[adrianlee]

It's not exactly a secret that for companies like ATI and NVIDIA it is hard to keep the rumor mill under control. It was early January this year already that certain details surfaced on this lovely wise web hinting about the fact that ATI was working on 40nm products. Weeks later another rumor surfaced, some 40nm products should be arriving in the April/May timeframe and among the new products would be a chipset that carries product codename (ASIC name) RV740, slated as the first 40nm release. And that's interesting all by itself.

Now .. the technology industry works in mysterious ways and a pre-production model, slash prototype RV740 board to Guru3D.com arrived at our office a couple of days ago.

Not being tied to an NDA, without further ado, lets meet and greet with that RV740 graphics chipset. RV740 is positioned somewhere in the upper segment of budget level products. We are sure this product is going to be cheaper than 99 USD / 89 EUR. And considering where the product is targeted in the market, ATI is pulling a rabbit out the hat with a head the size of an elephant.

Why? What can you expect? Well, from what we see... performance is really close to the performance level of a Radeon HD 4850. So meanwhile others are re-labeling and reinserting their products at a new price point, ATI is moving forward with more interesting steps. Smaller die-size, more shader processors (compared to RV730), oh and that life-size rabbit I just mentioned... it's GDDR5 memory.

Guru3D

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[LiM]

Need 6pin power...xian

[Soon]

Imbar cooler!!

[psolord]

Excellent card! Kudos to ATI!

[german103]

New cooler.. nice

[Neo_XF]

Awsomely impressive hardware right there...

Hm, this preview was so random and out of nowhere, but welcomed. lol
With such cards, even in this "crisis" period, I find it hard to imagine how somone wouldn't want to get into PC gaming, guns blazing.

[Niceone]

So HD4750 is faster than HD4830?

Thank god that these cards are from AMD: If these were Nvidia cards then people would scream here about how Nvidia is confusing people with card names.

[NextGen_Gamer]

Originally Posted by Niceone

So HD4750 is faster than HD4830?

Thank god that these cards are from AMD: If these were Nvidia cards then people would scream here about how Nvidia is confusing people with card names.

It doesn't make sense, but I don't think that these cards will coexist for very long. Think of RV740 as a replacement for Radeon HD 4830, with a little higher performance. I would imagine that once RV740 and the "new" RV790 come out, ATI's lineup will look something like this:

Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 - $249 (directly competing with GeForce GTX 260 Core 216)
Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 - $199 (directly competing with GeForce GTX 260)
Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 - $179
Radeon HD 4850 1GB GDDR3 - $149 (directly competing with upcoming GeForce GTS 250 1GB)
Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 - $129 (directly competing with upcoming GeForce GTS 512MB)
Radeon HD 4750 512MB GDDR5 - $99 or $89 (directly competing with upcoming GeForce GTS 240 512MB)

[Teemax]

Originally Posted by NextGen_Gamer

It doesn't make sense, but I don't think that these cards will coexist for very long. Think of RV740 as a replacement for Radeon HD 4830, with a little higher performance. I would imagine that once RV740 and the "new" RV790 come out, ATI's lineup will look something like this:

Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 - $249 (directly competing with GeForce GTX 260 Core 216)
Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 - $199 (directly competing with GeForce GTX 260)
Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 - $179
Radeon HD 4850 1GB GDDR3 - $149 (directly competing with upcoming GeForce GTS 250 1GB)
Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 - $129 (directly competing with upcoming GeForce GTS 512MB)
Radeon HD 4750 512MB GDDR5 - $99 or $89 (directly competing with upcoming GeForce GTS 240 512MB)

HD4870 1GB is doing well enough against GTX 260 core 216 already.

HD4890 likely has its target higher than that

[Neo_XF]

Originally Posted by Niceone

So HD4750 is faster than HD4830?

Thank god that these cards are from AMD: If these were Nvidia cards then people would scream here about how Nvidia is confusing people with card names.

Troll much?

Originally Posted by Teemax

HD4870 1GB is doing well enough against GTX 260 core 216 already.

HD4890 likely has its target higher than that

Not to mention, they don't even make the 192 shader unit model anymore (since their chip bins have obviously improved faulty ration by now).

Also a HD 47xx naming tells me that it's faster than HD 46xx cards, not that it's faster or slower than a semi-obscure HD 4830. The price does the "talking" alot more than the name itself anyway, and ~90$ is golden.

[weepy123]

Originally Posted by LiM

Need 6pin power...xian

Engineering samples sometimes have one even if not needed... let's wait for production cards. I look forward to silent version.

[Niceone]

Originally Posted by Neo_XF

Troll much?

Why do you think that I'm trolling? We did see this with Geforce 9800GTX which loses against 8800GTX in some cases..everyone was screaming how confusing this naming scheme was. Now AMD has HD4750 beating HD4830 and nobody is saying anything about this naming scheme being confusing.

Yeah some people will think that HD4830 will be better and will be fooled to buy last of those cards, but fooling customers with confusing card names is ok when AMD does that?

[For me personally these names won't matter. If I buy some card I first check what kind of performance it has over it's direct competition. Those who are fooled by card names deserve to be fooled]

[psolord]

Originally Posted by Niceone

Why do you think that I'm trolling? We did see this with Geforce 9800GTX which loses against 8800GTX in some cases..everyone was screaming how confusing this naming scheme was. Now AMD has HD4750 beating HD4830 and nobody is saying anything about this naming scheme being confusing.

Yeah some people will think that HD4830 will be better and will be fooled to buy last of those cards, but fooling customers with confusing card names is ok when AMD does that?

[For me personally these names won't matter. If I buy some card I first check what kind of performance it has over it's direct competition. Those who are fooled by card names deserve to be fooled]

You do have a point. But ATI has shown a much better character, price wise (remember GTX 280 launch price?), so we are more lenient in our judgement!

Also please note, that ATI chose a LOWER number to describe the card. So there isn't a single sign of deception in that. Nvidia does exactly the opposite. 9800GTX was indeed slower than the 8800GTX in some cases, yet i didn't see nvidia naming 8900GTX or something!

ATI is making an actual step forward and yet uses a smaller number for a better performing part! Not the same thing!

Now if the 4950 is slower than the 4870, then that *could* be held against them. I probably wouldn't!

[NextGen_Gamer]

Originally Posted by Teemax

HD4870 1GB is doing well enough against GTX 260 core 216 already.

HD4890 likely has its target higher than that

That is precisely why I chose those prices. RV770 didn't find success due to its performance; it became popular because of its price-to-performance ratio. A $299 Radeon HD 4870 could equal or beat a $399 GeForce GTX 260 (those were the original launch prices).

Assuming that Radeon HD 4890 can equal the GeForce GTX 285, I personally think the smart thing for ATI to do would be to price it substantially lower. GeForce GTX 285 cards can be bought for $340 now, so going with a $249 price tag would put tremendous pressure on NVIDIA.

[adrianlee]

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