Kept on waiting got the new ATI card, Radeon 256... I know it's scheduled to begin shipping this summer, but does anyone have an idea of WHEN? I am really keeping my eyes at SharkyExtremes and AnandTech, wanna see how the Radeon matches up to the GeForce 2 GTS.
Radeon 256 release date??
- Thread starter Bagheera
- Start date
hopefully soon...poor ATI stockholders are really getting reamed...if the radeon ain't even competitive...its probably the end of ATI in the mainstream pc graphic chip market.....
No it will just be the end of the hardcore 3D accellerator market for them. Im pretty sure they already are the #1 overall graphics card maker because of all the OEM deals they have.
Wish I had more to offer than more mere uncertainty. I, too, am hopeful that ATI might have something mighty to offer. But, at this point the forecast is for more fog.
ATI has been the #1 OEM video card manufacturer for quite some time, so it`s not like they are going to disappear easily, but I have heard that NVidia has surpassed ATI`s OEM sals some time ago...anyone know if that`s true?
HannibalX
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- May 12, 2000
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Actualy... ATi is looking to corner the 3D Graphics market with the next two product cycles.
The Radeon 256 is already a very advanced chip, which will perform as well or better than the GTS. The Rage Fury Maxx was just a test to see if AFM could be implimented sucessfuly at an overall low overhead cost. Once the Radeon is released sucessfuly, a two processor version of the card with AFR will appear - the big daddy of the bunch. This has 3dfx and nVidia scared to death... enough to make nVidia release it's GTS three months early.
The Radeon 256 is already a very advanced chip, which will perform as well or better than the GTS. The Rage Fury Maxx was just a test to see if AFM could be implimented sucessfuly at an overall low overhead cost. Once the Radeon is released sucessfuly, a two processor version of the card with AFR will appear - the big daddy of the bunch. This has 3dfx and nVidia scared to death... enough to make nVidia release it's GTS three months early.
Trinitron -
The Radeon 256 is already a very advanced chip, which will perform as well or better than the GTS.
I doubt it. The Radeon doesn't have enough fillrate to compete at higher resolutions. Yes, it can apply three textures per pixel per pass, but how many games actually support that third texture? In curent games the GTS should be faster.
The Radeon 256 is already a very advanced chip, which will perform as well or better than the GTS.
I doubt it. The Radeon doesn't have enough fillrate to compete at higher resolutions. Yes, it can apply three textures per pixel per pass, but how many games actually support that third texture? In curent games the GTS should be faster.
HannibalX
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You can't talk fill rate until a chipset is released. As of now it's the Radeon is JUST the core chip. There is no card based on the chip, no chipset for the core. Until there is you can't talk fill rate becuase you have no clock speed to calculate the fill rate by. For all you know, when the card is designed around the chip it's clock speed could be 350 mhz, or it could be 100 mhz. Point is there is no card yet, and so no fill rate, yet.
So anyhow, just pointing that out to you. Though it's not hard to see what ATi is doing.
Oh and by the way, fill rate is not always a determinaing factor. The Viper II has a 500 Mtexel fill rate while the GF 256 has a 480 Mtexel fill rate - and the GF 256 cleans the Viper II's clock! In the same instance, Voodoo2 SLI has 360 Mtexel fill rate and the Voodoo3 3000 has a 333 Mtexel fill rate. Again, less bandwidth BUT still faster
So anyhow, just pointing that out to you. Though it's not hard to see what ATi is doing.
Oh and by the way, fill rate is not always a determinaing factor. The Viper II has a 500 Mtexel fill rate while the GF 256 has a 480 Mtexel fill rate - and the GF 256 cleans the Viper II's clock! In the same instance, Voodoo2 SLI has 360 Mtexel fill rate and the Voodoo3 3000 has a 333 Mtexel fill rate. Again, less bandwidth BUT still faster
First off - here's the architectural overview of the Radeon.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1230&p=1
From that article -
"The 0.18-micron Radeon 256 features an interesting architecture, consisting of two rendering pipelines with three texture units per rendering pipeline.
Each pipeline is spec?d to run at up to 200MHz (core clock), which will result in a fill rate of 400 megepixels per second and 1.2 gigatexels per second. ATI feels that having three texture units per pipeline is going to help them in future games, and although it will hold them back with dual textured games, they strongly believe that developers will begin using three or more textures per pixel in future games."
Those were the assumptions I made when posting earlier.
As far as your other comparisons go - you are correct that there are other factors that contribute to the performace of a video card (such as memory bandwidth), but fillrate is still king. Oh, and the GeForce has a fillrate of 480MPix/s, not 480MTex/s - which can also explain some of the performance advantages it has over the Viper II.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1230&p=1
From that article -
"The 0.18-micron Radeon 256 features an interesting architecture, consisting of two rendering pipelines with three texture units per rendering pipeline.
