Ati's R500 . . . *Update* X-b0xNext info*

[reever]

Originally posted by: g3pro
.09 micron process? hahahahahah. give me a break. Intel and IBM are having bitches of problems making the transition. It just isn't gonna happen for GPUs. .11 micron, but definitely not .09. They would be shooting themselves in the foot for even thinking it at this point. But then again, this is our friendly ATi who forgot to make their cards SM3.0 capable.

And their problem is not getting clockspeeds up to what they want because of heat and leakage, what is their solution? Dual cores and less mhz, which already applies to graphic cards right now, so I don't think their problem will really be as bad as the other guys

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024

Originally posted by: Rollo
I truly doubt you will see this card this year when the current card isn't supposed to ship in volume till August?

Unless of course they just do another paper lauch and release it next summer anyway after people preorder it this year. :roll:

You mean just like Nvidia did with the 6800 series?

This post is about ATI, not nVidia? (my reasoning for posting about ATI)

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: cstring
I wonder what nvidia is gonna do next, they spent all this effort on the new 6800 and in less than a year ATI is gonna release this beast. Not like the 6800 is stomping on the ATI cards right now.

Release NV50? It's not like the ATi cards are stomping on the 6800s right now...

What was the point of your post again?

Probably because the X800 cards are pretty much 2 year old tech. People love to bring that up all the time. Their two year old tech, is keeping up with NV's brand new tech.

IF (very big if) ATi can get the same kind of performance leap from their new tech card, it could very well be a beast of a card. If the NV50 or whatever is a refresh of the NV40, it *could* be trouble for NV.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: apoppin


What isN't 'realized' is that the current r420/nv40 may not be the "great investment" so many are claiming if they are gonna get 'blown away' in LESS than a year.

Ummm..I doubt that they will release a card that is more than 50% faster than x800xt pe in less than a year....

I mean R480 might be what 9800Pro is to 9700Pro and R500 will be 9800XT to 9800Pro with pS3.0 support (ie. about 30% faster than 9700Pro)

So maybe 30-40% increase. But isn't that what always happens with graphics cards? IN 1 year's time, your "fastest" card is only "good."

Besides, it is not hard for ATI to simply add another 60 million transistors to implement PS3.0. Last time they were talking about a completely new core, they wanted to skip PS3.0 altogether and go for DX10 and PS4.0 -- of course for that we need Longhorn, which won't come until 2006. I think we have to realize that we havnet' seen such a large jump in performance since this new x800/6800 launch for a long time. It took 1.5 years (from 9700-9800xt) to go 30-40% performance increase. I highly doubt R500 will double the performance if it comes out next March-May.

 

[Pete]

R480 should be a speed-bumped R420 and appear this Fall, and hopefully we'll see the SM3.0(+?) R500 in the Spring.

I really don't think we'll see another architecturally new core from ATi this year. I think they're going to ride it out with SM2.0b, which I don't think will be too much of a handicap in terms of price/performance for this year.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I don't think we'll see R500 in the XBox 2 unless MS doesn't want top of the line tech right when the XBox 2 debuts. I'd heard XBox 2 might be here around winter 05, of which 05 sounds pretty early when both Nintendo and Sony have both made claims that they'll release 06 or possibly later. So unless R500 is held off until the end of next year I think we might see something else in XBox 2, that or we'll see XBox 2 insanely early as well as MS's own early death in the console market...

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Pete
R480 should be a speed-bumped R420 and appear this Fall, and hopefully we'll see the SM3.0(+?) R500 in the Spring.

I really don't think we'll see another architecturally new core from ATi this year. I think they're going to ride it out with SM2.0b, which I don't think will be too much of a handicap in terms of price/performance for this year.

I agree with pete. ATi wants to push 3.0 SM on their cards. NV might introduce a 6800 series card with higher core clocks. Maybe add low-k.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
I don't think we'll see R500 in the XBox 2 unless MS doesn't want top of the line tech right when the XBox 2 debuts. I'd heard XBox 2 might be here around winter 05, of which 05 sounds pretty early when both Nintendo and Sony have both made claims that they'll release 06 or possibly later. So unless R500 is held off until the end of next year I think we might see something else in XBox 2, that or we'll see XBox 2 insanely early as well as MS's own early death in the console market...

XBox was released (accirding to one website) in Nov 01.
Geforce 3 was released (according to Anandtech) in March 01 (well, announced), and available it seeems by April 01.

That's ~7 months.
So if ATi released new cards in Spring (March) 05, and XBox next is released in Nov 05, using the R500 tech, then it would fit perfectly with the original Xbox launch.
(From the dates I've managed to find, which may not be too great)

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Probably because the X800 cards are pretty much 2 year old tech. People love to bring that up all the time. Their two year old tech, is keeping up with NV's brand new tech.

IF (very big if) ATi can get the same kind of performance leap from their new tech card, it could very well be a beast of a card. If the NV50 or whatever is a refresh of the NV40, it *could* be trouble for NV.

Saying r420 is two year old tech is like saying Prescott is 12 year old tech.

