The R500, R520 and the R600???

[Drayvn]

Was talking on another forum and they said the R500 version for the desktop is going to be the R600

And that the R520 is just another refresh card, even tho i thought the X850 was the refresh card?

Heres what they said...

From what some of knowledged people at B3D say, R520 may have 16x2, but the R500, the XBN GPU, is not 16x2. This is because the R500 used a different pipelines design. The R500 will have one VS and PS mixed shader units. (Unified Shader model, aka Shader Model 4.0) The PC desktop version of R500 will be R600. R520 is just another extension of R3X0 similar to R420.

...there are two generational lines...

R300 -> R420 -> R520

R500 (Xenon, derived from R400) -> R600 -> R...

What is R500 for the XBox falls between DX9 and DX10 - there are elements of the shader architecture that allow it to be significantly more capable than SM3.0, to DX Next like functionality but other elements that are not necessarily even SM3.0. However, XBox's R500 will be the unified shader architecture that will form the basis of ATI's DirectX Next Generation of parts but not R520 (which will be their SM3.0 part for the PC, based on the R300 development).

Is this true?

Why would they call a core the R520 when the new architecture is being called the R500? Wouldnt it be logical to call it the R499 or something because its still based on the R300 core...

Anyway, i tried to tell them that the R520 core is based on the R500 core as ive read in various sites, as ive read that the R520 is a brand new core, and that in the Analyst conference that ATi had they said their new architecture is the basis of the R5xx core, meaning that the R520 is the new architecture, much like the R500. And from various other sites, the R520 core is a derivative of the R500 core, just configured for Desktop use.

What are ur thoughts on this, are they right?

 

[Gamingphreek]

No the desktop version is not going to be the R600. That would make ABSOLUTELY no sense. That would mean they skip a year. THe X=Box 2 is probably going to use a derivative based on R500 just as X=Box was based off of Geforce 4 but a little lower.

-Kevin

 

[Drayvn]

Thats what i thought too, it would be stupid to release ANOTHER refresh card after they already RELEASED one.

And the fact they call the R520 after the R500 core, and making it run like a R4xx is stupid.

And as u said, they just totally skipped a year...

 

[Pete]

That quote summarizes the current consensus at B3D. R500 is the Xbox2 GPU, something like SM3.5. R600 will be the name for the PC version of R500. R520 will be a SM3 version of R420 (aka R300/350/360/430/480, but with SM3 bits).

Odd, yes, but I'm not sure GPU nicknames have to make sense, anyway. At least, not necessarily console GPUs. And nV is rumored to have dropped the NVxx convention altogether.

Don't be too confused by the term "refresh." I guess you could call the GF4Ti a refresh of the GF3, but it outperformed it considerably. But R520 will be slightly bigger than a mere performance jump, as it also moves ATi to SM3 from SM2. Not a huge leap, but not a mere manufacturing respin, either.

 

[gururu]

xbit

of note:

ATI?s R5xx architecture will not resemble that of the previous generation products and NVIDIA?s GeForce 6 architecture known as NV4x, particularly ATI will implement efficient flow-control, a crucial feature for pixel shaders 3.0, that will not bring speed penalty it does on existing SM3.0 hardware, according to sources. The future of the graphics hardware lies in higher number of ALUs ops per texture ops, unified pixel and vertex shaders as well as some other requirements of Microsoft Windows Longhorn operating system, such as virtualisation and context switches. While ATI agrees on the long-term goals for its roadmap, it does not name feature-set of actual products and says all the architectural changes will be implemented gradually, not at once.

 

[Pete]

I'm not sure how they can say R5xx "won't resemble previous gens," yet ATI will implement architectural changes "gradually." Unless, of course, they're mixing R500 with R520, or we've all been using the wrong code names for ATI's upcoming VPUs.

Unified shaders will be a big step, but current talk points to that not happening on the PC side until 2006.

 

[Drayvn]

So anybody have an answer to why ppl are saying the R500 is based on the R600 and the R520 is a remake of the R300 core?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Drayvn
So anybody have an answer to why ppl are saying the R500 is based on the R600 and the R520 is a remake of the R300 core?

Because nobody really knows outside of ATI?

 

[Pete]

Because it's true? (Note that the eight shader units Fuad is talking about must be the vertex shaders, which have probably jumped to 8 from 6 to complement the jump from 16 to 24 pipelines. In a striking coincidence, NV47 is also supposed to sport 24 SM3 pipes. )