ATI Mobility HD 3870 Coming in March

Actually Nvidia has sold more than 2 million 8800 cards so far and climbing. They outsell ATi by 3 or 4 to one and I don't see any products coming that will signifigantly change that. Nvidia's revenue last quarter 1.2 billion. The ATI division of AMD was 300 something million.

 

That ARS Technica was a really good article. A couple of points I didn't consider. Good find GreatG****Ape.

 

Well that's a pretty broad number for all GF8800 cards since that includes the GF8800GTX, GTS-640, GTS-320, Ultra, GT, GS, GTS-112, GTS-512; so 2 million sofar would be a pretty small number in 16 months. Considering that the entire discrete market is about 100 million chips a year that means that less than 2% of those were GF8800s. Not that impressive as a 'reason to be' for high-end devs. The PS3 out 1 month less than the GF8800 sold how many units? 10.5 million units, The Xbox even more, and the Wii even more. So that's like 40 million consoles, and then over 98 million weaker discrete GPUs, doesn't sound good.

So the influence of Uber-rigs on the market isn't really that big.

The entire 'above $250' graphics market does about 500 thousand units a quarter.

Well actually the presence of a competitor in the space alone already changed that. And with analysts saying they don't expect 2008 to be like 2007, I doubt you'll see a continuation of those numbers. Not even the R700 and T200 will get sales going like that again. 2007 was a great year for graphics cards, HD media, and game launches, this year, doesn't look anywhere near as good.

Main thing to remember is like the brokers say, past performance is no guarantee of future returns.

 

^ talk about a stubborn know-it-all eh

i just hope the mobile 3870 does not have to cut too much out to fit in a laptop, could be a great card if they get it right.

 

Yea.. agreed.

BTW, desktop will not go away, but they will come in the form of something like the Asus C90.. Maybe with modules attachment (like you can swap the screen with a bigger one, remember the Samsung M70?)

But to make our ape into a gorilla, I ll just say, desktop will die in a few years time.... (no offense thou)

 

Can you clarify what you are trying to say in this paragraph? I am also having trouble figuring out how this an economy of scale if I am reading it correctly.

 

O.O.. He only had 3 commas and 3 interpunct, no wonder you can't understand.. me neither.

 

You know, I was thinking about the notebook and desktop debate and "OMG notebooks will obsolete desktops" and then I thought about the one thing that's informed just about every article I've written thus far. The one thing that I think made my accessible.

I thought about my dad. He's 55, and he has plenty of disposable income, and he just wants his computer to work and be comfortable using it.

And he does not want a laptop.

And that is why laptops won't ever completely overtake desktops. Because frankly, they're ergonomically AWFUL. Sure, when I want to hammer out a quick article/story, I might lay in bed and work on my laptop.

If I'm doing serious work on a serious script, especially redrafting, a full sized keyboard, a pair of monitors, a full sized mouse, full sized speakers, and a soft, comfortable chair...

Emulation and modern anthology packs should've killed classic video games, but they still thrive on the secondary market. Why? Because playing the actual cartridge with the original controller just FEELS right.

The only way a notebook duplicates the feel and comfort of a desktop is if you hook everything up to it, all of these extra peripherals, at which point a lot of users might wonder why they bothered buying a notebook in the first place.

You know why notebooks aren't ever gonna completely obsolete desktops? Because desktops can offer a better user experience. Because regular consumers like my dad would rather just sit at their desk, turn on their 19" screen, reduce the resolution so everything's bigger and clearer, and go about their business.

Oh, and coupling machines like iMacs and the Gateway One with laptops only completely misses the point of those machines. They are superficially similar to laptops with major exceptions: they are more or less landbound the way desktops are, and they use full size peripherals.

And as someone who's lived off a laptop before, I can tell you I was all too happy to switch back to a desktop and a laptop. Disconnecting and reconnecting all that crap gets tiresome real fast.

You can prattle on about the future all you want and call yourself some kind of forward-looking thinker, but you're missing the big picture that, if you'll indulge me, makes my consumer guides accessible. I pay attention to regular people. And a lot of them aren't interested in notebooks.

