. :(

:POKE:

[slaWter]

From Sampsa, great news! :)
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3132311&postcount=469

Can't wait :D

[Feyy]

Finally ATI is back in the game :captnkill:

[ChrisRay]

Ah ok, so I am wrong in my inference. OS will affect vid memory availability?

32 Bit verses 64 bit will yes. 32 bit just is limited to addressing so much memory ((3 gigs))

Chris

Sorry for the lateness of this reply..

[Blacklash]

Hmmm,

I don't need this temptation :p

[DeusGear]

Who want's to buy my gtx280 :D

[crainger]

My bad. :o It was incredibly late when I was typing those responses. I just misinterpreted your posts. :(

This is happening a lot Redeemed. This is your first official warning regarding the deliberate stirring up of trouble. 3 strikes and you take a break.

Over to you guys.

[Viral]

From Sampsa, great news! :)



http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3132311&postcount=469

Wow!:) I'm now thinking I'll get a 2GB X2 over a 1GB 4870.

[abtomat74]

The addressable memory issue is only an issue with 32 bit OS. If you have 3 8800GTX cards in a system with 4 gigs of memory. You only get like 1.5 gigs of memory ;p

Exactly!

So, a 2GB(2x1GB) video card would be all but retarded on a 32bit O/S as it is actually slightly less ram than the sample you described.

There you go, anyone who buys these cards should have a 64bit O/S...or be prepared to have less than 2GB system ram. Thanks for the clarification.
.
.
.
Redeemed: I follow what you're saying, but realistically who would have a monster card like that and settle for 2GB or even less system ram? It wouldn't happen, that guy would be beaten to death with his keyboard...it is a "solution" to a non-existent problem. Most hardcore gamers won't settle for less than 4GB today...again especially those that would have a card like this.

[ChrisRay]

Yes clearly. People should just go to 64 bit by now. When upgrading to Vista I see little incentive to use 32 bit anymore.

[mullet]

My patients may have payed off after all.

[Heinz68]

Detailed description of the HD 4870x2 2GB GDDR5 Memory at Tom'sHardware in Taiwan, translated at vr-zone (http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=299884)
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/1271/99979092aj3.jpg
http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/341/04radeon4870x2uq2.jpg

http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/9829/05radeon4870x2vw1.jpg

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/5003/06radeon4870x2ho8.jpg

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/1326/07radeon4870x2dy5.jpg

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/265/08radeon4870x2gk4.jpg

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/9785/09radeon4870x2kz8.jpg

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/8254/10radeon4870x2wx6.jpg

[Tho Jo Smale]

Who want's to buy my gtx280 :D

This is a very appropriate response to the 4870X2

[CaptNKILL]

Hmm... the information there is kind of confusing with regards to the memory.

Hopefully someone can clear it all up once these things are released.

[JaxMacFL]

Man, that thing is all business!!! I noticed the small print keeps saying 'As of August 12th...' as if that will be when it wll be released to the general public. Either way it won't be long. Big decision will be whether to get one or two. I try to rationalize why in the world would anyone need two of these beast? And then I ask myself 'Why not?':D

[Uberpwnage]

Man, that thing is all business!!! I noticed the small print keeps saying 'As of August 12th...' as if that will be when it wll be released to the general public. Either way it won't be long. Big decision will be whether to get one or two. I try to rationalize why in the world would anyone need two of these beast? And then I ask myself 'Why not?':D

The ONLY situation where two would be needed is 2560x1600. Whether they will actually perform the way people expect at that resolution is a different story. Scaling for quad crossfire may have problems, then again it may not. Hopefully they'll have some regular and crossfire results come monday.

[Heinz68]

My bad.
When I said "translated" by vr-zone. They did only copy the pictures from the tom'shardware.tw site.
Here is the actual translation with comments included. Google Translate (http://translate.google.ca/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tomshardware.tw%2F596 %2Cnews-596.html&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8)
Edit.
I just noticed that Google will also translate the links in the comments when clicked on.
In the translate it shows "HD 4870 X2 scheduled to come on August 12" so the heading of this tread is probably wrong.
I did read on few sites that the 14th July is the date for lifting the NDA and the cards will go for sale by the end of July.

[Heinz68]

More from Sampsa about microstuttering at ExtremeSystems (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3135424&postcount=529)
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/3449/r700microstutteringmb2.jpg
Ok, I finished testing with R700, 4870 CF, 3870 X2 and GeForce 9800 GX2 (Single and SLI mode) and recorded frametimes in Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 demo:

The worst case scenario happened with 3870 X2 in Crysis when every other frame was rendered after ~21,5 ms and every other after ~49,5 ms. However in UT3 demo 3870 X2 provided stable ~11,5 - 12,6 ms rendering times between the frames.

R700 seems to be very strong and it rendered every frame after ~21,6 - 22,1 ms in Crysis and ~11,5 - 11,9 ms in UT3.

Also 4870 CF provided equally good results compared to R700 and rendered every frame after ~21,3 - 21,7 ms in Crysis and ~11,2 - 12,1 ms in UT3.

GeForce 9800 GX2 showed alot more variation in rendering times and frames were rendered after ~21,9 - 25,1 ms in Crysis and ~7,4 - 11,5 ms in UT3.

PLEASE NOTE!

These results are measured and analyzed with simple tools including Fraps and Excel. In my own conclusion, it seems that microstuttering depends on game engine and if we leave 3870 X2 in Crysis out from the results it looks like NVIDIA's SLI (9800 GX2) is suffering more from microstuttering than AMD's CrossFire

[K007]

The power connectors are on a strange place....

[Mr_LoL]

Ugh that card is sexsi :drooling:

[Lfctony]

Yes clearly. People should just go to 64 bit by now. When upgrading to Vista I see little incentive to use 32 bit anymore.

Especially if you want more than 2GB of ram while running SLI. While testing my new SLI build I loaded up XP32, which showed only 2GB of ram out of 4GB, due to the dual GTX280s...