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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d0nnie - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
Like many said before, this is truly one of the best readings ive had in a long time. Keep up the good work man!Zar0n - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
Great article, it's excellent to have the back story of the GPU wars.It's kind like the planes/tanks on the history channel :)
5* Anandtech
ViperV990 - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
Awesome article. Did NOT miss the sea of charts. At all.Loved every bit of the tale.
Easily the best PR a company can get.
However I was kinda hoping for a little bit more info on the RV670. What did *that* team go through when making the part that is RV770's direct (or no?) predecessor?
Frallan - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
Im acctually concidering buying a GFX to support the company that allowed this interview. Its easily one of the best Ive read.
hrishi2das - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
A great article... very well written and personal...Can Anand with his great contacts get us a backstory on the Core 2 arch. That would be another great article.
malmal - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
As an NVDA shareholder, having a *huge* amount of unrealised loss in the shares, I bought the 4870 a month ago.A testament to how good the 4870 is at its price point. It just makes sense.
piesquared - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
All preferences aside, I have to say that was probably, hands down, the best article i've read in a long, long time. Talk about capturing your audience.Tremendous insight.
rocky1234 - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
Well I must say this is a good article because it is something different good work on this one. I do have to ask this has AMD been making GPU's for 8 years really..okI know ATI has for sure but they were not part of AMD then if AMD has been then oops I guess I never owned one of their GPU's before they bought ATI.
nowayout99 - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
I have to echo the other comments here, wonderful article! One of the best ever on Anandtech.And thank you, ATI, for giving the community this kind of access to your hard workers.
leonxki - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 - link
What a great story. Really shows how long it can take to make a significant change towards a process that is right for the end user. All those external factors e.g no GDDR5 at the time and G80s prosperity can really suck out an engineers motivation. Good thing those few engineers stuck to the task.The card itself looks so neat and well designed from a bird's eye view. To see how the internals were pateiently designed too is awesome!
The article showed how the RV770 came to life using just words. Time to introduce my pc to life using this card I say :-)
I also join the best-article-I've-read-wagon on this one.