Radeon HD 3000 series

Last updated
ATI Radeon HD 3000 series
Release dateOctober 2007;16 years ago (October 2007)
CodenameRadeon R600 series
Architecture TeraScale 1 [ citation needed ]
Transistors181M 55nm (RV620)
  • 378M 55nm (RV635)
  • 666M 55nm (RV670)
  • 666Mx2 55nm (R680)
Cards
Entry-level3430, 3450, 3470
Mid-range3650
High-end3830, 3850, 3870
Enthusiast3850X2, 3870X2
API support
DirectX Direct3D 10.1 [1]
Shader Model 4.1
OpenCL Close To Metal
OpenGL OpenGL 3.3 [2] [3]
History
Predecessor Radeon HD 2000 series
Successor Radeon HD 4000 series
Support status
Unsupported

The graphics processing unit (GPU) codenamed the Radeon R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies.

Contents

Architecture

This article is about all products under the brand "Radeon HD 3000 Series". All products of this series contain a GPU which implements TeraScale 1.

Video acceleration

The Unified Video Decoder (UVD) SIP core is present on the dies of the GPUs used in the HD 2400 and the HD 2600 but not of the HD 2900. The HD 2900 introduced the ability to decode video within the 3D engine. This approach also exonerates the CPU from doing these computations, but consumes considerably more electric current.

Desktop products

Radeon HD 3800

The Radeon HD 3800 series was based on the codenamed RV670 GPU, packed 666 million transistors on a 55 nm fabrication process and had a die size at 192 mm2, with the same 64 shader clusters as the R600 core, but the memory bus width was reduced to 256 bits.

The RV670 GPU is also the base of the FireStream 9170 stream processor, which uses the GPU to perform general purpose floating-point calculations which were done in the CPU previously.

The Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 became available mid-November 2007.

Radeon HD 3690/3830

The Radeon HD 3690, which was limited only to the Chinese market where it was named HD 3830, has the same core as the Radeon 3800 series but with only a 128-bit memory controller and 256 MiB of GDDR3 memory. All other hardware specifications are retained.

A further announcement was made that there would be a Radeon HD 3830 variant bearing the same features as Radeon HD 3690, but with a unique device ID that does not allow add-in card partners in China to re-enable the burnt-out portion of the GPU core for more memory bandwidth. [4]

The Radeon HD 3690 was released early February 2008 for the Chinese market only.

Radeon HD 3870 X2

Reference model provided by AMD / ATI Ati 3870 X2.jpg
Reference model provided by AMD / ATI

Radeon HD 3870 X2 (codenamed R680) was released on January 28, 2008, featuring 2 RV670 cores with a maximum of 1 GiB GDDR3 SDRAM, targeting the enthusiast market and replacing the Radeon HD 2900 XT. The processor achieved a peak single-precision floating point performance of 1.06 TFLOPS, being the world's first single-PCB graphics product breaking the 1 TFLOP mark. [5]

Technically, this Radeon HD 3870 X2 can really be understood as a CrossFire of two HD 3870 on a single PCB. The card only integrates a PCI Express 1.1 bridge to connect the two GPUs. They communicate via a bidirectional bus that has 16 lines for a bandwidth of 2 x 4 Gbit/s. This has no negative effect on performance. [6]

Starting with the Catalyst 8.3 drivers, Amd/Ati officially supports CrossFireX technology for the 3800 series, which means that up to four GPUs can be used in a pair of Radeon HD 3870 X2. [7]

AMD stated the possibility of supporting 4 Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards, allowing 8 GPUs to be used on several motherboards, including the MSI K9A2 Platinum and Intel D5400XS, because these motherboards have sufficient spaces between PCI-E slots for dual-slot cooler video cards, presumably as a combination of two separate hardware CrossFire setups with a software CrossFire setup bridging the two, but currently with no driver support. [8]

Radeon HD 3600

The Radeon HD 3600 series was based on the codenamed RV635 GPU, packed 378 million transistors on 55 nm fabrication process, and had 128-bit memory bus width. The support for HDMI and D-sub ports is also achieved through separate dongles. Beside the DisplayPort implementations, there also exists other display output layouts as dual DVI port or DVI with D-sub display output layout.