 

Pulp I have to disagree with you on that one. In this day and age laptops can be as simple if not more simple than desktops. Its not tedious disconnecting a couple wires when you sit down, for example all I do is bring my laptop back from class and plug in my power cable, speaker cable, and mouse. Those with bluetooth can have everything connected with the push of the power button. Also, I'm not sure how a desktop setup offers a comfortable chair exclusively

My personal opinion is that desktops will eventually be outsold by laptops but they will always around because they are a more powerful and economic option for those that don't need mobility. Just like games developed for the vastly larger console audience are ported to the PC because there is still money to be made there will always be powerful desktop hardware available because the market will be there.

 

I think we pretty much feel the same way here, but for me, constantly plugging three things in whenever I got home was a chore, only exacerbated when I got a larger monitor, external keyboard, external hard drive...

I'll readily admit notebooks will outsell desktops. Of course they will. THAT'S logical and clearly where things are going. I for the most part heartily agree with your points.

I think a lot of people are crying "the sky is falling" particularly because sales of some more recent PC games have been low (my theory? Crysis and UT3 are bad games), and because PC game sales are consistently lower than console game sales. But as long as there are 10+ million World of Warcraft subscribers and television channels devoted to Starcraft in South Korea, I have this sneaking suspicion PC gaming will be around for a while yet. And, concordantly, as long as PC gaming survives, desktop PCs will survive because game technology will always evolve to stress the hardware available.

 

Again you're incorrect. Guidance is already above seasonality for the next quarter and Nvidia's growth rate continues. Plus they will have their next generation architecture coming this year which from all reports is a major leap in performance once again.
They have NO debt and plenty of cash to develop products which have left the competition gasping for air.

 

Get a dock or a usb hub...

 

Alright, well away for the weekend, so I'll try to answer this now 'briefly' at the end of work.

With the move going towards more global performance in Fusion/Larabee you will see those solutions take over, and people will centralize the processing units, you are going to see less specialization on the graphics gards which will lose one of their biggest meaty markets the OEM lew-mid level.
The move away from low-end graphics cards for even the basic OEM platform will get worse with fusion and larabee which will kill the integrated market and the discrete, this will mean the focus of R&D and production will be in those areas, and the benefits of high-end graphics cards no longer trickle down the same way and as such you can't share R&D and cost of production of the low end, meaning costs go up, and in all likelyhood refreshes take longer since it takes longer to recoup higher investment.

So for this discussion the economies of scale work in favour of developing for the low end more than ever for both the tech companies and for the game developers, where without low end scaling they can't recoup much of their costs.

For the more modular point of view look at the early statements by intel and AMD focusing on their fusion style products having some scalability by adding numbers, the biggest problem though with things like games (versus other workloads) is the I/O would be insane for real-time gameplay whereas rendering a video or other usually CPU intensive tasks can be done out of sequence and then recombined so scalability works better for them, so that scalable future is great for home movie editors is perfect, and many people wouldn't even need more power than is offered by one core, but the option for more wouldn't benefit the gamer in the same way and over the lifetime of a home user 3-4 similar cores would be a big improvement, but a gamer would get far less than having that improvement happen at the package level at least because the I/O overhead would be huge. Also making the MoBo for this starts getting interesting and a very multi-layer PCB.

As for the modular part more than before the Fusion/Larabee solutions will move the space even further into the notebook + iMac space where the benifits of docking stations or faster wireless external hardware becomes the focus of consumers and producers. Alot of the drawbacks of the current laptops can be reduced or removed.

A single point of heat could make for more efficient global cooling designs for laptops (HDDs won't be an issue anymore) you do unfortunately have more transistors packed together, but more elaborate dedicated solutions can focus on one cooling rather than worrying about waste heat from one affecting the others.

Anywhoo, for the origin of this discussion the focus of both the producers and the consumers is going to affect the way that games are targeted, just look at the reaction to Crysis as a perfect example, I think it's promising that you can't play it with everything maxed, but many people thought they should be able to play 'very high' on their single core rigs with GF7600/X1600 graphics.

 

That had nothing to do with it. Crysis sold over 1 million copies in less than 3 months, which is good for PC or console. No one is saying the sky is falling, except those that think change is a bad thing. We're jsut saying the market will change and in order to adapt the game developers will target the mobile and mid to low-end more.

