X1950XTX and Mastercards... GDDR4 IS HERE!!

[sawyen]

DailyTech's news.. ATI are beginning to sample the R580s on GDDR4 in early August dubbed X1950s..

These will replace the X1900s as the flagship cards soon..

Clockspeed has not been confirmed, but memory should have headroom of hitting 1.6Ghz (3.2Ghz DDR)..

Will this have enough gas to even out with GX2?

For some reason, I really think not...

Side Note: X1900XT has been stripped down to and included a (ala X1800XT 256MB) X1900XT 256MB that should launch in under USD300.. should be a fun buy.. They've left all configuration similar (like the X1800XT) just with 50% of the mem stripped off..

[Rollo]

Will this have enough gas to even out with GX2?

For some reason, I really think not...

You think right - X1900 refresh is no competition to the GX2.

The HSF is good news to all with working ears though.

[xolotl]

I doubt this will be worth buying if you already have a decent card. The refresh versions of cards usually arnt worth buying.

Besides G80 and DX10 are coming out at the end of the year. Most people would be much better off waiting for them.

[sawyen]

But I do feel its a good measure of how much better GDDR4 compared to GDDR3 in terms of outright real world speed.

A comparison on similar core clocked X1900XT with an X1950XT should be fairly interesting..

[spazman]

But I do feel its a good measure of how much better GDDR4 compared to GDDR3 in terms of outright real world speed.

A comparison on similar core clocked X1900XT with an X1950XT should be fairly interesting..

I doubt at the same speeds it will be faster, just take a look at DDR v DDR2. I think it's potencial to go faster than GDDR3 would have been the driving force behind the change.

[sawyen]

I meant just leaving the core clock the same i.e. 650MHz.. while leaving the mem speed to duke it out.. say the default X1900XTX 1650MHz GDDR3 versus an X1950XTX 3000MHz GDDR4..

[Smokey21]

I doubt at the same speeds it will be faster, just take a look at DDR v DDR2. I think it's potencial to go faster than GDDR3 would have been the driving force behind the change.

He said same core speeds. I doubt the X1950 will have anything higher than 650 anyways, maybe 675 at a stretch. Expect the memory to be 2Ghz. GDDR4 can scale to 3.2ghz.

It's pretty obvious ATi are just giving a new cooler a spin, in time for R600. R600 is gonna be the biggest, hottest running chip ever, said so themselves, as well as the new memory.

Article: http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=3446

[Smokey21]

Also who even cares about the GX2? Seriously it's a pretty horrible idea. Your paying for 48 pipes and 1GB memory, but you don't get that being used. I hope we don't start going down that route in the future.

Not to menton nvidia's aweful forceware drivers. It's not a single card anyways.

[ExceededGoku]

no its 2 x 512mb not 1gb...

[Smokey21]

no its 2 x 512mb not 1gb...

Indeed it is. Re-read.

[ExceededGoku]

yes, but you said it as 1GB initially, so I merely said what I said to inform others .
Anyway I think this card will be awesome at high rez and with AA/AF on, performance loss with high settings will be even smaller .

[Smokey21]

yes, but you said it as 1GB initially, so I merely said what I said to inform others .
Anyway I think this card will be awesome at high rez and with AA/AF on, performance loss with high settings will be even smaller .

I said your paying for 1Gb which you obviously are, but you don't use 1GB.

And yes it should, with the extra bandwith. 2Ghz seems a little slow though i was expecting around 2.2Ghz.

[kempez]

I am very much looking forward to taking a look at one of these babies

[ExceededGoku]

ye 2.2Ghz doesn't seem worth it, 3 Ghz at least

[Queelis]

Still it's quite a bump for the memory, thus it should pack a punch. Will be interesting to read the reviews

[kalniel]

Presumably the refresh will also be for manufacturing efficiency reasons - we could get a cheaper and maybe less power hungry card as a result. Always a good thing.