Anyone familiar with the
constantly shifting release dates and delays that characterize GPU refresh cycles will have been impressed by ATI's execution of the
Evergreen series release. Starting out
at the top with its
uber-performance parts, the company kept to an
aggressive schedule over the winter and can now boast a
fully fleshed out family of DirectX 11 graphics processors built under a 40nm process. The fact that NVIDIA has yet to give us even
one DX11 product is testament to the enormity of this feat. But as dedicated geeks we want more than just the achievements, we want to know the ins and outs of ATI's resurgence and the decisions that led to its present position of being the market leader in features and mindshare, if not sales. To sate that curiosity, we have our good friend
Anand Shimpi with a frankly unmissable retrospective on the development of the RV870 GPU that was to become the Evergreen chips we know today. He delves into the internal planning changes that took place after the delay of the R5xx series, the balancing of marketing and engineering ambitions, and even a bit of info on features that didn't quite make it into the HD 5xxx range. Hit the source link for all that precious knowledge.
posted February 22nd 2010 5:18AM
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
Read this a while ago, one of the best reads in a LONG time imo. The "imagine it said more engineer-y" part had me burst out laughing.
This was a great article from Anand. I thought the whole conspiracy about sunspot (eyefinity) was pretty interesting.
I had read this approximately a week ago and frankly is one of the best reads on the Internets in a while. A real good followup after his amazing SSD workings article.
I'm curious to see what Fermi would look like in the scale comparison. Would it be safe to say 33% bigger, as it has about that many more transistors than Evergreen?
Wait... but PC gaming is dying isn't it? Why do we need such things anymore!
@MThorne I assume that was sarcasm. However, I suspect it's largely a demo reel they can use to promote their brand for laptop and mobile products, game console deals, and low-end video cards. Presumably some of the technology seeps down into those products too.
@MThorne
PC gaming is dying? I thought it was proclaimed dead at least a decade or so ago... it just keeps resurrecting somehow.
@Naris
no, it didn't resurrect if it never died. people just keep writing obituaries for some reason.
@MThorne not to start a "master race" war about whether PC, Wii, 360, or PS3 or a combination is best, but we've been told that the ease of PC-game piracy compared to consoles will kill it off: http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/happilydyingsince1985.png
Revenue for 08 was $13 billion for PC games out of $32 billion for all console games. This means that console revenue dwarfs PC gaming, but if you think of the PC as a independent console, its the highest grossing console above the Wii, 360, and PS3 accounting for 40% of revenue.
@Ducman69 Sales figures for PC gaming are largely useless without including online services as large as Steam - when was the last time you even saw a PC section in Gamestop?
@MThorne ... and what exactly do you think goes into consoles as the graphics processor?
@YpoCaramel certainly not an RV870 and never have I seen a desktop GPU used in a console, but I see your point.
Always impressed with the level of research and thought that Anand puts into his articles.
Really great read. Can't believe there's only 12 comments so far.