ATI Radeon RV740 prototype 40nm video card gets reviewed, loved on
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted February 26th 2009 12:44PM
posted February 26th 2009 12:44PM
The Guru of 3D (not an actual guru, by the way) got its hands on a prototype ATI Radeon RV740 video card, and has been kind enough to put the thing through its paces. This is the company's first 40nm video card and while the review should all be taken with a grain of salt -- being "done with beta drivers and an early engineering sample board" -- preliminary results are quite positive. The card performs "fairly close to a Radeon HD 4850," something you don't often hear about in cards retailing for less than a hundred bucks. In fact, the reviewer was so taken by the card's performance at this price point that he predicts that this thing will be responsible for nothing less than "another shift in current mid-range pricing." But don't wait until the April release date to see this thing in action -- hit the read link for the big review.
[Thanks, Weston]
[Thanks, Weston]
is it wrong to want to make love to the heat sink design?
To sharp copper fins and a spinning fan? Yes, I will have to go with yes that is wrong. Unless you're into that kind of thing.
Speaking from experience, I don't recommend it.
Looks like a Zalman VF900-Cu for anyone wondering
Actually I believe it's the Zalman VF900-Cu/Sausage slicer!
clearly its the Zalman VF900-CuCumber slicer
duhh
Very nice!
Hopefully this and ATI's sucess with 4800 are a sign of good times for the company :)
Can't wait to see these :D
wow the new card beats even the 4830(256bit) with a 128bit interface? this is good news for gamers with a budget.
Is that a heatsink? Or are you happy to see me? LOL
My heatsink's bigger than your heatsink!
HAHA, My heatsink fills up your enter empty slot!
I've got two large water copper blocks with a lot of pipe!
Very nice, now while these less 100USD cards are nice lets see them use this tech and make 40nm laptop cards.
Also agree sexy heatsink.
Hopefully, this will allow PC gaming to grow, where more can play modern PC games without breaking the bank. : )
Wait, if it beats the HD4830 and is slightly slower than the HD4850, why isn't it called the HD4840 instead of the HD4750?
cuz that would make sense
read his article's first page....
Ah, sorry, my mistake, I read somewhere else that the HD4750 would be the official name...
Can we start doing the videocard w/ audio thing so I can just output HDMI to my TV instead of messing around with extra cables for audio? Peace out, DVI. kthx.
ATI already do.
ati offers audio through hdmi for me o.o;; although i have a 4870 just go get the drivers from amd...
Ah... see, I should have sided with ATI this time around.
I have an NVidia GeForce 9800 GS, it not only does audio over HDMI but DVI as well - yes, audio through the DVI port; DVI and HDMI both use the same pins for the TMDS channels and the a/v signals are muxed. I assume that there's a dual-HDMI version of the card and they just stuck a DVI out instead of HDMI out adapter on it to give the HDMI/DVI version.
@ John
Wait, really? I have a 9800 GTX+ SSC with dual DVI out so I'm assuming I can do the same thing.
Annnd, yes! it appears I can with the included DVI to HDMI adapter I failed to notice when I ripped the box open. Thanks to everyone involved in this thread. Next time, I'll Google my way through it from the start.
< 3
The issue now is that the 4870 (512 mb) is only like.. 150 after rebates.. so.. ATI really needs to start offering a new high end ..
just give them a month or so. ati/amd official pricing has rarely (if ever) influenced street prices which already at launch often 25% lower.
From what I understand, this is a fairly low-end card right? If that's true, then the high-end one should be a killer!
This one is mid-range. But when they decide to use the 40nm tech in something higher-end, it may mean Crysis can be played properly for once. Say, 2560x1600x30fps, even with all quality settings active.
60fps may still have to wait a while. But we may also have higher-res displays by then... 3D is coming soon, but just imagine trying to drive 3 displays (3 planes: close, middle, distance) at 2560x1600x30fps in Crysis. Forget about a fuller 3D environment with 10+ distance planes for a while...
@Michael
I don't see what the big issue is. The card will likely render the same amount of information but send it to different panes. The hard part will be on the monitor manufacturers' side where they have to decode the video and send it to the proper pane.
i.e. the GPU doesn't need to render the whole scene 10 times for a 10-pane monitor.
Monitors don't decode the video - they just display what they are told.
No, the card doesn't have to render the scene 10 times, but it does have to render the pixels for each level. It's not increasing the number of objects, but the number of pixels. A 2560x1600 screen has 4 megapixels; if it has ten layers, it's effectively a 40MP display. It won't take 10x the original time to render since the original objects didn't change, but it will be a dramatic increase anyway.
Now, if the card did just send to the monitor a vector representation and let it draw it out, that would change things entirely. That might happen in time; it would be a logical progression from where we've come now in shifting image processing from the CPU to the GPU.
(It might be easier if the viewer wore a position sensor. The image could then just be drawn from that perspective. It would only work for a single viewer, but it work with current display technology.)
@Michael
@skeo
What kind of stupid 3D technology are you guys talking about. There is only two eyes, stereo vision makes 3D. Twice the render speed/fillrate would be sufficient.
Anyone wanna tell me why they still include S-video on these things? Really? is anybody going to run that badass of a card out to S-video?
Why not? S-Video isn't as good as RGB, yet in one cable you get good quality SD video.
It's not S-video, it's HDTV. It uses an adapter to component video (or S-video or composite video, if you desire; my adapter has all three). It is analog either way, but it can handle HD 1080p, not just the SD 480i of S-video.
HDTV has a 7-pin or 9-pin (with video-in) mini-DIN, while S-video is only 4-pin. Though the S-video 4-pin can plug directly into the HDTV jack.
I need me a good card emmhmmm.
NICE