Evergreen (GPU family)

Radeon HD 5000 series
Codename(s) Evergreen
Cedar,
Redwood,
Juniper,
Cypress,
Hemlock
Created in year 2009
Entry-level cards HD 5400
HD 5500 series
Mid-range cards HD 5600
HD 5700 series
High-end cards HD 5800 series
Enthusiast cards HD 5900 series
Direct3D support

Direct3D 11

Shader model 5.0
OpenCL support 1.1
OpenGL support 4.1
Predecessor Radeon HD 4000 series
Successor Radeon HD 6000 series

The Evergreen series is a family of GPUs developed by Advanced Micro Devices for its Radeon line under the ATI brand name.

Contents

Release

The existence was spotted on a presentation slide from AMD Technology Analyst Day July 2007 as "R8xx". AMD held a press event in the USS Hornet museum on September 10, 2009[1] and announced ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology and specifications of the Radeon HD 5800 series' variants. The first variants of the Radeon HD 5800 series were launched September 23, 2009, with the HD 5700 series launching October 12 and HD 5970 launching on November 18[2] The HD 5670, was launched on January 14, 2010, and the HD 5500 and 5400 series were launched in February 2010, completing what has appeared to be most of AMD's Evergreen GPU lineup.

Demand so greatly outweighed supply that more than two months after launch, many online retailers were still having trouble keeping the 5800 and 5900 series in stock.[3]

Recently, the 5xxx series has been popular to those generating Bitcoins, due to its large number of stream processors.

Architecture

Terascale 2 Architecture

With the release of Cypress, the Terascale graphics engine architecture has been upgraded with twice the number of stream cores, texture units and ROP units compared to the RV770. The architecture of stream cores is largely unchanged, but adds support for DirectX 11/DirectCompute 11 capabilities with new instructions.[4] Also similar to RV770, four texture units are tied to 16 stream cores (each have five processing elements, making a total of 80 processing elements). This combination of is referred to as a SIMD core.

Unlike the predecessor, as DirectX 11 mandates full developer control over interpolation so dedicated interpolators were removed, relying instead on the SIMD cores. The stream cores can handle the higher rounding precision fused multiply–add (FMA) instruction in both single and double precision which increases precision over multiply–add (MAD) and is compliant to IEEE 754-2008 standard.[5] The instruction sum of absolute differences (SAD) has been natively added to the processors. This instruction can be used to greatly improve the performance of some processes, such as video encoding and transcoding. Each SIMD core is equipped with 32 kiB local data share and 8 kiB of L1 cache,[4] while all SIMD cores share 64 kiB global data share.

Memory controller

Each memory controller ties to two quad ROP units, one per 32-bit channel, and dedicated 128 kiB L2 cache.[4] Redwood has one quad ROP per 64-bit channel.

Multi-display technologies

AMD also introduced AMD Eyefinity Technology (previously ATI Eyefinity) in this GPU family - the ability to connect three to six displays to one graphics card. It also supports grouping of multiple monitors into a single large surface (SLS), treated by the OS as a single monitor with very high resolutions. It is promoted as an inexpensive alternative for ultra-high resolution displays.

The entire HD 5000 series products have Eyefinity capabilities supporting three outputs. The Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity Edition, however, supports six mini DisplayPort outputs, all of which can be simultaneously active.[6]

The display unit on Evergreen family of GPUs was completely replaced with one that has two DACs which are used to drive the DVI ports in analog mode (for example, when a DVI to VGA converter attached to a DVI port), a maximum of six digital transmitters that can output either a DisplayPort signal or a TMDS signal which is used for either DVI or HDMI, and two clock signal generators needed to drive the digital outputs in TMDS mode. Dual-link DVI displays use two of the TMDS/DisplayPort transmitters and one clock signal each. Single-link DVI displays and HDMI displays use one TMDS/DisplayPort transmitter and one clock signal each. DisplayPort displays use one TMDS/DisplayPort transmitter and no clock signal.

A DisplayPort adapter or dongle can be used to convert a DisplayPort signal to another type of signal like VGA, single or dual link DVI, or HDMI if more than two non-DisplayPort displays need to be connected to a Radeon HD 5000 series graphics card.[6] The table below shows the maximum possible configurations on a normal Radeon HD 5800/5700 series add-in card.

Maximum output configurations for normal Radeon HD 5800/5700 series cards
DVI-I/VGA DVI-I/VGA HDMI DisplayPort
Option 1 Active Active Inactive Active
Option 2 Active Inactive Active Active

However, other configurations are possible while not being explicitly detailed or verified by AMD (e.g., DVI, HDMI, and VGA).[7]

Multimedia capabilities

On video capabilities, the AVIVO HD plus UVD combination is still responsible for hardware decoding for the video codecs for Blu-ray movies playback on the Evergreen family, with a few enhancements on AVIVO HD such as blue stretch for brighter white. With Catalyst 9.11 and beyond and Flash 10.1 UVD can be used to accelerate H.264 based flash videos, such as YouTube and Hulu. Display pipeline supports xvYCC gamut and 12-bit per component output via HDMI. AVIVO HD also supports DXVA 2.0 API for Windows Vista and Windows 7.

