AMD Radeon HD 4870 Delivers First TeraFLOPS Graphics Chip

AMD launched the first teraFLOPS graphics card, the ATI Radeon HD 4850, and the first graphics card featuring ultra high bandwidth GDDR5 memory, the ATI Radeon HD 4870. ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series GPUs bring the power of graphics ‘supercomputing’ to gamers, setting a new standard for visual computing. Redefine the way you play and take HD gaming to the extreme with best-in-class performance. With one teraFLOPS on tap, the TeraScale graphics engine delivers an immersive, cinematic gaming experience. Add this graphics card to your PC and watch Blu-ray movies and play HD content with incredible visual fidelity or take your experience to another level with new multimedia capabilities.

"The ATI Radeon 4800 series represents a 2X performance jump over the ATI Radeon HD 3800 GPU, the biggest generational increase since the game-changing launch of the Radeon 9700 in 2002," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "AMD made a strategic decision to focus on GPU designs that maximized our efficiency and allowed us to provide enthusiasts, performance and mainstream users with the most compelling value proposition at every price point. The ATI Radeon 4800 series sets a new industry standard in key metrics such as performance-per-watt, performance-per-mm2 of chip die size, and performance-per-dollar."


The ATI Radeon HD 4870, available with a suggested retail price of USD$299, represents an unprecedented 1.2 teraFLOPS of visual compute power. It features a stock GPU core clock speed of 750 MHz, 512 MB of GDDR5 memory rated at 3.6 gigabits/second, and comes in a dual-slot PCI Express 2.0 configuration with a maximum board power of 160 watts.


The ATI Radeon HD 4850 immediately available with a retail price of USD$199, received an enthusiastic welcome from global graphics reviewers. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 is the first teraFLOPS graphics chip, with 800 stream processing cores (identical to the ATI Radeon HD 4870), a stock GPU core clock speed of 625 MHz, 512 MB of GDDR3 memory rated at 2 gigabits/second, and comes in a single-slot PCI Express 2.0 configuration with a maximum board power of 110 watts.

Building versions of the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series are VisionTek, ASUS, PowerColor, MSI, GIGABYTE, GECUBE, Force3D, SAPPHIRE Technology, Diamond Multimedia, Club 3D, HIS (Hightech Information Systems) and Palit Multimedia.


The ATI Radeon HD 4800 series will allow users to experience HD digital content while it can also help improve the definition and image quality of any visual media including standard DVDs and videos. The new series also includes new HD media capabilities, like picture-in-picture HD viewing, fast format conversion of your favorite media, and support for the latest HD audio technologies like 7.1 surround sound.

ATI PowerPlay technology intelligently adjusts requirements to ensure performance is there when you need it most while throttling back for lesser user demands.

With the ATI Radeon HD 3870, AMD set a new performance per watt standard, which has been broken by the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series. Compared to the ATI Radeon HD 3870 series GPU, the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series delivers twice the performance while drawing only 20 percent more power.

Below you can see a comparison between AMD's HD 3800 and the new HD 4800 series of graphics cards:

	ATI radeon HD 3800	ATI radeon HD 4800	Difference
Process	55nm	55nm	no
Die size	190 mm2	256 mm2	1.35x
Transistors	666M	956M	1.4x
4x AA Fillrate	8	16	2x
Z/Stencil	32	64	2x
Texture	16	40	2.5x
Shader	320	800	2.5x
Bandwidth	72 GB/sec	115.2 GB/sec	1.6x

ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series – Key Features

• TeraScale Graphics Engine - The new TeraScale graphics engine features over one teraFLOPS, nearly one billion transistors and 800 stream processors so you can enjoy the high resolutions and fast frame rates previously only available with dual-card systems.
• Advanced Memory - GDDR5 memory provides twice the bandwidth per pin of GDDR3.
• Enhanced Anti-Aliasing & Anisotropic Filtering - High performance anisotropic filtering and 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) smooth jagged edges and create true-to-life graphics, for everything from grass to facial features.
• DirectX® 10.1 - Play today while preparing for tomorrow with state-of-the-art DirectX 10.1 graphics capabilities.
• ATI CrossFireX™ Technology - ATI CrossFireX™ technology with up to quad GPU support offers superior scalability so your system is ready to level up when you are.
• PCI Express 2.0 - Support for PCI Express 2.0 will prepare you for bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications.
• Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD 2) - UVD 2 frees up your CPU for other tasks so you get The Ultimate Visual Experience™ for even the most processing-intensive content, including VC-1, H.264 and now MPEG-2. Also, take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture (PIP) capabilities.
• Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT) - AVT allows you to convert videos to H.264 and MPEG-2 formats up to 19x faster than when using a just CPU.3 Full 1080p files can be converted to H.264 and MPEG-2 up to 1.8x faster than real-time.
• Upscale Beyond 1080p - Watch the hottest Blu-ray movies or other HD content at full 1080p display resolution and beyond.
• Enhanced DVD Upscaling - Watch standard DVD movies in near high-definition quality with DVD upscaling. The GPU uses post processing algorithms to enhance standard and low resolution videos and movies on your HD display.
• Dynamic Contrast - Dynamic Contrast automatically adjusts the contrast and brightness during scenes to consistently deliver a crisp, vibrant picture.
• HDMI - Enjoy the latest audio technologies using HDMI with 7.1 digital surround sound support. Also, xvYCC support allows the user to enjoy a wider range of color when connected to a capable HDTV.
• Dynamic Power Management - ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series graphics cards deliver high performance when needed and conserve power when the demand on the graphics processor is low.
• More Performance Per Watt - ATI Radeon HD 4800 series delivers up to 2x the performance per watt of AMD’s previous generation GPUs.
  

