AMD: No faster HD4800 card in January

Recently, numerous rumors have appeared on the coming of two new high-end AMD graphics cards, both based on a tweaked RV770 chip with more shaders and texture units. This chip, codenamed RV775, is to be the direct competitor of nVidia's new 55nm GTX 200 cards. 

The Inquirer was also curious about the existence of this RV775 and contacted Chris Hook at ATI. The conversation revealed that AMD isn't planning to release a new card in January at all. The specifications of the RV775 PRO and XT shown in the diagram are just a compilation based on rumors, not on existing products. 

Of course AMD will release new cards in the first half of next year, just not in January yet. A launch during the CeBIT in March would be far more probable. The new products include the RV740 chip for the midrange and 'super' RV770 for the high-end market. Whether that 'super' RV770 will also be a 40nm chip is still unclear. The cards that will feature this chip form the HD4900 series. 

The RV775 specifications are based on rumors, no new cards in January

Another oddity from the RV775 diagram is the RV775 PRO's memory. Because of the clock frequencies, the card would have to use GDDR4 memory. The Inquirer has also talked about this with AMD, which then confirmed that GDDR4 will not be used anymore due to the relatively high costs and the fact that it is rather similar to GDDR5.

If you are waiting for the HD5800 series, you'll have to be a bit more patient, the new generation isn't planned for release till the fourth quarter of 2009. The launch of these new cards will be simultaneous to that of DirectX 11. 

Tags: cebit gddr4 gddr5 directx directx11

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