One major milestone is that the Evergreen GPU family supports HDMI 1.3a output. The previous generation R700 family GPUs only support up to LPCM 7.1 audio and no bitstream output support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio audio formats to external decoders. This feature is now supported on Evergreen family GPUs.

On Evergreen family GPUs, DisplayPort outputs on board are capable of 10-bit per component output,[4] and HDMI output is capable of 12-bit per component output.

Products

Radeon HD 5900

Codenamed Hemlock, the Radeon HD 5900 series was announced on October 12, 2009, starting with the HD 5970.[8] The Radeon HD 5900 series utilizes two Cypress graphics processors and a third-party PCI-E bridge, similar to Radeon HD 4800 X2 series graphics cards; however, AMD has abandoned the use of X2 moniker for dual-GPU variants starting with Radeon HD 5900 series, making it the only series within the Evergreen GPU family to have two GPUs on one PCB.

Radeon HD 5800

Codenamed Cypress, the Radeon HD 5800 series was announced on September 23, 2009. Products included Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870. The launching model of Radeon HD 5870 can support three display outputs at most. In terms of overall performance, the 5870 comes in between the GTX 470 and GTX 480 from rival company Nvidia, being closer to the GTX 480 than the GTX 470.[9] An Eyefinity 6 edition of Radeon HD 5870 was released, with 2 GB GDDR5 memory, supporting six simultaneous displays to be connected to the mini DisplayPort outputs. The Radeon HD 5870 has 1600 usable stream cores, while the Radeon HD 5850 has 1,440 usable stream cores, as 160 out of the 1,600 total cores are disabled during product binning which detects potentially defective areas of the chip. A Radeon HD 5830 was released on February 25, 2010. The Radeon HD 5830 has 1,120 usable stream cores and a standard core clock of 800 MHz.

Radeon HD 5700

Codenamed Juniper, the Radeon HD 5700 series was announced on October 13, 2009. Products included Radeon HD 5750 and Radeon HD 5770. All Radeon HD 5700 series can support up to 3 display outputs (using a special display adapter using the DisplayPort), [10] although most ship with fewer ports. The Radeon HD 5770 has 800 stream cores, while the Radeon HD 5750 has 720 stream cores, as a result of product binning. The 5770 series has a 128-bit bus width, as opposed to the 5800 series, which has a 256-bit bus width. Performance-wise, the 5770 is comparable to last-generation's Radeon 4870.[11]

Radeon HD 5600

Codenamed Redwood XT, the Radeon HD 5670 was released on January 14, 2010. The Radeon HD 5670 has 400 stream cores and a core clock of 775 MHz with 1,000 MHz (4.0 Gbit/s) GDDR5 memory.

Radeon HD 5500

Codenamed Redwood PRO and Redwood LE, the Radeon HD 5570 was released on February 9, 2010. It uses the same GPU as the Radeon HD 5670 but has a lower core frequency, at first release was limited to DDR3 memory, but later, ATI added support for GDDR5 memory. One more variant, with only 320 stream cores, is available and Radeon HD 5550 was suggested as the product name. Some Radeon HD 5550 cards have GDDR5 memory too.

All reference board designs of the Radeon HD 5500 series are half-height, making them suitable for a low profile form factor chassis.

Radeon HD 5400

Codenamed Cedar,[12] the Radeon HD 5400 series was announced on February 4, 2010, starting with the HD 5450. The Radeon HD 5450 has 80 stream cores, a core clock of 650 MHz, and 800 MHz DDR2 or DDR3 memory. The 5400 series is designed to assume a low-profile card size.

