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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
132 Comments
View All Comments
wlee15 - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
The USS Hornet is a carrier not a battleship.For shame Anand For Shame!
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, February 15, 2010 - link
wow - you're totally right, I can't believe I made that mistake. Looks like Ryan or Jarred caught it shortly after it went live though, whew :)And yes, for the record, I know the difference between an aircraft carrier and a battleship :)
Take care,
Anand
just4U - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
LIES!!!!(hah)
Sahrin - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Thank you - I was worried I'd be the only one to point this one out.Thank you Anand! This stuff is incredible. Just a few weeks ago I was looking back on the RV770 article and wishing it could be done again.
Kudos as well are due to AMD's PR guys - for having the courage to let the engineers sit down with the press, instead of needing to be there as minders. I guarantee you that every single time, the same story told by a marketer of a product and by the guy whose passion created the product will be a thousand times more effectively conveyed by the engineer. Marketers have value - I'm not trying to write them off.
I don't know what I can do for AT and AMD to thank them for making articles like this happen. Aside from buying Cypress and being a reader - but if there is anything we can do to ensure these articles keep coming (bombard Meyer with Faxes?) let me be the first to sign up. (And maybe if we could get access to AMD's CPU guys as well, to provide a balance to the excellent information we get from Intel).
Dianoda - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
This article was a real treat, keep 'em coming...dzx - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
I created an account just to give thanks for such a well written, informative article. I can sense you have just as much passion for the technology as the engineers and architects who create it. Simply a pleasure to read.gralex - Friday, February 26, 2010 - link
Thanx. I have nothing more to add that hasn't been said already in the above comments, just thanks.As for ATI vs. NVIDIA, maybe i'm believing the hype but AMD seems awfully conservative at the moment. It's totally working for them, of course, but I'm liking the whole CUDA, Tegra2, Ion, Optimus momentum Nvidia might finally be gaining right now. Obviously they messed it up with a ton of rebranding making a 5xxx purchase a no-brainer right now... I just LOVE the way Nvidia was looking cornered and thought up a number of ways to get out. I hope these two keep up the healthy rivalry for many years to come, for ALL of us:-)
phaxmohdem - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Wow. This was perhaps the first article I've read in a long time I read cover-to-cover, and couldn't put down. AT is my favorite tech review site, but I find myself reading the first two pages or so, skipping around to various benchmark pages, then reading the summary. This piece was remarkably intriguing and thought provoking. I look forward to the RV970 story, or perhaps better yet, the GF100 story.Keep em coming!
gimmeausername - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Did you just say RV970?I think you've just made some folks at AMD flip out by using that code name. :D
coolhardware - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
As others have mentioned, articles like this one really put Anandtech head and shoulders above the competition. It is so very interesting to find out the real world story behind the video cards. What a wonderful Valentine's Day treat :-).Thanks for all your hard work Anand, I really appreciate it!