An AMD presentation for its upcoming RV670 graphics processor (officially dubbed Radeon HD 3800), has been leaked to media.
Authenticated by several reputable sources, the slides confirm previous expectations regarding the next generation video card's specs and its DirectX 10.1 support.
AMD will officially launch its ATI Radeon HD 3800 series before the end of the month. The launch will consist of two new video cards, HD 3870 and HD 3850. The HD 3870 will be AMD's new hardcore card and is expected to launch at a retail price of $250. The HD 3850 will sell for less than $150. DirectX 10.1, which would ship with Windows Vista Service Pack 1, will be supported by both of these new cards.
The new cards will be the industry's first 55nm GPUs. They will both feature 666 million transistors each, compared to ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT which hosts 700 million 80nm transistors. According to AMD, the move to a smaller processing node results in less power leakage and leads to the HD 3870 having less than half the power draw of the HD 2900 XT.
AMD will also introduce PowerPlay and ATI OverDrive technologies in its new processors. ATI OverDrive allows users to overclock their HD 3800 video cards through ATI Catalyst software. PowerPlay adjusts engine and memory clocks along with voltage levels to optimize GPU utilization.
ATI Radeon HD 3870 will feature 512MB of 1.2 GHz GDDR4 memory on a 256-bit bus. HD 3850 will feature 256MB of 900MHz GDDR3 memory on a 256-bit bus. AMD measures peak board power at 105 Watts, and operating noise at 34 dBA.
Both cards will include 320 stream processors, 16 texture units, and 16 render back-ends. The main difference between the two cards, though, will be their clock speeds. Radeon HD 3870 will clock at 775+ MHz, while Radeon HD 3850 will be clocked at 670MHz.