You use 2 games as the saviours and flag bearers of PC gaming that I could play on my 5 year old DELL 5150, why are powerful desktop PCs needed for those? The one game you mention that does need uber hardware, Crysis, is one you saying had bad sales in your opinion. You argument better fits 2.0's where it's the games that are sold to millions of average users that can play it on their aged or weak units. The most popular games out there play on the most baseline hardware. If anything your examples support 2.0's statements.

As for your other post I think your misunderstanding of what I or 2.0 mean can be summed up in your belief that the iMAC or ONE style PCs have anything to do with the development of uber desktop PCs versus development of portables. We're not talking about how you work or where you work and that the desk or desktop space will dissapear, but that the computers traditionally associated with desktops will dissapear, which will further hamper the uber end of this segment since the profitable middle-low end dissapears.

Your example of your dad doesn't work either, pleople like him (and many people's parents or other relatives) doen't want an uber desktop any more than a laptop, from the sounds of things he wants a CRT based surfing and M$ word rig, how does that support your argument, since he would be another thin client candidate as long as it's hooked up to a CRT that could make the text large. Give him an Apple mini or equivalent and make it easy to use like any other appliance and he's good to go. So that doesn't help the argument for traditional desktops just for having any apliance-pc at the desk.

Also your inability to see or use the benefits of a docking station and then complain about the very same issues they solve makes me wonder about your ability to see where the hybrid PC is and is heading.

The talk of a docking station for the Macbooks (especially Macbook AIR) that is essentially a 20-24" LCD docking station is very similar to the idea of a tablet on a stick where you retain all the benefits of both, since for most people evern right now a T7250 with an HD2400/GF8500 would be more than enough power. As we move forward only video editing and similar tasks will realy push the average person's PCs forward until the next great Luna/Aqua leap.

Either way I'm not arguing people won't still work at their desks, but for 2.0's original comment, iMAC and Gateway ONEs equally inhibit the drive to develop things for the uber segment, add to that dedicated media hubs and consoles and things definitely aren't improving for that segment.

That was the point, not the destruction of desktops for the sake of desktops

Anywhoo, when I hear the word 'accesible' I think of how Wiki is more accessible than white papers and technical docs, but it sure doesn't make Wiki credible as a source over the hard data.

 

Where did nVidia give guidance on it's Enthusiast segment, and not the company as a whole? I think you're confusing the two. nVidia may be expecting higher sales figures and profits, but where does their guidance say anything near term about the high-end market. Second, if both their growth rates continue, then they will continue to lose market share back to the others. They had a greater early year when the other 2 big boys struggled.

Their G100/T200 product won't be here until the summer, so how is that going to change this or next quarter's results? No one is arguing that there isn't new architecture coming nor that nV will remain profitable, however the enthusiast segment will remain a small part of their production, and by even your numbers it's a very small section of the market overall.

You say you don't see any products to significantly change the 3 or 4 to one ratio, whereas the HD3K already changed that ratio for that segment, and in the mobile space AMD took over the lead from when they were trailing nVidia the previous quarters. The addition of the RV770/R700 means that the G100/T200 is not alone, and baring any major delays, it shouldn't be alone for anywhere near as long as the G80 was, so I doubt even Huang would be so overly optimistic in statements about their upcoming year.

There's stuff to look forward to, but until the new hardware arrives, it'll be more of the same back and forth with both AMD and nVidia releasing competing ew products.

In the mobile segment, I'd be very surprised to see anything truly new before the fall rather than just renamed solutions, the last 2 big mobile products being the GF8800M and MHD3870 for a while.

 

I'd ask why you couldn't have compressed all of those into one post, or why you couldn't just let this damn thread die, but the answer is pretty obvious.

 

Good points raised all around.

You know, on Sunday I was considering buying a desktop. Seriously. I was considering it to hedge my bet in case HP discontinued the HDX come Montevina release. (I don't like the off-centering of 17" lappy keyboards.) Plus I was worried about the quality of the machine given some recent complaints.

