Apparently, these cards are on schedule for a July release.

These are the rumoured features/specs (to be updated as and when):

Both cards:
UVD 2, on-chip HDCP, TeraScale GE (See below), 'Power to Spare'
24x Custom Filter Anti Aliasing
Dynamic Geometry Acceleration
Game physics processing capability (Havok? ATI custom? PhysX possible because of Nvidia opening CUDA)
Require 500W PSU, 600W for Crossfire-X (2+), 1GB RAM, 6-pin PCI-E connector
800 Shader Processing Units

Radeon 4850:
GPU: 625MHz
Memory: 256-bit GDDR3
Up to 1Tflop
No picture as of yet
Rumoured to be very hot (70C+ idle) but reliable at all times, and it is definitely a single-slot.


Radeon 4870:
GPU: 750MHz
Memory: 256-bit GDDR5
Up to 1.2Tflop
Has a dual-slot cooler. Here's a picture:


Radeon 4870 X2 (?):
Has a dual slot cooler on a single PCB.
2 RV770 chips on 1 PCB on a PCI-E2 bus for almost 2x performance boost over 4870 depending on drivers and frequencies
1GB to 2GB GDDR4, GDDR5 possible (Seems more likely now that 4870 is confirmed as a GDDR5'er)
2x 800 Shader Processing Units
Up to 2.4Tflops? Imagine this thing in the ATI F@H client...

Rumour picture; 4850

Looks like some interesting cards. It will be interesting to see how they compare to nVidia's GTX200s and what price they will be.

I think the GTX280 is going to obliterate the 3870 performance wise, and it's probably going to be the hottest man-made product in history also.

Heh, I've seen pictures of it too, it's got a cooler like the 9800GTX. Should be interesting.

As long as the hot air comes out the back and not out the side, it might be worth considering.

Well it is that style of cooler - Clicky. More

It looks like the memory bus has been increased from 256bit to 512.

I thought my 110GB/s 8800U was extreme, and this thing can push nearly 150GB/s.

Did you by any chance do exactly as I did and feel silly when I read TeraScale Graphics Engine? I didn't know what it meant. Well now we all have an idea...

The 4870 and 4850 have 800 shader processors... That's 2.5x more than the 3870 and 3850!
This means they will be capable of 1.2 Teraflops.

Great for GPGPU action, physics etc. oh and of course sheer horsepower.

I hope these are cheaper than the GTX280... http://www.tdshop.fr/Negozio.asp?IdNego ... to=B994421

wow i could get it with little cooling changes, my pc runs at 60C idle so one more fan might be ok for that 70C card lol

I'm interested who is going to win the £100-£200 price point war, that's generally who "wins" the generation.

I think that the 4870 could win then. The 4850 is also a really good card as it uses the same GPU as the 4870, it's just clocked lower. You could put an aftermarket cooler on there and clock it up to beyond 4870 speeds, if you felt like it

Dou you know any estimated prices, then?

They're going to replace the 3850 and 3870's, so I'd imagine an introductory price of £150 for the 4870 and £120 for the 4850, dropping to £130 and £100 respectively. Varying obviously due to the fact that ATI are selling just chips and leaving it up to the AIB's so to speak to do the PCB, the memory, the cooler, etc. although are advising their reference design.

Interesting, with a July release one might end up in my Summer build (if it actually happens).

Well, 4850 and 4870 are going to be released on June 25th.

Sweet, that's good timing for me. I'll need to see some reviews first, though.

What about the GTX280?

Even earlier, the 17th of this month.

Cool, this will be interesting, we haven't had good new cards for a while now. Shall be interesting to see the reviews.

BTW, do you know which company currently have the better Vista 64 drivers, or are thy both pretty good?

They are both really good. My 8800 Ultra only caused a few blue-screen's and the 3870 in my girlfriends computer has never had a graphics driver error, and has never blue-screened - nope, not ever, and I'm not just saying that to brag! It really hasn't!

NVIDIA are accountable for more error reports submitted in Windows Vista than ATI and Microsoft but their graphics drivers aren't that bad to be honest...

Oh, and this just leaked:

A product page for a GTX280 - if this is the official spec, price, and appearance of the card, then I think NVIDIA are going to be pwned by ATI for the first time in a very long time. I wonder how fast their SPU's are though? ATI tend to run synchronous with the GPU, whereas NVIDIA seem to massively overclock them.

GDDR3? Aren't we onto 4 nor, and ATi are using 5 on their 4870

I'm also wondering what's going on here... either the upcoming 48x0's are exaggerated or NV have a trick up their sleeves...

I think it would be GDDR4 in the GTX280 etc, though the 8 series was only 3 aswell. Seems nVid are behind here, though it evidently doesn't matter too much as the last series had nVid beating ATi with the worse RAM.

Yeah, 8800 Ultra and the new G92 8800GTS were beating the HD2900XT's easily. But when the 38x0's came out, ATI had the price/performance advantage I think over the 8800GT and the 9600GT also. I mean, you get a dual-slot cooler, HDMI out with audio on-chip, stunning performance, and that's something NV just can't do as well at that price...

Update: A 4850 has been listed on a Swedish website FOR ABOUT €190: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?optio ... 3&Itemid=1

Extremely good value for money, considering this is a 1 teraflop card, and the current 3870X2 is only a teeny weeny bit over 1 teraflop. The 4870 will be a 1.2 teraflop card.

Update 2: The GTX260 will be able to push 111GB/s whereas the GTX280 will be a 150GB/s'er. That's more than the 8800 Ultra with 120GB/s and probably around about the same as a 9800GX2 without doing my research.

Update 3: Wikipedia is saying that the 4870X2 could be octa-crossfire compatible. Wait... 4x 4870X2's? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... .29_series

The thing about the 38x0s vs the 8800GT(S)es is that the 8800s came down in price quite considerably, bringing them to the same price as the 38s, and are more powerful cards, so took over again.

These new cards will hopefully be considerably powerful for their price point when released, like the 38x0s.

Octo Xfire - That's going to mean you can't have anything but graphics, and will probably look like that 4K supercomputer, lol.

That's true about the NV cards, but the problem with the 8800 single-slot coolers is that most of them are affected by a fan speed lock problem and this fan can get very loud. This is obviously a problem, some people are saying it locks at 17% and others at 100% - so it's either quiet and your card overheats or it's loud and annoying! This is why the dual-slot coolers seem like a better option, but the dual-slot 8800GT's are far too expensive, and the GTS cards are similarly too expensive when compared to a 3850 or 3870 which is why I feel these represent simply the best value for money at the moment. 8800GT, 3870 and 9600GT are all pretty level but ATI suffer when the AA goes up.