R300 Radeon 9700 Specs - What we'll see on Wednesday!

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: pm
A12 ? Does anyone know how ATI denotes new steppings/revisions? By most companies, this would mean they have had 12 mask changes. Can that be right?

And if it truly does generate 40W then I'm going to pass on it no matter how great it is and no matter what the price is. I'm kinda shocked at how hot my computer room gets in the evening. The AC in our house can't keep up with what I have. 40W for a high-end consumer video card. Makes me wonder where we are headed in the future... everything is only going to get hotter.

didn't one of the nuts that scott mcnealy keeps in the closet most of the time say that computers would eventually change the heat level of the universe and destroy everything?

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: pm
A12 ? Does anyone know how ATI denotes new steppings/revisions? By most companies, this would mean they have had 12 mask changes. Can that be right?

And if it truly does generate 40W then I'm going to pass on it no matter how great it is and no matter what the price is. I'm kinda shocked at how hot my computer room gets in the evening. The AC in our house can't keep up with what I have. 40W for a high-end consumer video card. Makes me wonder where we are headed in the future... everything is only going to get hotter.

Maybe it's A12 as in A1.2? unless they've been tweaking for awhile to be sure to ouperform Nvidia (anyone else remember when the Inquirer was calling for a possible March or April release date?)
As for the power issue... I'll wait for the .13um revision 🙂

-Ice

 

[pm]

Maybe it's A12 as in A1.2? unless they've been tweaking for awhile to be sure to ouperform Nvidia (anyone else remember when the Inquirer was calling for a possible March or April release date?)
As for the power issue... I'll wait for the .13um revision 🙂

Maybe. I'm kinda curious now how ATI labels their mask revisions. 12 would be an amazingly high number considering it has to take over a month to get from tape out to packaged parts. So since they've had silicon for less than a year, that would mean that they are taping out parts before they have the previous change's results back. Which isn't completely unbelieveable. But it seems unlikely.

As far as 0.13um, I wouldn't count on it to be substantially cooler. CMOS at 0.13um leaks pretty badly. It won't be substantially cooler without architectural/circuit changes to the design. After 0.13um, I doubt process improvements will result in any improvement in power dissipation. Leakage is going to eat it all.

 

[Pocatello]

Sound good to me 😉

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Check out ATI's site...

R300 is definetly comig soon

-Ice

 

[Rand]

I'm kinda curious now how ATI labels their mask revisions. 12 would be an amazingly high number considering it has to take over a month to get from tape out to packaged parts. So since they've had silicon for less than a year, that would mean that they are taping out parts before they have the previous change's results back. Which isn't completely unbelieveable. But it seems unlikely.

From what I've seen of past ATi graphics cards prior to release they generally start listing at A10 revision, which would indicate 3 mask steppings.
The classic R100 core if you recall saw A14 prior to release.

After 0.13um, I doubt process improvements will result in any improvement in power dissipation. Leakage is going to eat it all.

Is leakage that bad already on present .13u lithography techniques?
Without taking into account future process improvements, I was under the impression current leakage wouldnt approach such levels as that until .08u.

 

[ceZium]

ATI has been known to put out crap drivers but their drivers are definately getting better. Better than Nvidia's? not in my opinion but improving all the time. I hope this card does live up to its hype.

 

[TNTrulez]

nice

 

[Gog]

Yep, the info is from the Inquirer... forgot to post the source, my bad😱😀...

As far as I can tell the Inquirer has always been on target with most of their predictions, they seem to get their info from the source😉.

I doubt this card is going to have driver problems as ATi seems to have cleaned up in that department, the main worry is how much is this card going to cost... I've heard rumours that it might run in excess of $400, which is more or less typical of newly introduced top of the line graphic cards.

You guys are right about the 3D mark 2001, its time that madonion release 2003 and start testing these cards directx9 capabilities (although directx9 hasn't been officially released yet), but you know what I'm talking about.

 

[CrazySaint]

After the R8500 ad campaign, I wonder what the R300 ad campaign will be like 😀😉😎

 

[Acanthus]

Madonion is already working on 3Dmark2003, they are waiting for the official DX9.0 release

As for this card, 305mhz is unlikely with that high of a tranni count, the heat would be incredible. Not to mention the hardware engineering it would take to get yields that high. I dunno maybe with 12 Alpha runs they got the chip right 🙂

 

[mrbios]

Originally posted by: Shiva112
15,000 3dmarks? Is that a lot? 😀

Seriously though, it sounds pretty ground breaking...I just hope they don't fvck it up with POS drivers.

I personally don't think that the drivers will suck. From what I understand, ATI has followed the path of Nvidia and went to a unified driver set. So with all the work that's been done on the current driver set, I would think the drivers would be have decent.

Russell "Mr.Bios" Sampson

 

[Metalloid]

I just cant wait to see the IQ on this thing compared to that TI4400 that I bought a few months back. 🙂


EDIT: Whoa 16x Anisotropic Filtering!!!!! This is gonna be fun.

 

[Utterman]

Originally posted by: mrbios

Originally posted by: Shiva112
15,000 3dmarks? Is that a lot? 😀

Seriously though, it sounds pretty ground breaking...I just hope they don't fvck it up with POS drivers.

I personally don't think that the drivers will suck. From what I understand, ATI has followed the path of Nvidia and went to a unified driver set. So with all the work that's been done on the current driver set, I would think the drivers would be have decent.

Russell "Mr.Bios" Sampson

There has been incorporation of the R300 into the ati drivers for several months, so I would guess the drivers won't be much of a problem.

 

[FraggMaster]

sweet mother of Fragg I'm drooling already

Fear is for the weak. Free yourself from it and your enemies will fall.

 

[Mani]

I might suggest you comment these are rumoured pre-release specifications, rather then stating definitively that this is what we most definitely will see come Wednesday.

Actually it's pretty in-line with what you're going to see Wed.

Originally posted by: smp
Inside sources tell me that it will run at 400mhz core and that it will have it's own external AC power source .. it will come with a alpha 8045 mounted on it stock.

The cards I have seen just use case power.

 

[mchammer187]

Originally posted by: smp
Inside sources tell me that it will run at 400mhz core and that it will have it's own external AC power source .. it will come with a alpha 8045 mounted on it stock.

I dont think it will use an external power source but will use a +5V rail off the PSU

about the PAL8045 is it possible to mount one and still be in spec with AGP 2.0?

because a PAL8045 would be enough weight to crush a card in half and is a PAL8045 even enough for passive cooling or would they have to mount an 80 mm fan on it

i think its highly doubtful unless they worked out some deal from alpha because 8045's cost $29 to the consumer and if it costs $10 to ATI that would dramatically increase the price of the cards to the point where it was not feasible

 

[Gog]

SMP is just goofing around... an alpha, give me abreak😛