*OFFICIAL* ATI Radeon X800 Pre-Launch Thread

[Eug]

So to rephrase my previous question, are both NV40 and R420 gonna be released in April or what? NV40 was rumoured for April 13, and ATI is beginning the ATI front page hype.

 

[Xab]

Originally posted by: Regs
I just want to know if the Rv420 can push Far Cry @ 1280x1024 with max details. If the 9800pro could @1280x960, I'm sure this thing could even play it with AA/AF. I'm hoping. Or ill be very disappointed especially considering this thing will cost well over 400 dollars more than likely.

You can tell just by the hush-hush, keep you in suspense marketing, that they are going to charge a back braking price. Plus I think these cards will be sporting 256 MBs of on board DDR that likely cost a small fortune in it of itself.

Err, my Radeon 9700 Pro can push Far Cry at 1280x1024 with just about max details, I'm expecting a lot more than that from R420 given that it will be a whole new generation part. If R420 doesn't push Far Cry at 1600x1200 with max details I will be disappointed. When the 9700 Pro came out, it was a brand new core and it tore through any games out at the time.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Eug
So to rephrase my previous question, are both NV40 and R420 gonna be released in April or what? NV40 was rumoured for April 13, and ATI is beginning the ATI front page hype.

From the Horse's Mouth:

Are you thirsty for a new level of graphics technology? Tuesday, April 13th, NVIDIA will be hosting an unprecedented all-day LAN party in conjunction with the introduction of our next-generation GeForce GPU. Play Unreal Tournament 2004 and Battlefield Vietnam the way they're meant to be played, on custom NVIDIA gaming machines powered by our next-generation GeForce GPU!

April . . . that's THIS month . . . (this year) 😛
(next week!!!)

about time I got 'rid' of my 8500.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Eug
So to rephrase my previous question, are both NV40 and R420 gonna be released in April or what? NV40 was rumoured for April 13, and ATI is beginning the ATI front page hype.

From the Horse's Mouth:

Are you thirsty for a new level of graphics technology? Tuesday, April 13th, NVIDIA will be hosting an unprecedented all-day LAN party in conjunction with the introduction of our next-generation GeForce GPU. Play Unreal Tournament 2004 and Battlefield Vietnam the way they're meant to be played, on custom NVIDIA gaming machines powered by our next-generation GeForce GPU!

April . . . that's THIS month . . . (this year) 😛
(next week!!!)

about time I got 'rid' of my 8500.

Let's hope no one steals the code and causes a delay 😛 😉

 

[apoppin]

dp

(edit)

Let's hope no one steals the code and causes a delay 😛 😉

haha

r u in a hurry to spend big bux? Far Cry doesn't seem worth the UPgrade and the new games I am looking forward to aren't out yet. 😉

(I am in NO hurry, but i AM saving) 😉

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Eug
So to rephrase my previous question, are both NV40 and R420 gonna be released in April or what? NV40 was rumoured for April 13, and ATI is beginning the ATI front page hype.

From the Horse's Mouth:

Are you thirsty for a new level of graphics technology? Tuesday, April 13th, NVIDIA will be hosting an unprecedented all-day LAN party in conjunction with the introduction of our next-generation GeForce GPU. Play Unreal Tournament 2004 and Battlefield Vietnam the way they're meant to be played, on custom NVIDIA gaming machines powered by our next-generation GeForce GPU!

April . . . that's THIS month . . . (this year) 😛
(next week!!!)

about time I got 'rid' of my 8500.

I'm talking more about R420 actually. IIRC ATI usually starts the front page hype pretty close to the release date, but I wanted confirmation of that.

I have a Radeon 9100 but there's no point in my upgrading since my main home machine is only 1.4 GHz anyways.

 

[Reliant]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Anyone look at the page source yet? 😛

Yes, I did.

<input type="hidden" name="hidType" id="hidType" value="R420-Launch">

😀

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Far Cry doesn't seem worth the UPgrade and the new games I am looking forward to aren't out yet.

Using an 8500 you couldn't possibly appreciate Far Cry's visual appeal, the game play is a matter of opinion of course with some of us really digging it while others say meh. Personally Far Cry runs well on my current setup@10x7 4xAA 8xAF high detail and it looks awesome so it won't be the cause for me to upgrade. In fact I doubt I'll jump on a new gen card just for bragging rights but will wait like many.

 

[Regs]

Bragging rights? Can you imagine the difference between 1024x768 vs 1600x1200?

If the price is what I think it might be, higher than that of a 9800XT, then I would wait as well.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Regs
Bragging rights? Can you imagine the difference between 1024x768 vs 1600x1200?

If the price is what I think it might be, higher than that of a 9800XT, then I would wait as well.

My cheesy LCD won't look purty@16x12 so I'll be replacing it before the 9800pro 😉

 

[JBT]

I can't wait for these cards but I don't see me getting one till after summer time prices should be a bit lower then.

 

[Regs]

Or all these new cores coming with 256 MB onboard standerd?

