News - AMD Radeon 6000-series GPUs expected to hit retail in November

[Queelis]

NFS Shift 2 and Hot Pursuit 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Dirt 3 - maybe I'll have to look into this series

[badass]

Not even a 4890 style tweak to them?

TBH, I'd be a little surprised if they didn't do a 4890 style tweak to the shaders. They've had a year do these tweaks.

[xNuSeNsE]

Damn i'm just about to buy a gtx 480 aswel it took me weeks to decide and now this it's so hard to choose might just have to wait

[kalniel]

Sorry to go off topic - but sad news on TDU2 - it's been pushed back into next year according to a report on joystiq.

I also 'tipped' hexus to that news a while back, but it's not sad news at all - they need to polish this one properly and you just can't do it on a small scale internal test. The beta test is already throwing up decent feedback and they've decided to take the time to act on it, which I think is a good thing.

[dangel]

Question - will they launch with high end parts though? I'd read that we'd see lower parts this year and high end Q1. I'm pretty sure i'm OK for the foreseeable due to the Crysis 2 bump and fallout NV will undoubtably run just fine too.

Guess we'll see - part of me wants an upgrade because er.. I like upgrading things. The sensible bit (right foot, big toe) says wait..

[GheeTsar]

I also 'tipped' hexus to that news a while back, but it's not sad news at all - they need to polish this one properly and you just can't do it on a small scale internal test. The beta test is already throwing up decent feedback and they've decided to take the time to act on it, which I think is a good thing.

If the time is used for making improvements and polishing I'm all for waiting, but if it's just to avoid a crowded release date I'm a sad panda.

[kalniel]

If the time is used for making improvements and polishing I'm all for waiting, but if it's just to avoid a crowded release date I'm a sad panda.

There are some huge titles coming out Q1 2011 (cal) so I don't think it's that.

[Defiant]

Hmmm I want a SSD, i730 4Ghz this year. But my 4870x2 is starting to peak in some games and Im tempted if these 6000 series are reasonable over the 5.

[Domestic_Ginger]

TBH, I'd be a little surprised if they didn't do a 4890 style tweak to the shaders. They've had a year do these tweaks.

Whats this twak of which you speak? I may just be ignorant but the 4890 at 4870 speed (750mhz) performs exactly the same. The RV790 was just a juiced up 770 iirc?

[alwayssts]

Whats this twak of which you speak? I may just be ignorant but the 4890 at 4870 speed (750mhz) performs exactly the same. The RV790 was just a juiced up 770 iirc?

Yeah, no big change in RV790 as far as I can remember. The notable changes are R580 and R600. SIMD structure changed in R700 (doubled), but no major changes in the units themselves.

The thing I think most are curious about is if ATi is changing to 4D, which has been rumored on many occasions. Considering multiple tests have shown that utilization of ATi's shaders to be in the 3/4-issue range, ditching 5D for 4D could bring a serious boost in efficiency (depending on how operations are split) and seems likely at some point in the near future.

When rumors say they are using Evergreen's shader structure, it could mean more than one thing (if it's even true). Could it mean they are sticking with 5D (16x5 per SIMD)? Sure. It could also mean they are sticking to 16 cores per SIMD, while going to 4D (16x4). It could also mean they are sticking to 80 ALUs per SIMD, while going 4D (20x4).

[matty-hodgson]

Depends on the games. Right now I'm waiting for something to actually push the 4000 series - it seems all the best games are actually getting easier on graphics cards rather than harder (Starcraft 2, Dragon Age). Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3 will probably be fairly easy on them, TDU2 should be more than manageable.. so it kind of depends if I want to upgrade the graphics just for Crysis 2

Yeah, the graphics card you need will always depend on the games you play, but I'd say that most people can't afford to upgrade when each new series of card comes out.

Also depends on the resolution and how high you want the graphics settings, if you can happily play a game without all the eye candy, then a 4xxx will last you til the 7xxx series if you really wanted it to last.

I can see myself going up to the 6xxx series tbh, or maybe stick with NVIDIA if they manage to pull something out of nowhere (unlikely I know)

[dfour]

The real efficiency will be when AMD go from SIMD to MIMD just as nvidia have in fermi. If you look purely at the stats of 480 vs 5870 on paper the only thing 480 wins on is fill rate as it has more rops but 5870 loses to 480 almost everywhere in the real world (tesselation is a mute point ATM as it only looks good in benchmarks)

[kalniel]

Whats this twak of which you speak? I may just be ignorant but the 4890 at 4870 speed (750mhz) performs exactly the same. The RV790 was just a juiced up 770 iirc?

If it was just an overclocked RV770 then it'd be an RV770 not RV790

They added another 4M transistors, rejigged the timings throughout the card etc.

[badass]

If it was just an overclocked RV770 then it'd be an RV770 not RV790

They added another 4M transistors, rejigged the timings throughout the card etc.

Exactily. They also added another couple of instructions IIRC.

[Biscuit]

I upgrade my GPU roughly once a year unless there is absolutely no new requirement to do so. This year i didnt really need to do it but i thought... sod it. In hindsight it was a bit of a waste but unless the 6000 series brings something new to the table (which it doesnt sound like it will) im sorted for 2 years.

[Phage]

I ran my old 8800GT for several years. I expect to get a least two from my 5870.
Plus, it dumps the heat out the back !