One thing that bothered me though was that for a desktop configuration that I was looking for, the power supply minimum to keep things cool was 500watts. Max input was rated @ 6.5 amps/115 volts AC. That's about 750 Watts AC max input. Idle would have been around 125-150 watts. Regular use over 350watts. Gaming around 500 watts. Add ~ 100 watts for a 20"-24" monitor.

Geez, that's like a toaster oven's wattage. No one runs a toaster oven all day. My stereo setup isn't that power hungry - maybe it is - but I don't use it all day. My lappy averages around 60 watts of normal use, 80 watts gaming. That HDX is rated @ 180 watts but would be around 100 watts normal, 140-150 watts gaming. They always factor in overhead when designing the "brick" PSU.

Desktops just ain't green, man. They would be the equivalent to a 90's early '00 model SUV.

Just saying all that as a comparison.

I'm going to swing by Al Gore's house later to see how he's livin'. He better not be playing Crysis on a 1KW XPS 720. (I will beat that hypocritical a$$ if he is.)

BTW, speaking of form factor, I have an old Smith Corona typewriter from the 40's in my closet that I bought at a garage sale. It's about as small as a laptop. It's all black too. Nostaligic. Rather sharpish looking device.

Looking at it reminds me of a Propellerheads song...

The word is about, there's something evolving,
whatever may come, the world keeps revolving
They say the next big thing is here,
that the revolution's near,
but to me it seems quite clear
that it's all just a little bit of history repeating

The newspapers shout a new style is growing,
but it don't know if it's coming or going,
there is fashion, there is fad
some is good, some is bad
and the joke is rather sad,
that its all just a little bit of history repeating

.. and I've seen it before
.. and I'll see it again
.. yes I've seen it before
.. just little bits of history repeating

Peace.

 

:laugh:

Great post.... 2.0!

Notebooks are the way to go and the future predicts this fact especially for "green" purposes.

 

two words - Quantum Computing.

without the constraints of those huge electrons giving us tons of resistance and thus heat, computers shall grow ever smaller and smaller, all the while getting more powerful. it'll be entirely possible to have a fully functional computer the size of a standard die - the only question is what will we do with all the empty space below the keyboard on our 17" laptops?

 

When does AMD think Q108 is ending? In June 2010?
Or has anyone else heared something about the Mobility 3870 in the last days?
On the other hand AMD has still 12 days left.

 

lol what's with the essay-like posts that have nothing to do with the Mobility Radeon?

Anyway it'd be good if AMD actually competes with nVidia. Look at what's happening. Because AMD isn't giving nVidia much of a challenge, nVidia just keeps churning out "next gen" [9xxx series] mobile GPUs that are actually just die shrinks of previous gen GPUs [8xxx series]. 9500M GS = 8600M GT. 9650M GS = 8700M GT. etc.

 

ATI's now talking about the RV770 by June. A mobility version probably to be named 4870 might precede or simultaneously launch at that time.

 

Yeah, that was the interesting news, usually they follow the desktop models by a long period, but supposedly ODM/OEMs already have the mobile version for testing before the desktop model, which is promising for quick adoption.

My hope is that they put one in an HDX, perfect combo for me.

 

But what if Larabee doesn't perform as well as what nVidia offers, why would there be any reason to make the switch? Game developers will only start developing for low-end graphics if thats where the demand is, but I don't see that happening because the graphics of most PC games are based on what a console is capable of (i.e. because they want to port it to all platforms). Meaning dedicated graphics are still where its at.

 

Definitely a nice combo. They might even skip the 3870 considering.

 

Yeah they might, and if they do I think they would likely look to launch a more complete refresh with a Montevina + RV770 combo. I just hope it's not another paper launch like the original HDX.

Unlike some other solutions the HDX ould easily rely on the GF8800M-GTS until then.

 

Are you just guessing or do you have a source for it?

 

Any more news on this? any laptops supose to feature it?

 

Oh you know, one of the usual suspects for such things ;
http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/Nvidia_Prepares_55nm_G92_Against_AMD_RV770/5645.html

I don't say it's fact, but if it's true that's promising.

 

thx

Well, I will see what the m860tu with 8800m will be like when it comes on the marked and then I'm going to decide if I should still wait for the R770.