What is r420? Yes it's r300 based, but they've doubled the pipelines, added more vertex/pixel units, changed supported features...the same way that Intel's newest CPUs are just 486/DX's with a longer pipeline, faster clockspeeds, larger caches, and support for new instruction sets. They're both still x86 processors.

This was one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard. If you take two year old tech, shrink it to provide more efficient power consumption and heat dissipation, and then double the numer of pipelines and double the clockspeeds, YES, it SHOULD keep up with modern hardware with the same number of pipes a slower clocks....If I could overclock an old 486/DX to 75Ghz and add new cache and instruction support, you'd be amazed at how well it decimates an Athlon 64...


Seriously, please think before posting.

 

[Zebo]

I thought the 800's/r420 are still rumors. I mean we saw hundreds of reviews like four months ago but there are no cards. I went to four retailers yesterday including FRYS and none had any iteration of ATi's new cards... same with nVidia.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Zebo
I thought the 800's/r420 are still rumors. I mean we saw hundreds of reviews like four months ago but there are no cards. I went to four retailers yesterday including FRYS and none had any iteration of ATi's new cards... same with nVidia.

lol!!!

tell me about it..Here in Canada, the biggest computer retailers - Futureshop and BestBuy - still do not even have X800XT PE in stock (nor x800xt for that matter). To make matters worse, their X800pro card costs even more than it does on ATI's website!!!

 

[coldpower27]

My predictions on NV50 and R500
0.11 micron process minimum
600MHZ core speed to start for both vendors. assuming ATI becomes as efficient as NV.
400 million + transistors for NV50, 300+ million transistors for R500
NV Shader Model 3.0+, ATI Shader Model 3.0 support and 32Bit Precision
24 Pipelines minimum
10 Vertex Shader Units

However if both parts conform to Shader Model 4.0 Specifications, we could have something like 32 Total Shader Unit on both cards.

Speculating is fun

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: coldpower27
My predictions on NV50 and R500
0.11 micron process minimum
600MHZ core speed to start for both vendors. assuming ATI becomes as efficient as NV.
400 million + transistors for NV50, 300+ million transistors for R500
NV Shader Model 3.0+, ATI Shader Model 3.0 support and 32Bit Precision
24 Pipelines minimum
10 Vertex Shader Units

However if both parts conform to Shader Model 4.0 Specifications, we could have something like 32 Total Shader Unit on both cards.

Speculating is fun

If Shader Model 4.0 is part of the DX10 spec, you can expect the R500 to support it. Someone above mentionned that it is rumoured to support 128-bit precision, not 32.

 

[A5]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
I don't think we'll see R500 in the XBox 2 unless MS doesn't want top of the line tech right when the XBox 2 debuts. I'd heard XBox 2 might be here around winter 05, of which 05 sounds pretty early when both Nintendo and Sony have both made claims that they'll release 06 or possibly later. So unless R500 is held off until the end of next year I think we might see something else in XBox 2, that or we'll see XBox 2 insanely early as well as MS's own early death in the console market...

XBox was released (accirding to one website) in Nov 01.
Geforce 3 was released (according to Anandtech) in March 01 (well, announced), and available it seeems by April 01.

That's ~7 months.
So if ATi released new cards in Spring (March) 05, and XBox next is released in Nov 05, using the R500 tech, then it would fit perfectly with the original Xbox launch.
(From the dates I've managed to find, which may not be too great)

I think the closest desktop core to the XBox is either the Geforce 4 or 5 series...

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: A5
I think the closest desktop core to the XBox is either the Geforce 4 or 5 series...

No. The Xbox core is a GF3 w/ an extra vertex shader from what I understand. The GF4 is considerably more powerful than what you can find in the Xbox, whereas the Xbox GPU is only marginally more powerful than a GF3.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
I don't think we'll see R500 in the XBox 2 unless MS doesn't want top of the line tech right when the XBox 2 debuts. I'd heard XBox 2 might be here around winter 05, of which 05 sounds pretty early when both Nintendo and Sony have both made claims that they'll release 06 or possibly later. So unless R500 is held off until the end of next year I think we might see something else in XBox 2, that or we'll see XBox 2 insanely early as well as MS's own early death in the console market...

Playstation 3 out by March next year

Wednesday 14 July 2004, 09:52

SONY WILL have models of the Playstation 3 in shops by March next year, the Kyodo News service reported earlier this week.

:Q

 

[apoppin]

Help develop ATI's R600

Sunday 25 April 2004, 10:37

ATI APPEARS to be advertising for a team leader to manage Direct 3D driver component quality at its Marlboro plant in the USA.
As part of her or his responsibilities, the manager will serve as the primary point of contact within ATI for component quality problems for the D3D driver for the R600 product.

The manager will also work directly with managers and engineers from the Shader Compiler and D3D engineering teams in planning, executing and reporting.

R600!!? :Q

R500 IS next year . . . we can probably expect it paperlaunched just after the XT-PE is finally (really) available.

:roll:

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: cstring
I wonder what nvidia is gonna do next, they spent all this effort on the new 6800 and in less than a year ATI is gonna release this beast. Not like the 6800 is stomping on the ATI cards right now.