Source:cdrinfo

Graphics card performance chart

Similar performance graphics cards grouped in to tiers. Top tier contain highest performance graphics card and performance decreases as going down tiers. It also include laptop and integrated chipsets from geforce and radeon.

You can use this hierarchy to compare the pricing between two cards, to see which one is a better deal and also to determine if an upgrade is worthwhile. Don't upgrade your graphics card unless the replacement card is three tiers higher.

GRAPHICS CARD HIERARCHY CHART

GeForce	Radeon
9800 GX2
8800 GTX, 8800 Ultra, 9800 GTX	3870 X2
8800 GT 512MB, 8800 GTS 512MB
8800 GTS 640 MB, 9600 GT	HD 2900 XT, 3870
8800 GS, 9600 GSO	3850 512MB
8800 GT 256MB, 8800 GTS 320MB	HD 2900 PRO, 3850 256MB
7950 GX2	X1950 XTX
7800 GTX 512, 7900 GTO, 7900 GTX	X1900 XT, X1950 XT, X1900 XTX
7800 GTX, 7900 GT, 7950 GT	X1800 XT, X1900 AIW, X1900 GT, X1950 PRO, HD 2900 GT
7800 GT, 7900 GS, Go 7950 GTX, 8600 GTS	X1800 XL, X1950 GT, Mobility X1800 XT
6800 Ultra, 7600 GT, 7800 GS, Go 7800 GTX, Go 7900 GTX, 8600 GT	X800 XT (& PE), X850 XT (& PE), X1650 XT, X1800 GTO, Mobility X1900, HD 2600 XT, 3650 (DDR3), 3670
6800 GT, 6800 GS (PCIe), Go 7800, Go 7900 GS, 8700M GT	X800 XL, X800 GTO2/GTO16, Mobility X800 XT, HD 2600 PRO, Mobility HD 2600 XT, 3650 (DDR2)
6800 GS (AGP), Go 6800 Ultra, Go 7600 GT, 8600M GT	X800 GTO 256mb, X800 PRO, X850 PRO, X1650 GT, Mobility HD 2600
6800, Go 6800, 7300 GT GDDR3, 7600 GS, Go 7700, 8600M GS	X800, X800 GTO 128mb, X1600 XT, X1650 PRO, Mobility X1800
6600 GT, 6800LE, 6800 XT, 7300 GT DDR2, Go 7600 (128 bit), 8500 GT	9800 XT, X700 PRO, X800 GT, X800 SE, Mobility X800, X1300 XT, X1600 PRO, HD 2400 XT
FX 5900, FX 5900 Ultra, FX 5950 Ultra, 6600 (128 bit), Go 6800 (128 bit)	9700, 9700 PRO, 9800, 9800 PRO, X700, X1300 PRO, Mobility X1450, X1550, Mobility X1600, Mobility X1700, HD 2400 PRO, Mobility HD 2400 XT, Mobility X2500, HD 3200
FX 5800 Ultra, FX 5900 XT, Go 6600, Go 7600 (64 bit), Go 8600M GS	9500 PRO, 9600 XT, Mobility 9800, 9800 PRO (128 bit), X600 XT, Mobility X700, X1050 (128 bit), Mobility X1350, Mobility X1400, Mobility X2300, Mobility HD 2400
4 Ti 4600, 4 Ti 4800, FX 5700 Ultra, 6200, 8400 GS	9600 PRO, Mobility 9700 (128 bit), 9800 LE, X600 PRO, Mobility X600, Mobility X1300, Xpress 1250, Mobility HD 2300
4 Ti4200, 4 Ti4400, 4 Ti4800 SE, FX 5600 Ultra, FX 5700, 6600 (64 bit), 7300 GS, 8400M GS	9500, 9550, 9600, Mobility 9600, X300, X1050 (64 bit)
3 Ti500, FX 5200 Ultra, FX 5600, FX 5700 LE, Go 5700, 6200 TC, 6600 LE, 7200 GS, 7300 LE	8500, 9100, 9000 PRO, 9600 LE, Mobility 9700 (64 bit), X300 SE, X1150
3, 3 Ti200, FX 5200 (128 bit), FX 5500, Go 5600, Go 6200, Go 6400, Go 7200, Go 7300, Go 7400 (64 bit)	9000, 9200, 9250, Mobility 9600 (64 bit), Mobility X300
FX 5200 (64 bit), 6100, 6150, Go 7200, Go 7400 (32 bit)	9200 SE, Xpress 200M, Xpress 1000, Xpress 1150
2 GTS, 4 MX 440, 2 Ultra, 2 Ti, 2 Ti 200	7500
256, 2 MX 200, 4 MX 420, 2 MX 400	SDR, LE, DDR, 7000, 7200
Nvidia TNT	ATI Rage 128

