First Exclusive Details and Images of the unreleased HD 5870
AlienBabelTech is proud to be the first with a photo of the not-yet-released, under-NDA, HD 5870 here this morning
According to our own sources, the new HD 5870 offers over 1600 Stream processors. Amazingly AMD doubled the number of SIMD units from 10 to 20. Since each SIMD unit contains 16 5-D units and a Quad-TMU overall, that means we count 1600 stream processors and 80 TMUs. We are talking about a new videocard whose core speed is at 850 MHz and whose 256-bit GDDR5 runs at 1200 MHz – all for the suggested retail of $399! AMD is expecting HD 5870 to come close to the performance of a HD 4870-X2 or the GTX 295.
There is a new feature that is called “eyefinity” which means that three LCDs can be simultaneously supported at 2560×1600, with options for future cards to support up to six LCDs!
The HD 5870 die size is slightly over 330 MM2 and packed with over 2 billion transistors. This translates into one beast of a card with just over 150 GB/second bandwidth. It is very likely that the 8X + 8X PCIe CrossFire slots of the new p55 motherboards for Core i5 will become saturated with two of them.
What is outstanding is that we are hearing that the HD 5870 will perform at just under 28 watts at idle and peak below 190 watts maximum!! That is quite a challenge for Nvidia to meet or beat in their own upcoming GT 300 series as the performance to watt ratio is outstanding.
What is also new to watch for in the HD 58X0 series besides its DX11 capability is that there is a new AA/AF algorithm, where everything on the render back end has been doubled. As a benefit for gamers, that means much less of a performance hit when going from no AA to 4xAA or perhaps even from 4xAA to 8xAA.
The new HD 5850 will launch on September 23 also. We hear it is priced below $299. HD 5850 will sport 1440 stream processors and it will have lower clockspeeds than its big brother. We are hearing somewhere around 700/1000 MHz and it can also display simultaneously on three LCDs at up to 2560×1600 resolution.
Finally, you can expect the HD 5870-X2 to be released in the second half of October.
You heard it here at AlienBabelTech first. And we also think that you may be pleasantly surprised when you actually get your hands on one.
Mark Poppin
ABT Senior Editor
Here is another pic of HD 5870 that we snagged off the Internet for you – but not exclusive like our first one this morning:
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Any info on the 5870×2 price? It’s not going to be an 800 dollar card is it?!? That would suck because it’s the one I’ve been wanting since I heard about this card.
I don’t believe we have those figures yet.
But if you look at the 5850 for (less than) $299 and the 5870 for $399, I believe it is pretty logical to believe the 5870-X2 will retail for between $549-$649 as there will be nothing faster when it is released. My guess is $599 for 5870-X2 at release with the usual price increases from the etailers if the supply is not great.
GTX 280 showed up first at $649, last year before its price dropped quickly. HD 4870-X2 was $550 at launch. So, I doubt that 5870-X2 will be more than $650; certainly not $800.
Where can I go to find the actual article of everything ATI release on the 10th?
I would suggest you check out our ABT forums:
http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15959
There we have the very latest information as it presented. As soon as everything is finalized by AMD, we will have it in News and also published in an article here on the main site.
According to the best info I can gather, the specifications listed are probably incorrect. If the TMU’s and shaders are the same type as in the 48xx series, consider this:
1. 80 TMU’s + 1600 shaders = 1.3 billion transistors. This number should be fairly accurate.
2. The transistor count for the remaining areas of the GPU cannot be accurately calculated but, based on counts from former GPUs, the amount remaining should be no more that 500 million. Assumptions need to be made about the affect that dx11 has on transistor counts. The 500 million should account for the RBE’s, memory controller, PCIe interface, UVD, audio core and display controller.
3. To the best of my knowledge (bring some salt), the described specs create a GPU with 1.8 billion transistors.
With that stated, 1600 shaders seems to be the most reliable spec out there. I would tend to rely on that number as true. Clock speed seems to be in line with what 40nm can provide. Memory bandwidth seems a little low for what it may have to provide for.
Just before the launch of the 48xx series, benchmarks (like the ones aquired by alienbabeltech) were genuine. However, just about every GPU spec was wrong. The guesses were 640 shaders, 32 TMU’s and no clue about DDR5.
Here is the very latest information that is summarized in one thread:
http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15959
It links to this thread which has over 100 images and charts (56K users beware):
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=234555
As you can see, our leaked information was dead on accurate. We said “over 2 billion transistors” and the final figure is 2.15 billion. We also said “over 150 GB/second bandwidth” and the actual figure is 153.6 GB/s.
Feel free to join our forum and actively participate in the discussion. These cards will be released about the 23rd of this month with wide availability in October as promised by AMD. Benchmarks are leaking out now. Basically, paired with a fast quad-core at 19×12 with 4xAA/16xAF, the HD 5870 is equally fast as a HD 4870-X2 in Far Cry 2 and in Crysis Warhead. However, in HAWX/GRID, the HD 5870 seems to under-perform and the HD 4870-X2 is solidly faster.
Wow that was strange. I just wrote an very long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t show up. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyways, just wanted to say excellent blog!