The Radeon HD 4800

INTRODUCTION

AMD has been through some rough times the last year. Not only have they lagged behind with their processors compared to Intel but they also have not been able to compete at the enthusiast level with their ATI graphics cards. It was therefore quite interesting to attend to their briefing in Malaga, Spain a few weeks ago where they presented their new HD 4000-GPU’s. For the first time in a year or so AMD had a briefing which was filled with confidence and which left at least me with a feeling that AMD was very optimistic with what they were presenting for us journalist.

The product they were presenting was of course the new HD 4000 series of GPU’s. In focus was the HD 4850 and the HD 4870 but we also got some information for the R700 which I expect will be called something like HD 4870X2. These are the GPU’s that AMD are hoping will strike a big blow to NVIDIA’s market share.

DIFFERENT STRATEGIES

AMD spent a lot of time telling us about the difference in strategy that we now can expect from them compared to NVIDIA. While NVIDIA has been concentrating on building bigger, fatter and faster chips AMD has decided to take another route and instead aim to build the best possible GPU for the $200-$300 price point and then scale it to the other segments, either by cutting it down for the entry level or by combining more than one GPU for the enthusiast level. The main reason AMD have chosen to take this path is to cut down the time it takes to introduce new technology at most price points. The current GPU’s from AMD and NVIDIA are perfect examples on two ways to go:

NVIDIA has introduced the huge GTX260 and GTX280 at the $400-650 price point. These are big chips at around 576 mm2. At the same time they are using their older G92 GPU to fill in the $200-300 price point as it is not easy to scale these chips down. It will probably be at least 6 months before we see that technology trickle down to the $200-$300 price point.
At the same time AMD is releasing two smaller GPU’s in the $200-300 price range (~260 mm2) and users can immediately combine them in CrossfireX to get the enthusiast performance or wait until the HD4870X2 and HD4850X2 are released in a month or so. This gives AMD the opportunity to introduce new technology in all price segments at once.
 

Something I found interesting when comparing these strategies is how each company will treat the mobile market. As Laptops gain more and more market share and people are starting to demand better GPU’s in them it will be interesting to see who of AMD and NVIDIA will be able to migrate their newest design to the mobile market first. NVIDIA has done well the last few years with the GeForce7, 8 and 9 but will they be able to easily continue with the GTS2x0 or is this AMD’s chance to bring the HD 4x00 to the mobile market first?