Do you seriously think nVidia is sitting on their hands right now staring at their 6800? Don't be so naive.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Something really has to be done about the temperatures as GPUs (and CPUs too I guess) are really getting out of hand. If this continues water cooling will become mandatory.

People are trying to beat Moore's law - that's the problem. Think about how quickly NV40 came after NV30 - really, about 12 months. That's halfway through the cycle.

Prescott cooks, but the A64 series isn't that bad. GPUs though, ATi and NV chips both run hot as the dickens.

Exactly how hot is "the dickens?"

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Something really has to be done about the temperatures as GPUs (and CPUs too I guess) are really getting out of hand. If this continues water cooling will become mandatory.

People are trying to beat Moore's law - that's the problem. Think about how quickly NV40 came after NV30 - really, about 12 months. That's halfway through the cycle.

Prescott cooks, but the A64 series isn't that bad. GPUs though, ATi and NV chips both run hot as the dickens.

Exactly how hot is "the dickens?"

"exactly" 2 hot 2 handle
("varies" from p2p - like "room temperature")

:roll:

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Something really has to be done about the temperatures as GPUs (and CPUs too I guess) are really getting out of hand. If this continues water cooling will become mandatory.

People are trying to beat Moore's law - that's the problem. Think about how quickly NV40 came after NV30 - really, about 12 months. That's halfway through the cycle.

Prescott cooks, but the A64 series isn't that bad. GPUs though, ATi and NV chips both run hot as the dickens.

Exactly how hot is "the dickens?"

"exactly" 2 hot 2 handle
("varies" from p2p - like "room temperature")

:roll:

So it's not as cold as a witch's tit?

 

[SilverTrine]

x800 xt's are selling via Dell. You can order a PC with it inside it, so supply is constrained and demand is high but its out there.

The 6800u appears to not have hit mass production and never will.

I dont think its a fair comparison.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: SilverTrine
x800 xt's are selling via Dell. You can order a PC with it inside it, so supply is constrained and demand is high but its out there.

The 6800u appears to not have hit mass production and never will.

I dont think its a fair comparison.

I wonder if they're really in stock here. Granted it's a GT and not an Ultra... but still... you could buy a 6800 today just like you could buy an x800 Pro today.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Something really has to be done about the temperatures as GPUs (and CPUs too I guess) are really getting out of hand. If this continues water cooling will become mandatory.

People are trying to beat Moore's law - that's the problem. Think about how quickly NV40 came after NV30 - really, about 12 months. That's halfway through the cycle.

Prescott cooks, but the A64 series isn't that bad. GPUs though, ATi and NV chips both run hot as the dickens.

Exactly how hot is "the dickens?"

"exactly" 2 hot 2 handle
("varies" from p2p - like "room temperature")

:roll:

So it's not as cold as a witch's tit?

"Witch's Tit HyperCooling Systems, Inc."



Nope . . . diametrically opposed.



:roll:

Oh, Dell has 'em.

WHO CARES?

So does Alienware.

So i should spend $2,000 to rip out the videocard and junk the rest to get one.

:roll:

That is NOT "available"

And don't expect the XT-PE in and "quantities" until OCTOBER (just b4 ati's paperlaunch of r500 a few months after that)

Ati AND nVidia BOTH suck (for their crap "promises" this year)

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Probably because the X800 cards are pretty much 2 year old tech. People love to bring that up all the time. Their two year old tech, is keeping up with NV's brand new tech.

IF (very big if) ATi can get the same kind of performance leap from their new tech card, it could very well be a beast of a card. If the NV50 or whatever is a refresh of the NV40, it *could* be trouble for NV.

Saying r420 is two year old tech is like saying Prescott is 12 year old tech.

What is r420? Yes it's r300 based, but they've doubled the pipelines, added more vertex/pixel units, changed supported features...the same way that Intel's newest CPUs are just 486/DX's with a longer pipeline, faster clockspeeds, larger caches, and support for new instruction sets. They're both still x86 processors.

This was one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard. If you take two year old tech, shrink it to provide more efficient power consumption and heat dissipation, and then double the numer of pipelines and double the clockspeeds, YES, it SHOULD keep up with modern hardware with the same number of pipes a slower clocks....If I could overclock an old 486/DX to 75Ghz and add new cache and instruction support, you'd be amazed at how well it decimates an Athlon 64...


Seriously, please think before posting.

Touchez! Very good points - calling the X800 series "two year old tech" is pretty nonsensical. It's new technology, just without SM3 support. If it had SM3, it would all of a sudden be this magical "brand new, innovative" design.


ATI went 'safe' with the X800 series and as a side benefit got higher clock speeds out of their chips. Nvidia went all new (as they had to - the FX5800/FX5900 series had PS 2.0 deficiencies). Now, Nvidia is the market leader with the newest tech, kind of like when ATI sprung out the 9700 Pro and caught their competitors with their pants down. Except the difference from PS 1.0 to 2.0 is bigger than PS 2.0 to SM 3.0 (or at least what we've seen so far).

With that said, it seems FAR easier for developers to add SM 3.0 support than going from PS 1.0 (1.1 - 1.4) to 2.0, so SM 3.0 support is a nice feature to have.