AMD has released new details on it's latest line of graphics cards, the ATI Radeon R700. It has become certain that this series will be named the HD4800. Like it's predecessor, this generation will also have three different models: the HD4850, HD4870 and eventually, the HD4870 X2. The company also mentioned release dates, tech specs, and prices. The launch of the 4850 and 4870 was initially planned for march, however due to technical errors in the production process, this goal could not be reached. The HD4850 will be available on the 18th of June, followed by the HD4870 one week later. Both cards will be in the stores at the release date. According to Fudzilla, AMD has started the production of the RV770 chips in April, making the plans for a hard launch more realistic.
The HD4850 will hit shelves on the 18th of June
It is likely that the RV770 cards won't be a tough competition for nVidia's planned GT200. The HD4850 and 4870 will be midrange cards, whereas the GT200 is a high-end chip. The high-end ATI card will be the HD4870 X2, combining two RV770 chips in Crossfire. The HD4850 will use either 256 or 512 MB of GDDR3 memory and a single slot cooler. The card will have one 6-pins PCI connector and the clockspeeds will be similar to the HD3850. Since AMD wishes to have a good performance-per-watt ratio, the clockspeeds are on the modest side.
The clock frequencies of the HD4870 won't differ from the 3870 much either. The card will use GDDR5 memory and a dual-slot cooler though, significantly increasing the overclock potential. The final card in the HD4800 line-up will be the Radeon HD4870 X2, which will have 512MB GDDR5 memory per core, busting earlier myths on shared memory.
All cards will have features like DirectX 10.1 and PCI-Express 2.0. It is expected that a single HD4870 will perform at the same level as the HD3870 X2. The HD4800 series is the direct successor of the 3800 line and will be introduced in a similar price range.
