FPSLabs : New AMD developments

Posted by Thomas Gribble in March 1st, 2008

Posted in: Latest Tags: AMD

AMD’s upcoming products are only evolutionary, but mark major shifts in modus operandi.

Two different stories popped up on Fudzilla today regarding AMD. We published a story yesterday about AMD’s work with IBM on future processor lithography techniques, and today’s story only enhances what we have come to learn about AMD over the past year: they care. While it is hard to really determine which product is AMD’s current flagship as the company has its reach in many different markets, a very strong case can be made that the month-old Radeon HD3870 X2 best represents their company right now. The HD3870 X2, reviewed on FPSLabs last month, is an absolute testament to the AMD (ATI) engineering team, in that two GPUs have never been so seamlessly integrated onto one PCB. Though performance numbers are impressive, problems with heat, noise, and even inherent performance disadvantages due to bottlenecks have been cited. While we don’t necessarily agree with the last claim, and the first two claims are pretty much unavoidable and certainly not as bad as most accounts seem to suggest, AMD is working to address these concerns.

There are four major changes coming to the Radeon HD3870 X2 in the coming months. First off, AMD plans to upgrade the GPUs to Revision 12 RV670 cores. The update to the graphics core that “revitalized the company” will likely increase efficiency, allowing for higher clock speeds and less heat. This will simultaneously work to boost performance while decreasing noise and heat generation. Next, the company would like to implement GDDR4 memory on the R680. GDDR4, while not so much better than GDDR3 to justify an industry-wide transition to the technology, still boasts performance benefits over its predecessor. This will work to further increase the performance of the Radeon HD3870 X2, thanks to increased clockspeeds and potentially decreased latency. A third update might be the most practical: a decrease in PCB length. As it stands, the Radeon HD3870 X2 is simply not compatible with many mid-tower computer cases, nevermind micro-ATX. This decrease in length will be welcomed by gamers who would like top-notch performance in their less-than-gigantic cases. Lastly, the PLX Bridge chip that links the two GPU’s together will be upgraded to one that supports PCI-Express 2.0. The current chip supports the PCI-Express 1.1 standard, which is not exactly out of date, but is still not the latest technology.

In addition the Radeon HD 3870 X2 updates, AMD’s plans for the upcoming 8-series chipset include support for DDR3 and socket AM3. AMD has been reluctant to adopt DDR3 thus far due to its excessive cost- a decision we applaud as DDR3’s high latency and unachievable rated speeds tend to not offer such great performance gains. The DDR3-enabled AM3 8-series chipset from AMD will likely not be available until sometime in 2009. The company will also release an AM2+ version of this chipset, so as not to alienate those who bought into the Phenom-enon. Unfortunately this is a while off, until then you will have to endure Phenom on the 790FX chipset with your HD3870 X2 CrossFireX setup and amazingly well designed and functional OverDrive software. Poor you.

Source: Fudzilla

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