 

I thought the 9650m gt is similar to the desktop 9600 gt in that they both have a 256 bit bus? If that's the case then it's not a die shrink of the 8700 gt, but a better card.

 

First sighting of the Mobility RV670 in the wild, only it's not in a notebook, but an Asus prototype multi-GPU desktop graphics card sporting three RV670 MXM modules!







http://plaza.fi/muropaketti/asukselta-kolmen-grafiikkapiirin-radeon-hd-3850-katso-kuvat

 

NOBODY knows what the 9650m gT has, since they only released the 9650m gS yet, and that one is simillar to the 8700m GT

Just watch this side as new graphic cards will appear here
http://www.nvidia.com/object/wtb_notebooks.html#nineSeries

the 9600 GT (NO M, so NOT MOBILE) HAS a 256 bit bus, but that is a DESKTOP card, and nobody knows if and when it will appear on notebooks, except for manufacturers and nvidia itself.

 

Post edited. I meant the 9650M GS, NOT GT. My mistake

 

Nice find Yokozuna! Looks like it'll be the the HD 3850 and not 3870 for notebooks. Follows along with the HD34 50 and HD 3650 numbering convention.

 

Woah, this whole thread is a bunch of confused numbers. Anyhow, it says "Coming in March"..but march is almost over. Any updates?

 

You're looking at proof of the RV670 for notebooks in the above pictures. They're MXM cards fitted to a desktop PCI card. MXM is for notebooks.

 

ah, i see.

 

Anyone know if the 3870 or the RV670 will be in the form of MXM III for users with upgradable laptops like my Alienware or Sagers?

 

The problem with MXM is that there is no standard. They're mostly proprietary to the manufacturer. You're only hope is if Alienware or Clevo makes a version of their respective notebooks with the RV670. Even then, as recent history suggests (8800M GTX upgrade), you'll need a new motherboard also.

 

So seriousely now, any laptop featuring this card?or is it just bogus, since as Waterwizard11 said, March is almost over...

 

That's not how it works. RTM (release to manufacturer) first, then a few months later you see it in notebooks. Eleron, you might recall how it went with Sager and the 8700 and 8800MGTX. RTM of the 8800M GTX was fall, but it didn't actually ship in any notebook until year end and in some cases early this year.

 

I know, but I`m asking if any laptop is SUPOSE to have this card,not if it was already released

 

HP's HDX will most likely have it when they refresh it for Montevina this summer.

Asus may use it in their 18.4" LCD notebook later this year when they refresh it for Montevina.

Other than that it's anyone's guess. Lots of new stuff coming out this summer. AMD's Puma platform would make a nice coupling with this card.

Doubtful that Sager will use it in any of their current and CeBit revealed lineup. But this may be the thing to bring Sager/Clevo back to ATI and AMD like they used to do a few years ago.

 

Yeah I suspect you're right on the HDX getting the RV670 with the new Monetevina platform, but I'd soooo much more prefer a nice RV770 in there to power that big WUXGA display. Who knows, maybe by the fall when I'm buying

 

Yeah, I'm looking to purchase in the fall too. But I don't know how reliable the news is that there will be a mobile RV770 RTM by July. It would seem that ATI would come out with a desktop version first, as is customary, to compete against Nvidia. Possible to release both mobile and desktop first, but that would be a paradigm shift in the industry.

But then again, it's do or die for ATI (AMD). So anything is possible.

 

Check this out. A glimpse of the near future.

From ATI's website:

http://ati.amd.com/developer/ATI_Device_IDs.txt

http://ati.amd.com/developer/vendorid.html

In addition, the 3850 was spotted in a driver.

Following website is a Spanish forum. (Chilean):

http://www.chilehardware.com/foro/ati-radeon-hd3100-hd3200-hd3300-t132327.html

 

2.0,

Awesome find!!!!

No doubt now that ATI will release HD 3850 and 3870 for mobiles.

 

March is ending...

Still 8800M remains unmatched. [I know it's next gen compared to 8 series but...]

 

Come on ASUS! Put a 3850 or 3870 in one of your new systems soon!!!! Or HP I guess if its a 17.1".