The Radeon HD 4850 & 4870: AMD Wins at $199 and $299
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on June 25, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
AMD's "Small-Die" Strategy
We outlined AMD's "new" GPU strategy in our Radeon HD 4850 preview article, but in short AMD has committed to designing GPUs for the mainstream $199 - $299 segment and simply using CrossFire (multi-GPU) to address higher end markets. NVIDIA on the other hand will continue to make very large monolithic GPUs in order to continue to push the industry forward. Both approaches are appreciated and necessary, they simply target different markets.
In our GT200 review we highlighted the fact that NVIDIA had built an extremely large, highly parallel, microprocessor. With 1.4 billion transistors and a die size of around 576 mm^2, NVIDIA's GT200 is nothing short of huge.
The table on the previous page shows that AMD's RV770, despite being aimed at mainstream gamer price points ($199 - $299), is also very large. At 956M transistors, the RV770 has 44% more transistors than RV670 and 68% the transistor count of NVIDIA's GT200. We threw the RV770 into NVIDIA's die size comparison just for kicks:
Based on what we know of NVIDIA's die size, this should be to scale
Even AMD's die, although designed to be svelte and affordable, is big - especially for being fabbed at TSMC. NVIDIA still holds the crown for largest die fabbed at TSMC, but AMD shows us that even a more mainstream approach still requires tons of transistors. As we mentioned in our 4850 preview:
"A pair of RV770s, AMD's new GPU, end up consuming more power than a single GT200 - despite being built on a smaller 55nm process.
A pair of these RV770s only costs $400 compared to $650 for a single GT200, but I suspect that part of that is due to differences in manufacturing process. If NVIDIA hadn't been so risk averse with the GT200 and built it on 55nm (not that I'm advocating it, simply posing a hypothetical), the cost differences would be smaller - if not in favor of NVIDIA since GT200 is built on a single card.
When the smoke clears, AMD's strategy is to simply build a GPU for the masses and attempt to scale it up and down. While NVIDIA is still building its GPUs the same way it has for decades, starting very large and scaling down.
AMD isn't taking a radically different approach to building and designing GPUs than NVIDIA, it's simply building one market segment lower."
We've got a lot of discussion on efficiency between AMD and NVIDIA coming up in this article, although AMD's die is noticeably smaller than NVIDIA's - as you've already seen with the Radeon HD 4850 - there are many areas where RV770 can go toe-to-toe with NVIDIA's mammoth GT200.
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StevoLincolnite - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
Of course it can, There are benchmarks isn't there?Seriously ANY Direct X 9 card can run Crysis, The Quality and Performance is a different matter.
Inkjammer - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
I have a 9800 GX2 in my primary gaming rig, but I've been debating on what card to drop into my Photoshop/3DS Max art rig. I've been waffling over it for some time, and was going to settle on an 8800GT... but after seeing this, my mind's set on the 4850. It definitely appears to offer more than enough power to handle my art apps, and allow me to use my second PC a gaming rig if need be... all without breaking the bank.This'll mark my return to buying ATI hardware since the X800 was king.
weaksideblitz - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
this is a welcome development although im only buying a 4850 :)Locutus465 - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
Very much so, actually from where I sit I think all AMD really needs to do is get a SAM2+ CPU out there that can compete with intel at least similarly to how this card competes with nvida and they'd have one hell of a total platform solution right now. As for upgrading my vid card... I just finished upgrading to the Phenom 4x and Radeon 3870 so I'll be sticking with that for a while. Quite honestly that platform can pretty much run anything out there already as it is, so I'm feeling pretty confident my current setup will last a couple years at least.Lifted - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
Ditto. If I can get a 4850 for ~$150 or so, that's what I'm doing as well.billywigga - Friday, August 29, 2008 - link
where are you getting it from best buy or somethingClauzii - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
That leaves 50 for a better cooler ;)Lifted - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
Is there any reason the first pages of benchmarks have SLI setups included in the charts, but you wait until the end of the article to add the CF? I'd think it would make the most sense to either include both from the start or hold both until the end.Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
The original idea was to format it like the 4850 preview, keep things simple early on but offer SLI/CF graphs later in the article for those who wanted them.It looks like in the mad rush to get things done it didn't work out that way, I'll see if it's possible to clean it all up but right now we've got a lot of other minor touchups to do first :)
Take care,
Anand
TechLuster - Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - link
Anand,I really like your idea of "keeping things simple early on" by only including configurations that us mere mortals can afford at first (say, all single-GPU configs plus "reasonable" multi-GPU configs less than ~$400 total), and then including numbers for ultra high-end multi-GPU configs at the end (mainly just for completeness and also for us to drool over--I doubt too many people can afford more than one $650 card!).
Anyway, great job on the review as always. I think you and Derek should get some well-deserved rest now!
-TL