Win An ATI Radeon 4870 Video Card!

Get your questions in for the SkinCast!

from WinCustomize Forums

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DigitalMedia/44154-A_ATr_Logo_E_RGB_thumb.jpg

Although we had to take another break from the WinCustomize SkinCast last week, this week we are returning and will have a special guest, along with some huge prizes we are giving away.  For an upcoming episode of SkinCast, we will be talking with Darren McPhee, the Sr. Marketing Manager in Gaming for AMD.  We will be discussing several topics with Darren including AMD/ATI products, graphics, gaming, and much more.

We will also be taking user-submitted questions from the community for this episode, and the top three questions selected will win a prize.  We will select three of our favorite questions, and the users who submitted these questions will win one of the following:

  1. Grand Prize Favorite - ATI Radeon 4870 512mb video card courtesy of AMD/ATI. 

  2. Second Favorite - Copy of Demigod, when released and beta access.

  3. Third Favorite -   Copy of Sins of a Solar Empire.

User submitted questions must be submitted as comments in this thread only, no other means will be accepted.  Questions can be related to ATI/AMD, skinning, Vista, technology, gaming, etc.  The deadline for submissions is 11:59pm EST, Wednesday, August 13th 2008.  Good luck and get those questions in!

*Employees, family, direct friends of Stardock, AMD/ATI, GPG, IC can ask questions, but are not eligible for prizes.  :)

 

36,266 views 79 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
How far off into the future will single core processors be usable? Are we heading to a point where dual or quad cores will be a necessity,rather than a selling point?
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My XP box is a small form factor with on-board video, sound and network. It's also straight USB. Being that none of the on-board perpherals are upgradeable my question is, are there any plans in the near future for a high-end external USB video card? Thanks! Cp  ;) 
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
What's in store for the future of ATI? Could you give us a little insight into any new technology you are working on to get a leg up on the market? What technology do you feel will be the future's standard?
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
In the future, do you feel the superior graphics card would be (a) one with superior graphics/computing performance at the expense of higher power usage or (b) one with lower power usage at the expense of lower graphics/computing performance? How important do you feel power efficiency will be in the design of next generation graphics cards?
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ask him when they plan to fix the heat issues with the 4850s & 4870s. Having my Video Card operating at 80C is not good for the other components in my case. Ask him if ATI might think about developing a Fan utility and temp monitoring program so that OCers can EASILY modify the fan speeds on the cards.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
How has the partnership of ATI/AMD helped the graphics cards technology? It is my understanding that AMD bought ATI to help improve games with AMD processors, but I've heard nothing of any benefits to the ATI graphics cards. Has the merger been used to give us better processors for ATI video cards or improve them any other way, or has it been just to improve AMD processors?
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This is a "Horse or Cart" question.

When you go about updateing or designing a new video card what approach do you take, (a) Okay community have a new card here with alot of new features come on and write software/prgrams to use it or (b) Okay community we have enhanced and updated the features on our new cards to blow the doors off your user experience.

In other words, do you build to the community or try to lead the community?
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
With the recent release of the Radeon 4800 series of graphics cards, AMD appears to be continuing following its new strategy of putting its main focus on the mid-range market (which is the one most gamers aim for), with a big focus on creating cards with great cost-to-performance ratios. How effective has this strategy been working for AMD? In addition, is it more efficient overall to create a killer mid-range card that can be slightly tweaked to also cater to the other markets (eg- the GDDR5 memory on the HD4870 or the raw power of the HD4870X2)?
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I do like robot AI competitions, be it the "dogs soccer league", "sort the stuff in the correct shelves" or "drive a hummer through a desert without losing more than 1 wheel", back when I was a small child I also liked the match "Deep Blue vs Kasparow". My absolute favourite games are real time strategy games and I find it very sad that the AIs in this games are all rather poor; so my question is why doesn't a chip manufacturer or a game developer/publisher or some other sponsor host an AI vs AI tournament series where people can submit their own selfwritten AIs for a certain game (be it Starcraft or Supreme Commander or Sins of Solar Empire) and funds a humble prize money to encourage the developing of truly awesome AIs for RTS?
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Here's a tip:

Be as specific and directed in your questions as possible.  Vague questions like "When are they going to fix the card?"  or "What's next?"  are pretty open-ended and hard to answer.  Part of what we're looking for in questions is not just the topic, but also in how it's formed.  A good question can get a lot of great information in an interview.  We want questions to spark discussion and keep things interesting.

Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Update:  We had the dates wrong initially on the main post.  The deadline is NEXT wednesday (Aug 13th).
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
When buying a graphics card, is there a balance to achieve between the computer and the card? For example does the processor speed, system cache, RAM etc. form part of the purchasing decision and in what way? In other words, can you spend a lot of money on a card and not be using its full potential due to system limitations? Thanks.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My question is this: As powerful as these cards are for gaming , is there any way we could use this technology to apply to things like the system UI. Could you use the capabilities to extend things like windows theming beyond just 'Aero'?
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ask him when they plan to fix the heat issues with the 4850s & 4870s. Having my Video Card operating at 80C is not good for the other components in my case. Ask him if ATI might think about developing a Fan utility and temp monitoring program so that OCers can EASILY modify the fan speeds on the cards.
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Make a profile in the catalyst control center, say for example Lantec40. Enable ATI Overdrive, go to C:\Users\owner\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles. Open up Lantec40 profile with notepad. Basically change the bold areas. 40 percent is not too loud. 70 percent sounds like a hoover. Mine is on 40 and decreases the temperature drastically :D For the better of course :) Make several profiles so u can easily change fanspeed. Property name="FanSpeedAlgorithm" value="Manual" / /Feature Feature name="FanSpeedRPMTarget_0" Property name="Want" value="0" / /Feature Feature name="FanSpeedPercentTarget_0" property name="Want" value="40" / Of course, you might already know this and im just writing this for no reason lol. Question for ATI/AMD: Are you looking into teaming up with more partners to sell your graphics cards. Such as perhaps BFG. Or another big Nvidia partner. I heard EVGA was interested in selling your cards. A major NVIDIA card seller like EVGA wanting to sell your cards would be quite a coup wouldnt it?
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My Question is basically simple and straight to the Point. How Much more can AMD/ATI add to the Computers or notebooks over the rest of there Competition out there? Or in other words. What Makes AMD/ATI more better than the rest?
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
How the heck do you break up the message? :NOTSURE: I wanted paragraphs in there :( Hitting enter doesnt create a space for me (:(
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Wouldn't you agree the market is becoming "saturated "as we are seeing new technology being released every year (whilst folks tend to stick with their existing systems for much longer time ) and doesn't that pose the danger of developing technological superior hardware which becomes increasingly harder to sell ?
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Question: Not to sound cynical but... Do developers of new technology, such as your company sit on or hold back proven future technologies because you can release several versions of gradual improvement to the future technology?
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My question: When you guys design a card around some technology that's not out yet when you start creating the card, you are most likely using some form of beta or even alpha version of that technology or specification. How do you work with these technologies, which may change a lot during the design process, to get something that works well for the (possibly different in some low-level areas) final release?
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Why does the CATALYST Control Center require three (3) "CLI.EXE" files and a "PREVIEW.EXE" file ?
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Question: What is ATI's equivalent to the Nvidia 8800 series cards? What advantages would gamer's have in using the ATI over the Nvidia?
Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Does AMD/ATI see an eventual convergence of CPU and GPU into a single chip much like the CPU and FPU have merged? Or, does AMD/ATI see dedicated chips as the way computers will grow in complexity?
Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top
With the ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series listing many Key Features, such as TeraScale Graphics Engine, Advanced Memory, and ATI CrossFireX technology, along with many others, which main feature do you feel sets the ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series apart from its competitors, and makes it the must have GPU?
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Make a profile in the catalyst control center, say for example Lantec40. Enable ATI Overdrive, go to C:\Users\owner\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles. Open up Lantec40 profile with notepad. Basically change the bold areas. 40 percent is not too loud. 70 percent sounds like a hoover. Mine is on 40 and decreases the temperature drastically For the better of course Make several profiles so u can easily change fanspeed. Property name="FanSpeedAlgorithm" value="Manual" / /Feature Feature name="FanSpeedRPMTarget_0" Property name="Want" value="0" / /Feature Feature name="FanSpeedPercentTarget_0" property name="Want" value="40" / Of course, you might already know this and im just writing this for no reason lol.
End of quote


Yes, I've already set up several profiles. Normal-42% CAD-50% Game1-60% Game2-70%
I'd like something more....."Automatic" or at least an easier method to do it.

Because I run dual monitors I can load GPU-z and set on my secondary screen while playing Crysis (1600x1200 high) and watch the temps run up. Without the profile settings my temps went over 100C under heavy load. I'm not worried about the video card...I'm worried the ambient temp increase might fry my CPU, HDDs, memory or some other crucial part.
Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
With the recent "leak" of information regarding Nvidia's pulling out of the chipset market (and their subsequent denial of said information - but hey, that means little, look at the drama surrounding Brett Favre's return to the NFL, he denied it initially as well), how do you see the possibility of this bolstering your position with Crossfire still being supported and what would this mean for future chipsets? I have some interest in the future of Crossfire/SLI as I'm in the market for upgrading my system and now have some trepidation as to what I should pursue - keep my current Nvidia card (8800 GTS 512) or ditch it and go back to an ATI Crossfire solution (I'd previously had 2 X1600's in Crossfire as my current mobo supported this).