The only variant, the Radeon HD 3650, was released on January 23, 2008, and has also an AGP slot with 64-bit bus width or the standard PCI-E slot with 128-bit.

Radeon HD 3400

AMD Radeon HD3450 AMD RADEON HD3450 PCI-E Dual DVI.jpg
AMD Radeon HD3450

The Radeon HD 3400 series was based on the codenamed RV620 GPU, packed 181 million transistors on a 55 nm fabrication process, and had 64-bit memory bus width. Products were available both as full height cards and as low-profile cards. [9]

One of the notable features is that the Radeon HD 3400 series (including Mobility Radeon HD 3400 series) video cards support ATI Hybrid Graphics. [10]

The Radeon HD 3450 and Radeon HD 3470 were released on January 23, 2008.

Mobile products

All Mobility Radeon HD 2000/3000 series share the same feature set support as their desktop counterparts, as well as the addition of the battery-conserving PowerPlay 7.0 features, which are augmented from the previous generation's PowerPlay 6.0.

The Mobility Radeon HD 2300 is a budget product which includes UVD in silica but lacks unified shader architecture and DirectX 10.0/SM 4.0 support, limiting support to DirectX 9.0c/SM 3.0 using the more traditional architecture of the previous generation. A high-end variant, the Mobility Radeon HD 2700, with higher core and memory frequencies than the Mobility Radeon HD 2600, was released in mid-December 2007.

The Mobility Radeon HD 2400 is offered in two model variants; the standard HD 2400 and the HD 2400 XT. [11]

The Mobility Radeon HD 2600 is also available in the same two flavors; the plain HD 2600 and, at the top of the mobility lineup, the HD 2600 XT. [12]

The half-generation update treatment had also applied to mobile products. Announced prior to CES 2008 was the Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series. Released in the first quarter of 2008, the Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series consisted of two families, the Mobility Radeon HD 3400 series and the Mobility Radeon HD 3600 series. The Mobility Radeon HD 3600 series also featured the industry's first implementation of on-board 128-bit GDDR4 memory.

About the time of late March to early April, 2008, AMD renewed the device ID list on its website [13] with the inclusion of Mobility Radeon HD 3850 X2 and Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 and their respective device IDs. Later in Spring IDF 2008 held in Shanghai, a development board of the Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 was demonstrated alongside a Centrino 2 platform demonstration system. [14] The Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 was based on two M88 GPUs with the addition of a PCI Express switch chip on a single PCB. The demonstrated development board is on PCI Express 2.0 ×16 bus, while the final product is expected to be on AXIOM/MXM modules.

Radeon Feature Matrix

The following table shows features of AMD/ATI's GPUs (see also: List of AMD graphics processing units).

Name of GPU series Wonder Mach 3D Rage Rage Pro Rage 128 R100 R200 R300 R400 R500 R600 RV670 R700 Evergreen Northern
Islands
Southern
Islands
Sea
Islands
Volcanic
Islands
Arctic
Islands
/Polaris
Vega Navi 1x Navi 2x Navi 3x
Released19861991Apr
1996
Mar
1997
Aug
1998
Apr
2000
Aug
2001
Sep
2002
May
2004
Oct
2005
May
2007
Nov
2007
Jun
2008
Sep
2009
Oct
2010
Jan
2012
Sep
2013
Jun
2015
Jun 2016, Apr 2017, Aug 2019Jun 2017, Feb 2019Jul
2019
Nov
2020
Dec
2022
Marketing Name WonderMach3D
Rage
Rage
Pro
Rage
128
Radeon
7000
Radeon
8000
Radeon
9000
Radeon
X700/X800
Radeon
X1000
Radeon
HD 2000
Radeon
HD 3000
Radeon
HD 4000
Radeon
HD 5000
Radeon
HD 6000
Radeon
HD 7000
Radeon
200
Radeon
300
Radeon
400/500/600
Radeon
RX Vega, Radeon VII
Radeon
RX 5000
Radeon
RX 6000
Radeon
RX 7000
AMD supportDark Red x.svgYes check.svg
Kind2D3D
Instruction set architecture Not publicly known TeraScale instruction set GCN instruction set RDNA instruction set
Microarchitecture TeraScale 1
(VLIW)
TeraScale 2
(VLIW5)
TeraScale 2
(VLIW5)

