More R350/R400 Info from Beyond3D & theInquirer

[GTaudiophile]

Yesterday ATI?s President and COO, Dave Orton, presented at the CSFB Technology Conference in which he signalled that R350 does indeed exist and both this and R400?s expected release timeframe.

While no details of the exact configuration of R350 were given away (Will it be a higher clocked version of R300? Will it be a cut down version for the mid end? Will it have any features or performance element additions from the R300 core?), the timeframe given for the release of this part was 'Spring'.

The big question with R350 is what process is it based on? If R350 is intended as a new high end performance part then the headroom on the .15um for higher clock-speeds must be getting a little limited ? should they achieve speeds of 400MHz how competitive would this be? On the other hand is R350 based on the .13um process? Given that NVIDIA have spent $400Million on getting their 2003 .13um product line up to speed it may be surprising if ATI have .13um parts ready in a similar period.

As for R400, the expected timeframe for announcement and release is expected to be roughly consistent with that of R300 (Radeon 9700 PRO), so expect to hear more in the later half of 2003. R400 represents a larger architectural change than from the R300 to R350 cores, which would indicate that more features should be expected of this core. Given the timeframe talked about, it?s quite possible that R400 would be DX9.1 PS/VS3.0 part.

With what was discussed in this presentation by ATI, the recently announced GeForce FX and the rest of NVIDIA?s NV3x line still to make a formal debut it sounds as though watching the 3D market evolve in 2003 should be fairly interesting.


Source

More info from theInquirer.net

Edit: WTF? Nvidia might have a very serious competitor??? Where have these guys been?

ATI to Show No Mercy for NVIDIA in Spring

 

[Adul]

god bless competition

i did see this earlier, just didn't think to post;

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Adul
god bless competition

i did see this earlier, just didn't think to pots ;

You been smokin' something? 😉

 

[Adul]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: Adul
god bless competition

i did see this earlier, just didn't think to pots ;

You been smokin' something? 😉

😱

 

[SteelyKen]

I saw this last night, actually listened to the whole conversation. I just thought I would wait and see how long it would take NFS4 to post it! 😉

 

[GTaudiophile]

Bump for the morning crew.

 

[GTaudiophile]

This isn't big news to anyone else?

 

[GTaudiophile]

Ratchet over at the Rage3D forums said this, and I think he has a good point:

I wonder if any of the NV30 reviews will have "NV30 is great, but the R350 is coming out soon so you should wait" type comments in them, like all the earlier R300 reviews did... probably not.

Hear that, Anand?

 

[codehack2]

Granted, I love my 9700pro... but the thing is going to be eclipsed by an ATI part before the damn API (DX9) that it was built for is even released. Anyone have a final date on DX9 yet?

CH2

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
This isn't big news to anyone else?

Nah. I think that everyone that posts to these forums has seen graphics cards come and go. When I found out that the GFFX would be sporting 1GHz DDR RAM, I was impressed, simply because they were breaking the mythical "1GHz barrier." That was "big news" to me. New card release dates like 2nd quarter or 3rd quarter of next year just aren't close enough for me to worry about, especially without some specs to back them up.

 

[Creig]

Well, I know that this is the card I've been saving my money for. I passed on the 9700 AIW before it was even released given the inital specs of the R350 equipped 9900 with two texture units per pipeline, a higher core clock speed and DDR-II memory. Given the already incredible performance level of the 9700, a 9900 AIW should have enough headroom to keep me from wanting to upgrade again until 2005 or so.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Ratchet over at the Rage3D forums said this, and I think he has a good point:

I wonder if any of the NV30 reviews will have "NV30 is great, but the R350 is coming out soon so you should wait" type comments in them, like all the earlier R300 reviews did... probably not.

Hear that, Anand?

Many reviewers, including Anand, did the same thing for the Geforce FX previews.

From AnandTech:
ATI has won the first round with the Radeon 9700 Pro, what will be most interesting will be what ATI has up their sleeves when the GeForce FX hits the shelves in February.