The RV770 Story: Documenting ATI's Road to Success
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 2, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
It took Derek and I six thousand, four hundred and sixty one words to review the Radeon HD 4850 and 4870. At this point I’m at 7,788 and all I’ve done is document the gravity of the decision that lead to the RV770.
There’s a lot of work that goes into all of these products we review, both good and bad. These engineers put their life’s work into every last design they complete, both the good ones and the bad ones. To live in the minds of ATI’s engineers as the first R600 reviews were hitting the web is something I would pay anything to avoid.
The life of a chip architect can be quite difficult, to work on something for three years only to have a few poor decisions make it the web’s punching bag is beyond rough. If I screw up a review I can always try to do better next week, if a chip designer contributes to a billion transistor GPU that’s a failure in the market, he/she won’t have another chance to succeed for several months if not a couple of years. I wonder if these chip companies offer counseling as a part of their benefits packages.
There are thousands of stories behind every chip launch, good or bad, most of them never get told. Part of it is that we’re spending so much time praising or berating the product that we rarely have time to offer the backstory. There’s also the issue with most companies being unwilling to disclose information, for any chip company to give me the level of detail that Carrell offered was a big deal, for that chip company to be ATI/AMD is impressive.
We all have these folks to thank, the engineers I met with and the many more that I didn’t. NVIDIA may not have been happiest with the efforts of the RV770 team, but we all benefitted. If you ended up buying a Radeon HD 4800 or derivative, you already know why you’re thankful. If you ended up buying something green, you most likely paid a much lower price than you would have.
It’s often said that competition is good for the market, but rarely do we have such a clear example of it as what happened after the RV770 launch. Cards that used to cost $300 now cost $200, a brand new GPU that was priced at $400 all of the sudden became reasonable at $300. The consumer won; the RV770 team targeted the Performance segment and did a bang up job of addressing its needs.
And it all started because a few guys were willing to shake things up back in 2005.
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Spivonious - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
I totally agree! Articles like this one are what separates Anandtech from the multitude of other tech websites.goinginstyle - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
I have to admit this is one of the best articles I have read anywhere on the web in a long time. It is very insightful, interesting, and even compelling at times. Can you do a follow up, only from an NVIDIA perspective.Jorgisven - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
I totally agree. This article is superbly written. One of the best tech articles I've read in a long long time, out of any source, magazine or online. I highly doubt nVidia will be as willing to expose their faults as easily as ATI was to expose their success; but I could be entirely mistaken on that.In either case, well done Anand. And well done ATI! Snagged the HD4850 two days after release during the 25% off Visiontek blunder from Best Buy during release week. I've been happy with it since and can still kick around the 8800GT performance like yesterday's news.
JonnyDough - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
I agree about the insight especially. Gave us a real look at the decision making behind the chips.This got me excited about graphics again, and it leaves me eager to see what will happen in the coming years. This kind of article is what will draw readers back. Thank you Anandtech and the red team for this amazing back stage pass.
magreen - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
Great article! Really compelling story, too.Thanks AMD/ATI for making this possible!
And thanks Anand for continually being the best on the web.
JPForums - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
Like others have said, this is probably the best article I've read in recent memory. It was IMHO well written and interesting. Kudos to ATI as well for divulging the information.I second the notion that similar articles from nVidia and Intel would also be interesting. Any chance of AMD's CPU division doing something similar? I always find the architectural articles interesting, but they gain more significance when you understand the reasoning behind the design.
jordanclock - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
This is easily one of my favorite articles on this website. It really puts a lot of aspects of the GPU design process into perspective, such as the shear amount of time it takes to design one.I also think this article really adds a great deal of humanity to GPU design. The designers of these marvels of technology are often forgotten (if ever known by most) and to hear the story of one of the most successful architectures to date, from the people that fought for this radical departure... It's amazing, to say the least.
I really envy you, Anand. You get to meet the geek world's superheroes.
pattycake0147 - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
I couldn't agree more! This could be the best article I've read here at anandtech period. The performance reviews are great, but once in a while you need something different or refreshing and this is just precisely that.LordanSS - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
Yep, I agree with that. This is simply one of the best articles I've read here.Awesome work, Anand.
Clauzii - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
I totally agree.