up to 68xx
TeraScale 3
(VLIW4)

in 69xx [15] [16]
GCN 1st
gen
GCN 2nd
gen
GCN 3rd
gen
GCN 4th
gen
GCN 5th
gen
RDNA RDNA 2 RDNA 3
TypeFixed pipeline [lower-alpha 1] Programmable pixel & vertex pipelines Unified shader model
Direct3D 5.06.07.08.19.0
11 (9_2)
9.0b
11 (9_2)
9.0c
11 (9_3)
10.0
11 (10_0)
10.1
11 (10_1)
11 (11_0)11 (11_1)
12 (11_1)
11 (12_0)
12 (12_0)
11 (12_1)
12 (12_1)
11 (12_1)
12 (12_2)
Shader model 1.42.0+2.0b3.04.04.15.05.15.1
6.5
6.7
OpenGL 1.11.21.32.1 [lower-alpha 2] [17] 3.34.5 [18] [19] [20] [lower-alpha 3] 4.6
Vulkan 1.01.21.3
OpenCL Close to Metal 1.1 (not supported by Mesa)1.2+ (on Linux: 1.1+ (no Image support on clover, with by rustiCL) with Mesa, 1.2+ on GCN 1.Gen)2.0+ (Adrenalin driver on Win7+)
(on Linux ROCM, Mesa 1.2+ (no Image support in clover, but in rustiCL with Mesa, 2.0+ and 3.0 with AMD drivers or AMD ROCm), 5th gen: 2.2 win 10+ and Linux RocM 5.0+
2.2+ and 3.0 windows 8.1+ and Linux ROCM 5.0+ (Mesa rustiCL 1.2+ and 3.0 (2.1+ and 2.2+ wip)) [21] [22] [23]
HSA / ROCm Yes check.svg ?
Video decoding ASIC Avivo/UVD UVD+ UVD 2 UVD 2.2 UVD 3 UVD 4 UVD 4.2 UVD 5.0 or 6.0 UVD 6.3 UVD 7 [24] [lower-alpha 4] VCN 2.0 [24] [lower-alpha 4] VCN 3.0 [25] VCN 4.0
Video encoding ASIC VCE 1.0 VCE 2.0 VCE 3.0 or 3.1 VCE 3.4 VCE 4.0 [24] [lower-alpha 4]
Fluid Motion [lower-alpha 5] Dark Red x.svgYes check.svgDark Red x.svg ?
Power saving ? PowerPlay PowerTune PowerTune & ZeroCore Power  ?
TrueAudio Via dedicated DSP Via shaders
FreeSync 1
2
HDCP [lower-alpha 6]  ?1.42.22.3 [26]
PlayReady [lower-alpha 6] 3.0Dark Red x.svg3.0
Supported displays [lower-alpha 7] 1–222–6 ?
Max. resolution  ?2–6 ×
2560×1600
2–6 ×
4096×2160 @ 30 Hz
2–6 ×
5120×2880 @ 60 Hz
3 ×
7680×4320 @ 60 Hz [27]

