What can we expect from ATI?

[Harabecw]

Now we've seen nVidia's new card. with further driver improvements it'll probably be even faster. this goes for ATI's 9800 too.

But what about the next thing? driver heaven's little trip to ATI HQ hinted at some nice stuff coming. It could be that he saw the 9800 Pro 256MB, or a next-gen card. Anyway, what do you think the R400 will bring?

As a side note, I heard someone say the next card will NOT be "R400". any more info on that?

 

[ed21x]

r350 has been announced a LONG time ago and supposedly to be released in the summer. Dunno if it'll close the gap or not =\

 

[Harabecw]

Isn't the 9800 Pro R350 :Q

 

[TROGDORdBURNINATOR]

r350 has been announced a LONG time ago and supposedly to be released in the summer. Dunno if it'll close the gap or not =\

R350 is the radeon 9800. It's already released in two versions. What you're talking about is the R400 which is on track for a summer release so far.

 

[TROGDORdBURNINATOR]

I heard someone say the next card will NOT be "R400". any more info on that?

Who the heck told you that? The project has been signifigantly modified because of some lofty goals which turned out to be un-atainable in a practical sense. The entire project hasn't been sh!tcanned to the best of my knowledge, just renamed and modified.

You might find this little snippit from today's [Hard] review to be of interest:

"An interesting tidbit of information to throw into the mix here is the fact that there is another R3XX card from ATI waiting in the wings. We are told that this VPU will show a significant performance increase over any chipsets on the market including NV35 as well as R350. Expect to see this new ATI card somewhere between mid to late summer if it stays on schedule."

 

[GTaudiophile]

According to what I've read at Rage3D, there will not be an "R400." Instead, we'll get something this Fall called "R390" with "R420" arriving in Spring 2004.

Kyle from HardOCP had this to say in his NV35 review:

An interesting tidbit of information to throw into the mix here is the fact that there is another R3XX card from ATI waiting in the wings. We are told that this VPU will show a significant performance increase over any chipsets on the market including NV35 as well as R350. Expect to see this new ATI card somewhere between mid to late summer if it stays on schedule.

 

[TROGDORdBURNINATOR]

this Fall

Mid to late summer is the official line that I've heard. Could be later though, I suppose.

 

[Goi]

What about the R360?

 

[sharkeeper]

Mid to late summer is the official line that I've heard. Could be later though, I suppose.

Which means cards will be on retail shelves by October!

NV35 cards should be on shelves by July...

Where are the CAT3.4's, DAMMIT!!!

-DAK-

 

[Goi]

I've read the Cat 3.4s are actually very bad performing in the latest Doom 3 alpha and buggy in Splinter Cell and other games. So much for all the hype. Looks like ATI has got to go back to the drawing board on this one. The question to ask then is, when will the Cat 3.4a or 3.5's come?

 

[sharkeeper]

I've read the Cat 3.4s are actually very bad performing in the latest Doom 3 alpha and buggy in Splinter Cell and other games. So much for all the hype. Looks like ATI has got to go back to the drawing board on this one. The question to ask then is, when will the Cat 3.4a or 3.5's come?

What other games? Who cares about D3 alpha?! HA! That's funny!

Was this performance based on the 9700 or 9800. I have a 9800 and am running 3.2's and there are no issues but I'm sure the performance will come up with further driver enhancements...

-DAK-

 

[Goi]

Read the Anantech NV35 article, its in there somewhere.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

I think TROGDORdBURNINATOR and GTaudiophile got the right idea.

The Radeon 9800Pro 256MB in the next month, and a new clock-speed binned R360 (450Mhz 'ish core/mem clock Radeon 9900?) by mid/late summer.

The "R390" coming late this year will likely be a .13um shrunk 9800 with tweaks to the fragment shader to bring it more in line with the FX.

If I was a guessing man, I'd expect R420 autumn next year, depending on when R390 ships. There shouldn't really be any rush to bring a new architecture out, considering DX10 is probably 2 years away. Just make sure R390 is PS/VS 3.0 capable and milk it until DX10 is ready.

 

[Genx87]

Who said the R400 is supposed to be a DX10 part?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I doubt the NV40 is a DX10 part so why would you think ATI\Nvidia would be sitting on their same archs for nearly 2 years??

Anyways ATI is going to be releasing the R360. Didnt give much details but it is on a .15 micron process. I would be real surprised if the core was 450. Maybe slightly over 400Mhz.

But these are just baby steps to claim the top crown for a couple of months. ATI should really be focusing on bringing out the R400 and better mid ranged options than always toying around with bringing out chips that are slightly faster than the fastest thing they already have.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Who said the R400 is supposed to be a DX10 part?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I doubt the NV40 is a DX10 part so why would you think ATI\Nvidia would be sitting on their same archs for nearly 2 years??

nVidia sat on their NV20 core for over 2 years, and its been said before that ATi would stretch the R300 and future architectures for longer than the 1 year lifespans of R100 and R200.

R400 was meant to be another huge leap in terms of features and speed. I would love for ATi to release it this year, since its the quickest way to adopt new features (Chizow and I had a great discussion on this matter), but from a business standpoint there is no point.

What used to be R400 will be delayed and upgraded (hence, the R420 designation), which will leave room for another refresh of the R300 core, the R390 this fall/winter.

 

[PrinceXizor]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Who said the R400 is supposed to be a DX10 part?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I doubt the NV40 is a DX10 part so why would you think ATI\Nvidia would be sitting on their same archs for nearly 2 years??

Anyways ATI is going to be releasing the R360. Didnt give much details but it is on a .15 micron process. I would be real surprised if the core was 450. Maybe slightly over 400Mhz.

But these are just baby steps to claim the top crown for a couple of months. ATI should really be focusing on bringing out the R400 and better mid ranged options than always toying around with bringing out chips that are slightly faster than the fastest thing they already have.

Technically, its Nvidia who has to worry about its mid-level cards not ATI. So far the GeForceFX 5600 Ultra still isn't comparable to the Radeon 9600 Pro (and only just now is really worth replacing the Ti4200 with the new Detonators) which is why Nvidia is releasing a speed increase of it in the near future.

P-X

 

[Apotherix]

When is Doom 3 set for release anyway? I want to see how it runs on my machine.