The RV870 Story: AMD Showing up to the Fight
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 14, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Other Train - Building a Huge RV870
While the Radeon HD 5800 series just launched last September, discussions of what the GPUs would be started back in 2006.
Going into the fall of 2007 ATI had a rough outline of what the Evergreen family was going to look like. ATI was pretty well aware of DirectX 11 and Microsoft’s schedule for Windows 7. They didn’t know the exact day it would come out, but ATI knew when to prepare for. This was going to be another one of those market bulges that they had to align themselves with. Evergreen had to be ready by Q3 2009, but what would it look like?
Carrell wanted another RV770. He believed in the design he proposed earlier, he wanted something svelte and affordable. The problem, as I mentioned earlier, was RV770 had no credibility internally. This was 2007, RV770 didn’t hit until a year later and even up to the first day reviews went live there were skeptics within ATI.
Marketing didn’t like the idea of building another RV770. No one in the press liked R600 and ATI was coming under serious fire. It didn’t help that AMD had just acquired ATI and the CPU business was struggling as well. Someone had to start making money. Ultimately, marketing didn’t want to be on the hook two generations in a row for not being at the absolute top.
It’s difficult to put PR spin on why you’re not the fastest, especially in a market that traditionally rewards the kingpin. Marketing didn’t want another RV770, they wanted an NVIDIA killer. At the time, no one knew that the 770 would be an NVIDIA killer. They thought they just needed to build something huge.
AMD's new GPU strategy...but only for the RV770
From August through November 2007, Carrell Killebrew came very close to quitting. The argument to build a huge RV870 because NVIDIA was going to build a huge competitor infuriated him. It was the exact thinking he fought so hard against just a year earlier with the RV770. One sign of a great leader is someone who genuinely believes in himself. Carrell believed his RV770 strategy was right. And everyone else was trying to get him to admit he was wrong, before the RV770 ever saw the light of day.
Even Rick Bergman, a supporter of Carrell’s in the 770 design discussions, agreed that it might make sense to build something a bit more aggressive with 870. It might not be such a bad idea for ATI to pop their heads up every now and then. Surprise NVIDIA with RV670, 770 and then build a huge chip with 870.
While today we know that the smaller die strategy worked, ATI was actually doing the sensible thing by not making another RV770. If you’re already taking a huge risk, is there any sense in taking another one? Or do you hedge your bets? Doing the former is considered juvenile, the latter - levelheaded.
Carrell didn’t buy into it. But his options were limited. He could either quit, or shut up and let the chips fall where they may.
A comparison of die sizes - to scale.
What resulted was sort of a lame compromise. The final PRS was left without a die size spec. Carrell agreed to make the RV870 at least 2x the performance of what they were expecting to get out of the RV770. I call it a lame compromise because engineering took that as a green light to build a big chip. They were ready to build something at least 20mm on a side, probably 22mm after feature creep.
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papapapapapapapababy - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Ok, ok, great read, but i have to hate a bit, 1,2,3 GO! hey Carrell here is my top priority feature for your next PRS1 -Drivers that dont suck ass-
"The performance was still a problem and the RV740 was mostly lost as a product" ...
the fuk? the 4770 is the BEST card i ever had, PERIOD. cheap, fast, cool, the perfect RV770, thanks !
bla bla Carrell "He’s single handedly responsible for getting Eyefinity included in the Evergreen stack"
Meh? who gives a sht. , Carrell give me console like gpu scaling, so we can finally play crysis at 1080p, another one for that PRS
"Carrell went to David Glenn, head of software engineering at ATI and asked"
drivers that dont suck, please?
" There were also game compatibility concerns that made ATI not interested in the software approach"
Lol i wonder why? i think i know why. Hardware, hardware, what about the software,Carrell?
ok, thats it. not much to complain this time, flawless job ati guys
f0d - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
long time reader/first time postingive never felt the need to post anything but with this article i really wanted to say:
"thank you"
the insights we get in these articles is amazing (i also read the first when it was done)
i like the "no technical or maketing bs" writing of this story and all the little pieces of information like with the eyefinity story and sideport
please do as much of these type of stories as possible - it must be difficult to talk to the right people and get the right information out of them and also be allowed to publish it but it makes a great read
Robert Kooijman - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Awesome article Anand!Also specially created an account to inform you how impressed I am with articles like these. A real treat these behind the scenes stories in non-marketing language. Keep 'm coming, compliments!
- Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
bravowhen do the (tech industry) book's come out??
Kryten - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Informative, interesting, inspirational, edifying and very well written. Here's hoping for more research and articles like this.greenguy - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Hi Anand, I've been reading your stuff for 3 years or so, I just created an account to tell you how awesome that article was. Very nice work. This sort of content is why I read Anandtech. (My other favorite articles have been the SSD articles and the i5-750 article.)I especially like to hear about AMD/ATI - I like having a serious competitor to Intel out there, and I commend AMD for opening up their graphics card documentation. I hope that they continue to fund the Linux driver development (both open and closed source). I also hope their CPU division can put the heat on Intel again, especially on the low power front.
at80eighty - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Anand I was just telling someone yesterday how I wish you guys got more popularity for the different approach you guys havebetween articles like this and the new beta Bench tab - I think I'm really looking forward to your proposed changes you promised this year
insurgent - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
I had a really great time reading the article, thanks!Markstar - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Also a big thank you from me for this wonderful article.It's exactly these kind of stories that I hope to find here every morning when I start the day.
JimmiG - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Well the late changes would explain why the RV870 isn't "perfect" like the 770 was. At every price point except at the high-end, it delivers more features, but less or similar performance as the previous generation. For example the 5770 is slower than the 4870, the 5750 is about the same speed and price as the 4850 and so on. Also at the high-end it's more expensive than the 4800-series ever were - the 4870 was only $299 at launch, the 5870 is still at least $399. By this month in 2009, the 4870 was down to $249!