ATI Radeon HD 3000 series

A Radeon HD 3450

The Radeon HD 3000 series is a series of desktop graphics chips from AMD and the successor to the ATI Radeon HD 2000 series . It is the seventh generation of graphics processors with the name ATI Radeon . All graphics processors in this series support pixel , geometry and vertex shaders 4.1 according to DirectX 10.1. The Radeon HD 4000 series is the successor to this series.

history

The Radeon HD 3000 series is based on the architecture of the HD 2000 series, but some detail improvements have been made: The range of functions has been expanded and now also includes DirectX 10.1, and this series now supports PCI Express 2.0. In order to eliminate the point of criticism of the high power consumption, especially of the HD-2900 series, ATI PowerPlay was integrated into the chips, which not only lowers voltage and clock rates in idle mode, but also switches off unneeded parts of the chip, whereby even the RV670- based cards can compete with the low-end products of the Geforce 8 series when the load is low .

On the one hand to competitive even under load values to achieve in terms of absorption, on the other hand small as possible the obtaining faces, AMD makes the graphics processors (GPUs) at TSMC finished since the end of 2007 at the 55-nanometer process. This optical shrink made the in-house 65 nanometer SOI process, which was used for processors, obsolete. Until now, it was common to manufacture GPUs using older processes, as the chips are usually more complex than conventional desktop CPUs and, due to the greater experience with older manufacturing processes, a higher yield is possible.

On November 15, 2007, AMD first introduced the Radeon HD 3870 and HD 3850, two graphics cards based on the RV670, which should replace the R600 derivatives (Radeon HD 2900). In addition to the innovations in the series, they also offered the UVD video decoder compared to the R600 . The memory interface was shortened from 512 bits to 256 bits in order to reduce costs, in return the memory controller was optimized so that the lower memory bandwidth is still sufficient for the GPU performance. The RV670 replaces the last GPU of the 500 series that is still manufactured, the RV570, as it enables newer graphics cards based on the RV670 to be offered in the price range of the Radeon X1950 Pro. Some board partners AMDs brought out the Radeon HD 3690 and 3830 for the Chinese market in February 2008, which is a modified version of the Radeon HD 3850, in which the memory interface was reduced to 128 bits and the UVD video decoder was partially deactivated. The cards are not officially managed by AMD.

The Radeon HD 3650, HD 3470 and HD 3450 were presented on January 23, 2008. These models are based on the RV635 (Radeon HD 3650) or RV620 (Radeon HD 3450/3470) and were the first graphics cards to have a connector for the connection standard DisplayPort . The models of the Radeon HD 3400 series also support what the Radeon HD 34xx graphics card with the Hybrid CrossFire technology, AMD 780G and AMD 790GX - chipset brings integrated graphics higher performance. These models also have the optimizations that were introduced with the RV670, but compared to the previous series, the sizes of the memory interface have been retained.

In March 2008, the chipsets of the AMD 780 series were finally introduced, which contain integrated graphics solutions based on the Radeon HD 34xx with the names Radeon HD 3100 (AMD-780V) and Radeon HD 3200 (AMD-780G). In contrast to the Radeon HD 3100, the latter IGP contains a unified video decoder , which among other things decodes high-resolution videos in hardware and thus relieves the CPU . The HD 3100 also lacks the aforementioned hybrid crossfire technology and digital monitor outputs.

In August 2008, the range of integrated GPUs was expanded to include the HD-3300 graphics core integrated in the new AMD-790GX chipset, which is identical to the HD 3200, but has a core clock that is 200 MHz higher.

Manufacturers who use AMD chipsets with integrated HD-3xxx graphics have the option of providing the graphics core with its own memory, called a sideport. This reduces the load on the system RAM by the graphics processor and can also be addressed more quickly. Size, memory technology, clock frequency and the width of the memory interface of this side port can be determined by the mainboard manufacturer and thus vary.