GeForce buyers guide

Most of the PC users even gamers doesn't have much knowledge about graphics cards. We have seen people buying graphics cards by looking at their price or picture above the package box. It is all wrong. Graphics card itself is like a small computer having motherboard, processor and memory. Main things we can note about graphics card are chipset, manufacturer and memory.

Judging a card's performance by memory is also wrong.. For eg: Geforce 6100LE with 512MB RAM will be like using 1GB RAM on Pentium 300Mhz CPU.
Before you buy a graphics card, you should do a detailed study about that card. Search in Google for comparison and benchmark with other cards of that range is a must.

Introduction to GeForce
GeForce is a brand of PC graphics chipsets designed by Nvidia. Top two brands in graphics card are Nvidia GeForce & ATI Radeon(current owned by AMD).
Budget wise Radeon cards are cheaper than Geforce considering similar performance. But in reliability and quality GeForce is better than Radeon.


Generations of GeForce
Every year Nvidia release new generations of GeForce cards with better performance and advanced technologies.

• GeForce 256 (1991)
• GeForce2 (2000)
• GeForce3 (2001)
• GeForce4 (2002)
• GeForce FX (2003)
• GeForce 6 (2004)
• GeForce 7 (2005 - 2006)
• GeForce 8 (2007) *
  
• GeForce 9 (2008) *
  

* series support DirectX 10

Chipset Number

Every GeForce chipset have a number. for eg: 8600. First digit i.e. 8 is the series/generation and the rest digits are models of that series (bigger number will have higher performance and price.. see Product Naming Scheme)

If we look at GeForce 7 series chipsets. There are several models like 7100, 7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950..

• 7100 is the cheapest and lowest in performance. Normally used in inbuilt motherboard graphics and all. Can run games only at low resolution and details.
• 7200, 7300 is for gamers who cannot afford much. They can run games at low resolution and medium details.
• 7600 for budget gamers. They can run games at medium resolution and medium/high details.
• 7800 is for high end gamers. They can run games at high resolution and high details.
• 7900, 7950 are for hardcore gamers who want best. They can run games at max resolution and details.
  

* Note that the all cards will age. Growth of graphics & gaming industry is in exponential rate. Newer games will have more requirements. So we will need to buy new cards every years or 2..

New series cards are more powerful than older series and have lots of supports for current and future games..
For eg: benchmarks proves that GeForce 9400 card = GeForce 8600 = GeForce 7800 in performance..

Product Naming Scheme (source: wikipedia)
This scheme is only applicable to the GeForce FX and above series video cards, however GeForce4 and earlier cards follow a similar pattern.

* Shader amount compares the number of shaders pipelines or units in that particular model range to the highest model possible in the generation.

Card Suffixes
There are suffixes like LE, GS, GT, GTS and GTX/Ultra besides these numbers which are performance factor.

• GTX/Ultra is for mad gamers who can spend lots of money for gaming equipments.. This monster is designed to run future games(after a year) in max quality.
• GTS is for for hardcore gamers.. This one is designed to run current and upcoming games in max quality.
• GS, GT are for normal gamers who cant afford too mch high pricy cards.. This can run current games in max/high quality.. Best choice if u upgrade ur pc regulary. GT is faster than GS.
• LE is stripped down version. It is cheapest and weakest..
  

Gaming Performance vs. Integrated Graphics
Just an example to show the performance difference between some of latest cards. This give more idea about performance variation by chipsets. (Source: nvida website)
GeForce 9800 - 22x
GeForce 8800 - 18x
GeForce 9600 - 15x
GeForce 7900 - 14x
GeForce 8600 - 13x
GeForce 8500 - 5x
GeForce 8400 - 3.8x

Memory
Don't be fooled into thinking the more the memory more performance. Benchmarks proves that high memory doesn't benefit anything in gaming performance unless u run games at very high resolution.

Memory bandwidth is more important than the amount of memory on the card. 3D performance is defined by the speed at which information can get to the GPU , and the memory bandwidth determines just how quickly the graphics processor can get data to and from the memory built onto the graphics card. The greater the bandwidth, the better. There are several memory types like GDDR, GDDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4,etc. Current generation cards uses GDD3 memory. In future it will be GDDR4.