7680×4320 @ 60 Hz PowerColor
7680x4320

@165 HZ

/drm/radeon [lower-alpha 8] Yes check.svg
/drm/amdgpu [lower-alpha 8] Experimental [28] Optional [29] Yes check.svg
  1. The Radeon 100 Series has programmable pixel shaders, but do not fully comply with DirectX 8 or Pixel Shader 1.0. See article on R100's pixel shaders.
  2. R300, R400 and R500 based cards do not fully comply with OpenGL 2+ as the hardware does not support all types of non-power of two (NPOT) textures.
  3. OpenGL 4+ compliance requires supporting FP64 shaders and these are emulated on some TeraScale chips using 32-bit hardware.
  4. 1 2 3 The UVD and VCE were replaced by the Video Core Next (VCN) ASIC in the Raven Ridge APU implementation of Vega.
  5. Video processing for video frame rate interpolation technique. In Windows it works as a DirectShow filter in your player. In Linux, there is no support on the part of drivers and / or community.
  6. 1 2 To play protected video content, it also requires card, operating system, driver, and application support. A compatible HDCP display is also needed for this. HDCP is mandatory for the output of certain audio formats, placing additional constraints on the multimedia setup.
  7. More displays may be supported with native DisplayPort connections, or splitting the maximum resolution between multiple monitors with active converters.
  8. 1 2 DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) is a component of the Linux kernel. AMDgpu is the Linux kernel module. Support in this table refers to the most current version.

Graphics device drivers

AMD's proprietary graphics device driver "Catalyst"

AMD Catalyst is being developed for Microsoft Windows and Linux. As of July 2014, other operating systems are not officially supported. This may be different for the AMD FirePro brand, which is based on identical hardware but features OpenGL-certified graphics device drivers.

AMD Catalyst supports of course all features advertised for the Radeon brand.

The Radeon HD 3000 series has been transitioned to legacy support, where drivers will be updated only to fix bugs instead of being optimized for new applications. [30]

Free and open-source graphics device driver "Radeon"

The free and open-source drivers are primarily developed on Linux and for Linux, but have been ported to other operating systems as well. Each driver is composed out of five parts:

  1. Linux kernel component DRM
  2. Linux kernel component KMS driver: basically the device driver for the display controller
  3. user-space component libDRM
  4. user-space component in Mesa 3D;
  5. a special and distinct 2D graphics device driver for X.Org Server, which is finally about to be replaced by Glamor

The free and open-source "Radeon" graphics driver supports most of the features implemented into the Radeon line of GPUs. [31] They are not reverse engineered, but based on documentation released by AMD. [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon</span> Brand of computer products

Radeon is a brand of computer products, including graphics processing units, random-access memory, RAM disk software, and solid-state drives, produced by Radeon Technologies Group, a division of AMD. The brand was launched in 2000 by ATI Technologies, which was acquired by AMD in 2006 for US$5.4 billion.

The R520 is a graphics processing unit (GPU) developed by ATI Technologies and produced by TSMC. It was the first GPU produced using a 90 nm photolithography process.

The Radeon R700 is the engineering codename for a graphics processing unit series developed by Advanced Micro Devices under the ATI brand name. The foundation chip, codenamed RV770, was announced and demonstrated on June 16, 2008 as part of the FireStream 9250 and Cinema 2.0 initiative launch media event, with official release of the Radeon HD 4800 series on June 25, 2008. Other variants include enthusiast-oriented RV790, mainstream product RV730, RV740 and entry-level RV710.

Unified Video Decoder is the name given to AMD's dedicated video decoding ASIC. There are multiple versions implementing a multitude of video codecs, such as H.264 and VC-1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon HD 5000 series</span> Series of video cards

The Evergreen series is a family of GPUs developed by Advanced Micro Devices for its Radeon line under the ATI brand name. It was employed in Radeon HD 5000 graphics card series and competed directly with Nvidia's GeForce 400 series.

AMD PowerPlay is the brand name for a set of technologies for the reduction of the energy consumption implemented in several of AMD's graphics processing units and APUs supported by their proprietary graphics device driver "Catalyst". AMD PowerPlay is also implemented into ATI/AMD chipsets which integrated graphics and into AMD's Imageon handheld chipset, that was sold to Qualcomm in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon HD 6000 series</span> Series of video cards

The Northern Islands series is a family of GPUs developed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) forming part of its Radeon-brand, based on the 40 nm process. Some models are based on TeraScale 2 (VLIW5), some on the new TeraScale 3 (VLIW4) introduced with them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon HD 7000 series</span> Series of video cards