Graphics processors

Graphics chip	production			units						API			Video pro- cessor	cutting stelle
	production process	transis- tors	The - area	ROPs	Unified shaders			Texture units		DirectX	OpenGL	ATI Stream
					Stream processors	Shader units	Shader cluster	TAUs	TMUs
RV610	65 nm	180 million	082 mm²	04th	040	08 × 5D- VLIW	2	08th	04th	10.0	3.3	Yes	UVD 1.0	PCIe 1.0
RV620	55 nm	181 million	064 mm²	04th	040	08 × 5D-VLIW	2	08th	04th	10.1				PCIe 2.0
RV635		378 million	118 mm²	04th	120	24 × 5D-VLIW	3	16	08th
RV670		666 million	192 mm²	16	320	64 × 5D-VLIW	4th	32	16

Naming

All graphics cards are labeled with “ATI Radeon HD” and an additional four-digit number that generally begins with a “3” (for the series). The second digit then divides the family into different market segments. The third and fourth digits then serve to subdivide the various models. In contrast to the previous series, suffixes are no longer used, but the performance classification within the series or the market segment is simply based on the number.

division

• HD 3100/3200/3300: IGP
• HD 34xx: low-end
• HD 36xx: mainstream
• HD 38xx: performance
• HD 3870 X2: high-end

Model data

model	Official launch	Graphics processor (GPU)							Graphics memory				TDP ( watt )
		Type	Active units					Clock rate (MHz)	Size ( MB )	Clock rate (MHz)	Type	Storage interface
			ROPs	Shader - cluster	Stream processors	TAUs	TMUs
Radeon HD 3100	March 4, 2008	RV610	4th	2	40	8th	4th	350	shared up to 512	varies	DDR3	up to 32 bits	k. A.
Radeon HD 3200	March 4, 2008	RV610	4th	2	40	8th	4th	500	shared up to 512	varies	DDR3	up to 32 bits	k. A.
Radeon HD 3300	Aug 2008	RV610	4th	2	40	8th	4th	700	shared up to 512	varies	DDR3	up to 32 bits	k. A.
Radeon HD 3450	Jan. 23, 2008	RV620	4th	2	40	8th	4th	600	256 512	500	DDR2	64 bit	40
Radeon HD 3470	Jan. 23, 2008	RV620	4th	2	40	8th	4th	800	256	950	GDDR3	64 bit	k. A.
Radeon HD 3650	Jan. 23, 2008	RV635	4th	3	120	16	8th	725	256 512	500	DDR2	128 bit	75
										800	GDDR3
Radeon HD 3850	Nov 15, 2007	RV670	16	4th	320	32	16	668	256 512	828	GDDR3	256 bit	106
Radeon HD 3870	Nov 15, 2007	RV670	16	4th	320	32	16	775	512	1125	GDDR4	256 bit	126
Radeon HD 3870 X2	Jan. 28, 2008	2 × RV670 (R680)	2 × 16	2 × 4	2 × 320	2 × 32	2 × 16	825	2 × 512	900	GDDR3	2 × 256 bits	approx. 200

Hints

• The specified clock rates are those recommended or specified by AMD. However, the final specification of the clock rates is in the hands of the respective graphics card manufacturer. It is therefore entirely possible that there are or will be graphics card models that have different clock rates.
• The date indicated is the date of the public presentation, not the date of availability of the models.
• The manufacturer's TDP information may differ from the real maximum power consumption.

Performance data

The following theoretical performance data result for the respective models:

model	Graphics processor / memory
	Computing power of the stream processors in GFlops	Pixel fill rate in GPixel / s	Texel fill rate in GTexel / s	Data transfer rate in GB / s
Radeon HD 3100	28	1.4	1.4	-
Radeon HD 3200	40	2.0	2.0	-
Radeon HD 3300	56	2.8	2.8	-
Radeon HD 3450	48	2.4	2.4	8.0
Radeon HD 3470	64	3.2	3.2	15.2
Radeon HD 3650	174	2.9	5.8	16.0
				25.6
Radeon HD 3850	427.5	10.7	10.7	53
Radeon HD 3870	496	12.4	12.4	72.0
Radeon HD 3870 X2	2 × 528	2 × 13.2	2 × 13.2	2 × 57.6

Hints

• The specified performance values ​​for the computing power via the stream processors, the pixel fill rate, the texel fill rate and the memory bandwidth are theoretical maximum values. The overall performance of a graphics card depends, among other things, on how well the available resources can be used or fully utilized. There are also other factors that are not listed here that affect performance.
• The computing power via the stream processors is not directly comparable with the performance of the Nvidia Geforce 8 series, as it is based on a different architecture that scales differently.

Web links

• Message on Heise Online regarding the release of the HD-3800 series

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Computerbase: Test: ATi Radeon HD 3850 (RV670) - power consumption. Test report dated November 27, 2007, accessed February 4, 2010