Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

AMD Breaks 1GHz GPU Barrier With Radeon HD 4890

Posted by timothy on from the sheer-necessity dept.

MojoKid writes "AMD announced today that they can lay claim to the world's first 1GHz graphics processor with their ATI Radeon HD 4890 GPU. There's been no formal announcement made about what partners will be selling the 1GHz variant, but AMD does note that Asus, Club 3D, Diamond Multimedia, Force3D, GECUBE, Gigabyte, HIS, MSI, Palit Multimedia, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE, XFX and others are all aligning to release higher performance cards." The new card, says AMD, delivers 1.6 TeraFLOPs of compute power.

9 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Why is it harder on GPUs than CPUs? by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why is it harder to raise the clock frequenceies on GPUs than CPUs? Is more code in use at the same time per unit area, or?

    1. Re:Why is it harder on GPUs than CPUs? by dhanson865 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah you can't put the exact same heatsink on them but take a look at the Accelero S1 Rev. 2 at http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=105&language=en

      You even putting a 120mm fan on it doesn't cover the entire fin area. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article793-page5.html

      Yeah with fan it'll be a 3 slot solution and yeah it only weighs half the weight of a high end CPU heatsink but then again that is not their biggest GPU heatsink.

      The heaviest solution on AC's site is the Accelero XTREME 4870X2 at 680g which is getting up there for weight on a graphics heatsink. http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_0&mID=244&page=spec

      I'd say its more of an issue that pure clock speed only covers some GPU problems. Memory bandwidth/latency, number of GPU cores, design of the cores, programming issues are all more difficult to balance than just ramping up the clock. They could cool these chips better but would it really be worth the cost/effort if the rest of the design and supporting software can't take advantage of it?

    2. Re:Why is it harder on GPUs than CPUs? by powerlord · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Pity there isn't a GPU socket on the motherboard the same as the CPU socket. Then we COULD use those big honking CPU cooling solutions (or some derivative of them), provided the case were designed to accommodate the board. You could also get high speed runs between memory (perhaps it could have its own bank), and the CPU.

      Pity some CPU maker couldn't come along, buy a GPU maker, and make something like this.

      (of course existing GPU solutions in slots are MUCH easier to upgrade, which is something against this sort of solution, unless they come out with a form factor that combines Chip+Cooling solution (similar to the old Slot1/A)

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
    3. Re:Why is it harder on GPUs than CPUs? by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Are they? Looking at CUDA, I'd say that this is debatable. More likely, the massively paralellizable problem space means they scale out instead of going for high clockrates, which also means less fancy crap with caches, as the speed differential is lower and memory access more predictable.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
  2. Re:AMD CPU too by LoRdTAW · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sorry. It was Compaq who owned the Alpha at that time. It was still DEC who designed it though.

  3. Power consumption? by LoRdTAW · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No mention of power consumption or heat dissipation. My PC is already a radiator and in the summer fights with my AC.

    I am interested in the computing power, 1.6 terraflops is no small number even if it is single precision.

  4. Re:And.... by PitaBred · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The 4890 actually DX 10.1, and probably has support for almost all the features in 11. Does the Nvidia card? Didn't think so.

    I'm also interested in your "slower than a GTX 285" assertion. I just looked at some benchmarks, and Xbit labs has an overclocked 4890@1GHz beating the tar out of the 285.

    --
    My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
  5. Re:"factory" "overclocked"? by chrysrobyn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Factory" "overclocked"? *slaps forehead* Only marketing weenies would play up such an oxymoron.

    I'm pretty sure that word doesn't mean what you think it means. "Overclocked" means "our reliability people don't think this is smart, but it might work for you." In this case, you get a part that may or may not die before you expect it to, it might not last much beyond the warranty, it might have non-standard cooling to enable an operating window that Reliability can't assume (say they model frequency shifting at 85C and they have a heat sink that puts it at 55C; feel free to substitute any other numbers).

    Any conditions where the company's Reliability department didn't endorse frequency over the lifetime of the product for 3 sigma worth of sellable parts would be "overclocked".

  6. Re:"factory" "overclocked"? by chrysrobyn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There's a difference in clientele and expectations. Most people want a part to last for 5 years and be qualified for 85C. That's one speed sort. Some may provide better cooling and keep it under 55C and only expect 3 years. Depending on the technology, that's a different sort entirely. I'm not disagreeing that it's a marketing thing, but this is not the same QA standards.