en.hw-lab.com AMD Radeon HD 6800 series cards (AMD Barts)
Meet the new series of graphic cards — specification and architecture analysis
Under the sun
HD 6800 positioning among other AMD graphic cards
The following AMD slide, clearly illustrates AMD Radeon HD 6800 series card positioning in the hierarchy of AMD products:
As we see, there are some noticeable changes made. Current ATI Radeon HD 5800 series cards are going to be replaced by two new solutions:
AMD Radeon HD 6800 graphic cards represents AMD products in the $150-250 price segments, while later, new cards based on AMD “Cayman” die will take place in higher than HD 5800 series card segment. ATI Radeon HD 5700 series cards yet continue to exist.
The next slide demonstrates new series card positioning in reference with card performance:
Thereby, by the end of year 2010 there will be four series of AMD graphic cards instead of three ones currently available. In the 4th quarter 2010 we will see a substitution card for ATI Radeon HD 5970 — AMD Radeon HD 6990 — new AMD dual-core flagship. The single-GPU high-end section will include AMD Radeon HD 6950 and Radeon HD 6970 cards with performance level significantly greater than ATI Radeon HD 5850 or Radeon HD 5870 have. So basically, AMD Radeon HD 6800 models are meant to shift HD 5800 series cards, while ATI Radeon HD 5770 is kept aside from that competition and, as planned, will be relocated in low-end segment of AMD products.
As a result of changes in card positioning, we have AMD Radeon HD 6800 card with $150-250 price tags and performance level almost comparable ATI Radeon HD 5800 cards that cost more.
Market positioning
AMD Radeon HD 6800 are planned stand against NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 cards. In future, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 and GeForce GTX 480 will have to deal with AMD “Cayman” based graphic solutions that are yet not presented. AMD Radeon HD 6990 (“Antilles”) will be the top-shelf card on the market. But, right now lets get back to already announced AMD Radeon HD 6800 graphic cards.
The same time the cards have been introduced, NVIDIA have announced retail price drop for several graphic cards.
In the end, here is what $150-250 graphic card market looks like:
| HD 5770 | GTX 460 768MB | HD 6850 | HD 5830 | GTX 460 1GB | HD 6870 | HD 5850 | GTX 470 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | Juniper XT | GF104 | Barts Pro | Cypress | GF104 | Barts XT | Cypress Pro | GF100 |
| Process technology | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm |
| Transistor count, mln. | 1040 | 1950 | 1700 | 2154 | 1950 | 1700 | 2154 | 3200 |
| Shader Units | 800 | 336 | 960 | 1120 | 336 | 1120 | 1440 | 448 |
| TMU | 40 | 56 | 48 | 56 | 64 | 56 | 72 | 56 |
| ROPs | 16 | 24 | 32 | 16 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 40 |
| GPU clock | 850 MHz | 675 MHz | 775 MHz | 800 MHz | 675 MHz | 900 MHz | 725 MHz | 607 MHz |
| SDRAM type | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 768 MB GDDR5 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 1280 MB GDDR5 |
| Memory bus width | 128 bit | 192 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 320 bit |
| Memory clock | 1200 MHz | 900 MHz | 1000 MHz | 1000 MHz | 900 MHz | 1050 MHz | 1000 MHz | 837 MHz |
| Recommended retail price | $140 | $160 | $180 | $190 | $200 | $240 | $260 | $260 |
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