The RV870 Story: AMD Showing up to the Fight
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 14, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Unlike a product review, there’s very little I can do to conclude here. There’s no buying recommendation, no performance to summarize. Even as an analytical piece there’s not much for me to conclude based on what I’ve learned at this point. When I wrote The RV770 Story I was convinced that ATI had embraced a new, refocused approach to GPU design, only to learn that they nearly threw out all of the learnings with the RV870.
The Northern Islands GPUs, due out later this year, were surely designed before anyone knew how RV870 would play out. Much less whether or not Fermi/GF100 would be this late.
I’m not sure any of what we’ve seen thus far in the history leading up to the RV770 or RV870 can tell us what we should expect from Northern Islands. While we can’t conclude about ATI’s future products, I do believe I have learned a considerable amount about how AMD’s graphics division works.
Carrell told me that the process of doing a product is not a logical process. There's logic in it, but it's not a logical process. It's an argumentative process. Not in the sense of having conflicts, but rather developing new data when the data isn't all there. When companies like AMD and NVIDIA do a product the engineers don't know all of the answers, and the knowledge they do have isn't binary - it's probability, it's weight, it's guesses. Sometimes they guess right, and sometimes they guess very wrong. The best they can do is to all weigh in with their individual experiences and together come up with the best group of guesses to implement. Over the years it seems that ATI has learned to, as much as possible, have all members of its team bought in to the product they're building.
The graphics team’s dedication and experience in jumping to new process technologies seems to have paid off with this generation. The move from TSMC to Global Foundries will surely challenge them once more. It’s not all about process technology though. The team’s focus on schedule and execution was a much needed addition to the company’s repertoire.
Carrell Killebrew helped turn ATI from a traditional GPU company with a poor track record, to one that could be known for its execution. The past three product generations have been executed extremely well. Regardless of whether you're an AMD, Intel or NVIDIA fan, you must give credit where it's due. The past couple of years have shown us a dramatic turn around from the graphics group at AMD. To go from the shakiness of the R500 and R600 GPUs to solidly executing on the RV670, 770 and 870 year after year is praiseworthy. I almost wonder if AMD’s CPU team could learn from the graphics group's execution. I do hope that along with the ATI acquisition came the open mindedness to learn from one another.
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n7 - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Another great story told.Thanx, Anand.
MrK6 - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
What a great piece. Thank you for taking the time to put this together; it's one of the best tech articles I've read.archcommus - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Haven't even read the whole thing yet but I can already say this is excellent. Thank you, Anand.indicator - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Hi allI felt I had to register here after reading this article , what a fantastic insight into everything that goes into making these GPU's and the dedication and talent it takes to be so creative.
Great to see Anands enthusiasm for the industry come across in the article too
I've been coming here and reading Anandtech since around the mid ninties I guess , it is a superb source of information , I look forward to every new article/review posted.
Keep it up guys
Lee
(uk)
d3x7r0 - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Very very good article as usual in this website. AnandTech has been one of my favourite sites in the area for so long I don't even remember how I found out about the website, I actually believe I was still in 56k when I first came here.Anyway reading this article made me speculate on something (and please correct me if I'm wrong): If I got the timings right AMD-ATI should be working on the Northern Islands since the Radeon HD4xxx series days so the same issues they had with the HD5xxx series would be in the past. If this is true it means they know the HD4xxx were a success from the beginning of the process (or near it) and as such I can't but help it be even more excited to see what the next generation of ATI cards has in store.
It's such a good time to be an ATI fan it's not even funny :D
Atlantis6000bc - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Those kind of article are the prime reason why I keep coming back to Anand....keep 'em comingThe13thWizard - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Thanks Anand! Thats the best IT article Ive ever read! Very toughtfull and interesting!arnavvdesai - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
Really helps understand the industry a lot more. I really wish AMD would take a cue from its graphics division and really start hammering out what kind of chips do they want to build. However, they have their own set of challenges as Intel unlike NVIDIA is really really good on the foundry side as well.However, with gaming becoming more and more centered on consoles, does ATi have something cooking for the next generation of consoles? Would love Anand to ask them something about that. Do they believe that they will continue to sell enough cards to continue recouping their costs of designing and manufacturing them.
Vishnu Narayanan S - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
First of all, hats off to you for this amazing article.... Its these articles that bind us to the Anandtech website for years and years.I sincerely hope and request you to provide similar in-depth and "behind the scenes" stories from NVIDIA and Intel. Just to satisfy the FANbois... lol
fausto412 - Sunday, February 14, 2010 - link
once i started reading i couldn't stop. for a geek like me this was almost like sex:) keep them coming!