Each pipeline is spec?d to run at up to 200MHz (core clock), which will result in a fill rate of 400 megepixels per second and 1.2 gigatexels per second. ATI feels that having three texture units per pipeline is going to help them in future games, and although it will hold them back with dual textured games, they strongly believe that developers will begin using three or more textures per pixel in future games."
Those were the assumptions I made when posting earlier.
As far as your other comparisons go - you are correct that there are other factors that contribute to the performace of a video card (such as memory bandwidth), but fillrate is still king. Oh, and the GeForce has a fillrate of 480MPix/s, not 480MTex/s - which can also explain some of the performance advantages it has over the Viper II.
Well I'm probably the only one who's getting a Radeon when it launches. ATI's picture quality always seem to be superior.......then again that's my opinion. I hope the Radeon lays the smack down on the GTS and is cheaper. A $300 video card that offers very little performance over its predecessor is just downright ridiculous.
ATI controls the (ugh) Mac market, and they have a lot of laptop solutions as well. They will always have that to fall back on.
I really hope that ATI can pull it off with the Radeon. They need to if they want to compete in the high end 3D graphics area. The Radeon looks like it could really be something, and I think Trinitron is correct when saying that a Radeon MAXX card scares nVidia and 3dfx to death.
Just look at what MAXX technology did for the Rage128 PRO. It took a card that performed like a TNT2 and put it right up there with a DDR GeForce! Sure there were (and still are) isssues with it, but ATI has had some time to work the bugs out. A single chip Radeon card might not beat a GF2 but a Radeon MAXX very easily could!
I just hope that ATI can get it out on the market soon, or else it will again be too little too late.
Just look at what MAXX technology did for the Rage128 PRO. It took a card that performed like a TNT2 and put it right up there with a DDR GeForce! Sure there were (and still are) isssues with it, but ATI has had some time to work the bugs out. A single chip Radeon card might not beat a GF2 but a Radeon MAXX very easily could!
I just hope that ATI can get it out on the market soon, or else it will again be too little too late.
Even if the Radeon256 is a bit slower than the GeForce 2 GTS, if it's priced competitively, then it'll win out. You all remember Modus' argument don't you? Why pay DOUBLE the price for something if it's not TWICE as good? (Note: That was his general argument style, I don't think he ever said anything about the Radeon in particular)
Karl, the Geforce 256 has a fillrate of 480Mpixels/s AND 480Mtexels/s. The pixel and texel fillrate are the same in this case.
I don't know, well... Based on what SharkyExtreme was saying, ATI will have to try and keep their shipping dates on time & try to have a faster product developement cycle. With the rate nVidia is going, a new chiset every 6 months, nVidia is pretty much grabbing every customer's attention, so...
ATI always has the best picture quality tho, if not the fastest in gaming performence. I do watch DVDs alot, and I think everyone addicted to DVD movies knows the top performers in DVD playbacks are the ATI and S3. ATI being first, S3 being second... I have a Viper II right now, the DVD performence is quite excellent but the problem I am having is actually the 3D acceleration. Check Sharky Extreme's "In-Depth" section for Viper II in-depth. Viper II cards have problems in deciding object depth and stuff, and it often renders objects incorrectly (Which is something I noticed also). I am planning on selling it to my cousin soon, so I can probably get a more high-end and seriously accurate graphic board like an ATI or nVidia. My only concern about nVidia is their DVD performence, otherwise their gaming performance should be ok.
ATI always has the best picture quality tho, if not the fastest in gaming performence. I do watch DVDs alot, and I think everyone addicted to DVD movies knows the top performers in DVD playbacks are the ATI and S3. ATI being first, S3 being second... I have a Viper II right now, the DVD performence is quite excellent but the problem I am having is actually the 3D acceleration. Check Sharky Extreme's "In-Depth" section for Viper II in-depth. Viper II cards have problems in deciding object depth and stuff, and it often renders objects incorrectly (Which is something I noticed also). I am planning on selling it to my cousin soon, so I can probably get a more high-end and seriously accurate graphic board like an ATI or nVidia. My only concern about nVidia is their DVD performence, otherwise their gaming performance should be ok.
I wonder if the problem with Viper II can be solved by an updated driver... I am not sure if it really is the chipset's hardware problem, so... I mean if it is, darn that would suck...
Yeah, read the issue about Viper II's T&L engine at SharkyExtreme, same for me I guess... Gotta sale it soon :\
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