Chipset table

Evergreen PCIe (HD 5xxx) series overview

Model Year Code name Transistors (Million) Die Size (mm2) Bus interface Memory (MiB) Clock rate Config core1 Fillrate Memory GFLOPS (multiply
+ add)
TDP3 (W) Double-
precision
FP
Features4 / Notes
Core (MHz) Memory (MHz) Pixel (GP/s) Texture (GT/s) Band-
width (GB/s)
Bus type2 Bus width (bit) Idle Max.
Radeon HD 5450 Feb 4, 2010 Cedar PRO 292 59 PCIe 2.1 x16, PCIe 2.1 x1[13], PCI[14] 512
1024
2048
650 400
800
80:8:4 2.6 5.2 6.4
12.8
DDR2
DDR3
64 104 6.4 19.1 No
Radeon HD 5550[15] Feb 9, 2010 Redwood LE 627 104 PCIe 2.1 x16 512
1024
2048
550 400
800
320:16:8 4.4 8.8 12.8
25.6
51.2
DDR2
GDDR3
GDDR5
128 352 10 39 No
Radeon HD 5570 Redwood PRO 650 400
900
400:20:8 5.2 13 12.8
28.8
57.6
520
Radeon HD 5670 Jan 14, 2010 Redwood XT 775 800
1000
6.2 15.5 25.6
64
GDDR3
GDDR5
620 15 64
Radeon HD 5750 Oct 13, 2009 Juniper PRO 1040 170 PCIe 2.1 x16 512
1024
700 1150 720:36:16 11.2 25.2 73.6 GDDR5 128 1008 16 86 No
Radeon HD 5770 Juniper XT 850 1200 800:40:16 13.6 34 76.8 1360 18 108
Radeon HD 5830[16] Feb 25, 2010 Cypress LE 2154 334 PCIe 2.1 x16 1024 800 1000 1120:56:16 12.8 44.8 128 GDDR5 256 1792 25 175 358.4
Radeon HD 5850 Sep 30, 2009 Cypress PRO 1024
2048[17]
725 1000 1440:72:32 23.2 52.2 128 2088 27 151 417.6
Radeon HD 5870 Sep 23, 2009 Cypress XT 1024
2048[18]
850 1200 1600:80:32 27.2 68 153.6 2720 27[19] 188[19] 544
Radeon HD 5870
Eyefinity6 Edition[20]
Mar 11, 2010[21] 2048 6 DisplayPort connectors
Radeon HD 5970[22] Nov 18, 2009[21] Hemlock XT 2154 ×2 334 ×2 PCIe 2.1 x16 1024 ×2
2048 ×2
735 1010 1600:80:32 ×2 46.4 116 2× 128 GDDR5 2× 256 4640 51 294 928 Dual GPU on single PCB

See also

References

  1. ^ "AMD is driving graphics to the edge with Eyefinity powering the SimCraft APEX sc830". SimCraft insider. 2009-09-11. http://www.simcraft.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=46. 
  2. ^ ATI Radeon HD 5970 Press Release
  3. ^ "O 5800, 5800, Wherefor Art Thou 5800?". [H]ArdOCP. 2009-11-10. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/11/10/o_5800_wherefor_art_thou. 
  4. ^ a b c d DirectX 11 in the Open: ATI Radeon HD 5870 Review
  5. ^ Report: AMD Radeon HD 5870 and 5850
  6. ^ a b c Angelini, Chris; Abi-Chahla, Fedy (2009-09-23). "ATI Radeon HD 5870: DirectX 11, Eyefinity, And Serious Speed". Tom's Hardware. Bestofmedia Network. p. 8. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5870,2422-8.html. Retrieved 2009-10-09. 
  7. ^ HardOCP report
  8. ^ Dual-GPU ATI Radeon HD 5970 released
  9. ^ http://www.techspot.com/review/283-geforce-gtx-400-vs-radeon-hd-5800/GTX 480 and GTX 470 Review
  10. ^ http://techreport.com/articles.x/17747
  11. ^ http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-5770-overclocking,2473-3.html
  12. ^ "AMD Financial Analyst Day 2009 Codename Decoder". AMD. 2009-10-11. http://sites.amd.com/us/Documents/FADay_CodeNameDecoder_11_10_09_vFINAL.docx. 
  13. ^ http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-579.shtml
  14. ^ http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-580.shtml
  15. ^ "techPowerUp! News :: Club 3D Unveils Radeon HD 5550 and HD 5570 Accelerators". Techpowerup.com. http://www.techpowerup.com/114962/Club_3D_Unveils_Radeon_HD_5550_and_HD_5570_Accelerators.html. Retrieved 2010-03-17. 
  16. ^ "ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series". Amd.com. 2010-03-06. http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5000.aspx. Retrieved 2010-03-17. 
  17. ^ http://www.tweaktown.com/pressrelease/3011/sapphire_introduces_radeon_hd_5850_toxic_2_gb_graphics_card/index.html
  18. ^ http://www.techpowerup.com/115056/ASUS_Radeon_HD_5870_MATRIX_2GB_Graphics_Card_Pictured.html
  19. ^ a b http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/hd-5870-eyefinity-6-edition/Pages/specifications.aspx
  20. ^ "TechConnect Magazine - AMD Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition said to debut on March 11". Tcmagazine.com. 2010-02-18. http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?id=32756&catid=2. Retrieved 2010-03-17. 
  21. ^ a b "Novinky/ATI Radeon HD 5970 - známe datum @ CzechGamer.com PC HRY RECENZE FREE VIDEO". Czechgamer.com. 2009-11-07. http://www.czechgamer.com/novinky/5412/ATI-Radeon-HD-5970-zname-datum.html. Retrieved 2010-03-17. 
  22. ^ "Новые фотографии и характеристики Radeon HD 5900". Overclockers.ru. 2009-10-28. http://overclockers.ru/hardnews/34879.shtml. Retrieved 2010-03-17. 

External links

Laptop products