 

[Xab]

Originally posted by: Regs
Or all these new cores coming with 256 MB onboard standerd?

I'd expect so since they will at least have to be faster than the ones before them.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Xab

Originally posted by: Regs
Or all these new cores coming with 256 MB onboard standerd?

I'd expect so since they will at least have to be faster than the ones before them.

The only argument there Xab is that 128MB of onboard ram the last round was rarely used by any game to date.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Pariah
Are these new releases actually new designs, are just more rehashes of the 9700 and FX cores? It's been a while since we've seen something that's really new.

Some hardware analysts to expect these things from the upcoming hardware:

Core overhauls for more calculating and geometry power
Twice the vertex and pixel shader 3.0 power
Bandwidth conserving technologies for AA/AF and FSAA
----

And it would be a sweet surprise if they actually went with GDDR2 @ 1600 Mhz. I doubt it though. But I could only imagine the price increase if they did.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Regs

Originally posted by: Pariah
Are these new releases actually new designs, are just more rehashes of the 9700 and FX cores? It's been a while since we've seen something that's really new.

Some hardware analysts to expect these things from the upcoming hardware:

Core overhauls for more calculating and geometry power
Twice the vertex and pixel shader 3.0 power
Bandwidth conserving technologies for AA/AF and FSAA
----

And it would be a sweet surprise if they actually went with GDDR2 @ 1600 Mhz. I doubt it though. But I could only imagine the price increase if they did.

How can there be twice the PS 3.0 power when NV40 is the first chip to offer it?

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: Regs

Originally posted by: Pariah
Are these new releases actually new designs, are just more rehashes of the 9700 and FX cores? It's been a while since we've seen something that's really new.

Some hardware analysts to expect these things from the upcoming hardware:

Core overhauls for more calculating and geometry power
Twice the vertex and pixel shader 3.0 power
Bandwidth conserving technologies for AA/AF and FSAA
----

And it would be a sweet surprise if they actually went with GDDR2 @ 1600 Mhz. I doubt it though. But I could only imagine the price increase if they did.

How can there be twice the PS 3.0 power when NV40 is the first chip to offer it?

Maybe because I was talking about more than one offering from one company? Either way its all speculation.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Regs
Bragging rights? Can you imagine the difference between 1024x768 vs 1600x1200?

If the price is what I think it might be, higher than that of a 9800XT, then I would wait as well.

The max. resolution I can game at on my monitor with nice refresh rates is 1152x864 (Samsung 955DF), a Radeon 9800 Pro is way more than sufficient at that resolution to push acceptable framerates at very high visual quality settings. I also won't be upgrading to a R420/NV40 for quite some time. Unless a game comes out that I REALLY want to play but can't with the 9800 Pro. I have a hard time imaging that for another year...

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Just a side note, but there are strong rumours saying that the R420 will not support PS3.0.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: KnightBreed
Just a side note, but there are strong rumours saying that the R420 will not support PS3.0.

Yes, theInq's been reporting that. They've also been reporting that the R420 will have 12 pixel pipes while NV40 will have some sort of sophisticated scheme with which 8 pipes act like 16. I won't bother linking the sources since I'm too lazy and they're just rumours anyway.

 

[Regs]

If Nvidia does improve their pixel shaders and AF like they state , I might just get an Nvidia this time around. I had my fun with ATI 🙂 Woo hoo, I can't wait just to read what technology these cards have to offer for the year or years to come.

 

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
off topic: your pictures of Santorini are amazing 🙂

i might be going back to Greece in may, photo-taking-tangent 😀

Thanks! Greece is a beautiful place. I hope to go back briefly this summer.

Santorini rocks.. BTW if any of you is interested on more info about Greece PM me. (A Greek guy)

😀

 

[XBoxLPU]

I am going to be sticking with my 9700 pro for now 😛

 

[ViRGE]

It's times like these I wish I were still a lay-person so I could speculate some more. Anyhow, ATi is getting ready to counter Nvidia next week, and that's all that's nessisary to say.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
It's times like these I wish I were still a lay-person so I could speculate some more. Anyhow, ATi is getting ready to counter Nvidia next week, and that's all that's nessisary to say.

Then how 'bout more speculation?



NV40 3DMark 2003 scores revealed

Numerous sources have confirmed that a Futuremark 3DMark 2003 score of 12,535 has apparently been demonstrated by Nvidia on its pre-production engineering samples.

Sure, ati will 'counter' . . . but will it be "enough"?

Sources close to ATI have said that a score of 10,000 3DMarks for ATi R420 "would be a dream", indicating that R420 Revision: CeBIT 2K4 wasn't pulling this level of numbers.

😀


12,535!!!! What do the current GPUs push? ~7000? . . . it's gonna be BAD. 😛

(Please note . . . the above is S-P-E-C-U-L-A-T-I-O-N)

What do you think of "GeForce 6"? Pretty original . . . I'll have a 6800 Ultra (witth a Xtra helping of AA & AF), please. 😀