The Radeon HD 7000 series, codenamed "Southern Islands", is a family of GPUs developed by AMD, and manufactured on TSMC's 28 nm process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon HD 8000 series</span> Family of GPUs by AMD

The Radeon HD 8000 series is a family of computer GPUs developed by AMD. AMD was initially rumored to release the family in the second quarter of 2013, with the cards manufactured on a 28 nm process and making use of the improved Graphics Core Next architecture. However the 8000 series turned out to be an OEM rebadge of the 7000 series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon 200 series</span> Series of video cards

The Radeon 200 series is a series of graphics processors developed by AMD. These GPUs are manufactured on a 28 nm Gate-Last process through TSMC or Common Platform Alliance.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) codenamed Radeon R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies. The HD 2000 cards competed with nVidia's GeForce 8 series.

Radeon X800 is a series of graphics cards designed by ATI Technologies Inc. introduced in May 2004.

The Radeon X700 (RV410) series replaced the X600 in September 2004. X700 Pro is clocked at 425 MHz core, and produced on a 0.11 micrometre process. RV410 used a layout consisting of 8 pixel pipelines connected to 4 ROPs while maintaining the 6 vertex shaders of X800. The 110 nm process was a cost-cutting process, designed not for high clock speeds but for reducing die size while maintaining high yields. An X700 XT was planned for production, and reviewed by various hardware web sites, but was never released. It was believed that X700 XT set too high of a clock ceiling for ATI to profitably produce. X700 XT was also not adequately competitive with nVidia's impressive GeForce 6600GT. ATI would go on produce a card in the X800 series to compete instead.

ATI released the Radeon X300 and X600 boards. These were based on the RV370 and RV380 GPU respectively. They were nearly identical to the chips used in Radeon 9550 and 9600, only differing in that they were native PCI Express offerings. These were very popular for Dell and other OEM companies to sell in various configurations; connectors: DVI vs. DMS-59, card height: full-height vs. half-height.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon 9000 series</span> Series of video cards

The R300 GPU, introduced in August 2002 and developed by ATI Technologies, is its third generation of GPU used in Radeon graphics cards. This GPU features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding R200 design. R300 was the first fully Direct3D 9-capable consumer graphics chip. The processors also include 2D GUI acceleration, video acceleration, and multiple display outputs.

Video Code Engine is AMD's video encoding application-specific integrated circuit implementing the video codec H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. Since 2012 it was integrated into all of their GPUs and APUs except Oland.

TeraScale is the codename for a family of graphics processing unit microarchitectures developed by ATI Technologies/AMD and their second microarchitecture implementing the unified shader model following Xenos. TeraScale replaced the old fixed-pipeline microarchitectures and competed directly with Nvidia's first unified shader microarchitecture named Tesla.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon 300 series</span> Series of video cards

The Radeon 300 series is a series of graphics processors developed by AMD. All of the GPUs of the series are produced in 28 nm format and use the Graphics Core Next (GCN) micro-architecture.

The Radeon 400 series is a series of graphics processors developed by AMD. These cards were the first to feature the Polaris GPUs, using the new 14 nm FinFET manufacturing process, developed by Samsung Electronics and licensed to GlobalFoundries. The Polaris family initially included two new chips in the Graphics Core Next (GCN) family. Polaris implements the 4th generation of the Graphics Core Next instruction set, and shares commonalities with the previous GCN microarchitectures.

References

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  12. HD 2600 specifications Archived 2010-03-05 at the Wayback Machine and HD 2600 XT specifications Archived 2010-02-11 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ATI Vendor ID page Archived 2010-06-19 at the Wayback Machine
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  16. "GPU Specs Database". TechPowerUp. Retrieved August 23, 2022.
  17. "NPOT Texture (OpenGL Wiki)". Khronos Group. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
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  21. "AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Specs". TechPowerUp. Retrieved January 1, 2021.
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  23. "AMD Radeon Pro 5600M Grafikkarte". TopCPU.net (in German). Retrieved 4 September 2023.
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