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what are your expectations? iirc there is a die shrink - so it should be considerably lower?

Nope. AMD 6xxx (Northern Islands) is based on 5xxx (Evergreen) core thus the manufacturing process is the same (40nm). It was first supposed to be 32nm but GlobalFoundries (?) decided to skip 32nm and move straight to the 28nm, possibly because 40nm was fairly troublesome so it's better to invest more money and time on 28nm than do 32nm now and fail it and then fail 28nm. 28nm is expected to be launches late 2011 or early 2012 (Southern Islands).

Eidorian should be able to tell you more about the details. I'm also a bit uncertain about the code names since it was first supposed to be Northern Islands @32nm, then it changed to Southern Islands @40nm and Northern Islands in 2012 @28nm but now it's Northern Islands @40nm IIRC :D
 
what are your expectations? iirc there is a die shrink - so it should be considerably lower?
To the best of my knowledge the die is actually larger than the previous generation.

There isn't a straight story about the naming convention for the HD 6700/6800 line yet either. This newer generation should be aiming to replace the HD 5700 Series but AMD appears to have other plans.
 
Nope. AMD 6xxx (Northern Islands) is based on 5xxx (Evergreen) core thus the manufacturing process is the same (40nm). It was first supposed to be 32nm but GlobalFoundries (?) decided to skip 32nm and move straight to the 28nm, possibly because 40nm was fairly troublesome so it's better to invest more money and time on 28nm than do 32nm now and fail it and then fail 28nm. 28nm is expected to be launches late 2011 or early 2012 (Southern Islands).

Eidorian should be able to tell you more about the details. I'm also a bit uncertain about the code names since it was first supposed to be Northern Islands @32nm, then it changed to Southern Islands @40nm and Northern Islands in 2012 @28nm but now it's Northern Islands @40nm IIRC :D
ok that explains why the improvements were ...well... CRAP. the move from 40nm to 28nm should be worth the wait - i hope.

goodluck with those code names ;)

To the best of my knowledge the die is actually larger than the previous generation.

There isn't a straight story about the naming convention for the HD 6700/6800 line yet either. This newer generation should be aiming to replace the HD 5700 Series but AMD appears to have other plans.
you would think that it would replace it - however it appears as though this may be a "transitional" brand? for whatever reason...

so do you think the die is larger? but still the same production size i take it? that would make sense - as they cant jam any more transistors in there at the same production size!
 
you would think that it would replace it - however it appears as though this may be a "transitional" brand? for whatever reason...

so do you think the die is larger? but still the same production size i take it? that would make sense - as they cant jam any more transistors in there at the same production size!
40 nm is what everyone is stuck with right now. The idle power should be the same if not better but at load you're not going to get any less draw.

Southern Islands is a stopgap built for 40 nm based on Evergreen and the future Northern Islands. AMD learned from the mistakes of the 16 ROPs on the HD5830 and HD 5770. They're packing more onto the die but these preview cards are barely a worthwhile successor to the HD 5800 lineup.

I'd be more interested to see what happens on the mobile side with more shader cores.
 
agreed there. its more of a half-tock update. maybe we will see apple utilise nvidia next update?
Not much news on the nVidia front besides some codenames from their recent conference and future performance graphs.

28 nm is what everyone is aiming for but it's taking too long to reach. The only update coming up that I expect from nVidia is a full 384 shader GF104 chip vs. the harvested GTX 460 we see right now.
 
Not much news on the nVidia front besides some codenames from their recent conference and future performance graphs.

28 nm is what everyone is aiming for but it's taking too long to reach. The only update coming up that I expect from nVidia is a full 384 shader GF104 chip vs. the harvested GTX 460 we see right now.
time will tell i guess - both seem to be stuck in a rut at the moment due to lack of technological updates. it is bound to happen eventually anyway - about time software devs got a kick up the butt ;)
 
There should only be another week before these new AMD cards hit retail and the NDAs lift. It's an improvement but only if you've been waiting. Updated Eyefinity hardware appears to be the most interesting improvement with a change to do 5 displays outputs on a single card as the new standard.
 
There should only be another week before these new AMD cards hit retail and the NDAs lift. It's an improvement but only if you've been waiting. Updated Eyefinity hardware appears to be the most interesting improvement with a change to do 5 displays outputs on a single card as the new standard.
it really amases me how they can do that from 1 card and still yeild quite high FPS overall.

will there be a 5 port DP compatible card i wonder? :D
 
it really amases me how they can do that from 1 card and still yeild quite high FPS overall.

will there be a 5 port DP compatible card i wonder? :D
The inability to use both DVI ports was a major hassle in the previous generation. Several custom cards were made to get around the previous output limits but it appears to be standard now.

There are currently a handful of Mini-DisplayPort laden cards in a variety of price ranges depending on what you need. 3 displays will probably still be the limit if you want acceptable FPS.
 
The inability to use both DVI ports was a major hassle in the previous generation. Several custom cards were made to get around the previous output limits but it appears to be standard now.
DVI is too clunky to last IMO, its certainly the industry leading standard at this point in time but im not sure how long that will last, especially with HDMI and DP being pushed hard by the consumer market. do you agree?

There are currently a handful of Mini-DisplayPort laden cards in a variety of price ranges depending on what you need. 3 displays will probably still be the limit if you want acceptable FPS.
of course, im just glad that its a possibility - even for just coding based activities, there is no need to have 2 or 3 GPUs if you want 5 monitors.
 
if they do release soon are we in mercy waiting for Apple to release it with support drivers or do you think 5870 drivers will work and we can just buy it ourselves?
 
if they do release soon are we in mercy waiting for Apple to release it with support drivers or do you think 5870 drivers will work and we can just buy it ourselves?

You'd need an EFI firmware for the 6xxx in order to get it to work in the first place, but I wouldn't expect anything really. It's all speculation at this point considering the card isn't even released yet.
 
You'd need an EFI firmware for the 6xxx in order to get it to work in the first place, but I wouldn't expect anything really. It's all speculation at this point considering the card isn't even released yet.

Well, we are half-way there considering the newest beta of Snow Leopard already has support for the Radeon HD 6000 series.

Just food for thought but I really wouldn't expect anything this year.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; fi-fi) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

What i remember its ATI who write the drivers, not apple. Apple would still test them before adding them in OS X though and that requires early hw access
 
thats what i thought too - but yeh apple would have early access, but THIS early? maybe.

It isn't that early. AMD clearly have cards that are basically retail ready, including the plastic shrouds and branding - obviously delays to retail come down to mass yield and market timing.
 
It isn't that early. AMD clearly have cards that are basically retail ready, including the plastic shrouds and branding - obviously delays to retail come down to mass yield and market timing.

case and point. would have been in development for a long time - doesnt really seem that different over 5xxx though anyway!
 
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