When does the NDA lift for R600?

[yacoub]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: yacoub

Originally posted by: Regs
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7043

I'm tempted to see it as disappointing. I should probably wait for a full Anandtech review that will give info on its noise levels and heat levels, because I have a feeling they're going to suck but I should wait and see for sure. Also $500 for that when GTS goes for under $400... wtf.

Do you understand the difference between MSRP and street price? The GTS has a $500 MSRP, but sells closer to $400 street. Just like virtually every card in existence, street is lower than MSRP.

Do you understand the GTS has been out for several months and the ATi card hasn't even hit vendors yet? Do you understand that it takes time for prices to reach lower levels than MSRP? Do you understand that you won't see ATi's "hot new product" debut below much if at all below MSRP? "Do you understand?" LOL

 

[mendocinosummit]

Is AMD trying to create more speculation or is that all they have to offer. You would think that they would be having places like Daily Tech show off their flagship, unless it is not worth showing. How much is the XT hindered? Is it only by 512 MB of Ram versus 1 GB for th XTX?

 

[yacoub]

Originally posted by: Regs
We all hope that ATi started this product with the idea that noise and heat make a big impact on quality.

Yeah we do hope that, but we're starting to wonder if they weren't able to get enough performance out of it while keeping the noise and heat under control, which would indeed be disappointing if they sacrificed those two areas just to ramp up the clockspeeds and create another hairdryer.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: mendocinosummit
Is AMD trying to create more speculation or is that all they have to offer. You would think that they would be having places like Daily Tech show off their flagship, unless it is not worth showing. How much is the XT hindered? Is it only by 512 MB of Ram versus 1 GB for th XTX?

Originally posted by: KristopherKubicki
We had the misfortune of getting one-on-one time with the card but there were no displays capable of higher resolutions at the facility. We'll get more cards and benchmarks later this week.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7043

 

[apoppin]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39130

... DAAMIT has announced that it plans to mortgage itself out for another $1.8 billion dollars in debt.

We've previously reported that the company is running short on cash for the year, despite pledging to make $500m worth of cuts before the year is out. That helps things, but really only stems the tide - the extra money AMD is raising now will help to fund expansion.

Ironically, the new round of money will also contribute towards paying for the purchase of ATI by paying back part of the bank loan the company nabbed to afford the $5bn asking price.

There are still rumours that private equity partners could be amongst those keen to snap up the new debt, with the possibility of turning it into stock. However, the latest round of funding does seem to suggest that an out-and-out purchase of the company is off the table for now.

Whilst many were carping on about the 'death of Intel' last year, there were a significant number of industry watchers looking at AMD and asking - 'Is that it?' The company failed to really take advantage of the 18 months of major technological advantage it had, and is now paying the price for that - a company with as many intelligent people as Intel doesn't stay dumb for long.

AMD is also going to be under pressure to make good on its investment in ATI over the next 18 months, to prove that it hasn't paid top dollar for a turkey. If it can't push out a full range of R600-based products in the next couple of months, things are going to start looking incredibly tenuous for the company.

doesn't look wonderful

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: yacoub

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: yacoub

Originally posted by: Regs
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7043

I'm tempted to see it as disappointing. I should probably wait for a full Anandtech review that will give info on its noise levels and heat levels, because I have a feeling they're going to suck but I should wait and see for sure. Also $500 for that when GTS goes for under $400... wtf.

Do you understand the difference between MSRP and street price? The GTS has a $500 MSRP, but sells closer to $400 street. Just like virtually every card in existence, street is lower than MSRP.

Do you understand the GTS has been out for several months and the ATi card hasn't even hit vendors yet? Do you understand that it takes time for prices to reach lower levels than MSRP? Do you understand that you won't see ATi's "hot new product" debut below much if at all below MSRP? "Do you understand?" LOL

Unless there's a supply problem, vendors will quickly drop the cards' prices to where they need to sell competitively, so I'm not sure why you're deliberately picking launch day as your potential upgrade point. Most people "in the know" wait for the prices to come down a bit before making price/performance comparisons--mainly because these people want their conclusions to be valid for longer than one or two weeks after launch.

 

[yacoub]

What matters are the current prices on the street at the time a person is shopping.

 

[Gstanfor]

A couple of links discusing what apoppin linked from the INQ in more detail (to say nothing of the fact that unlike the INQ, these guys might have a clue about the financing)

AMD to Offer $1.8 Billion in Convertible Notes

AMD to Offer $1.8 Billion in Convertible Notes

Posted on Apr 24th, 2007 with stocks: AMD

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices fell 2.8% on news the company plans to raise up to $1.8 billion in convertible senior notes in a private offering to institutional buyers. At least $500 million from the sale will be used to pay off a loan to Morgan Stanley for AMD's acquisition of ATI Technologies. The rest will finance the company's daily operations. Last week, AMD -- suffering from a price war with rival Intel -- posted a $611 million quarterly loss and said its cash position had fallen 24% to $1.17 billion. The debt offering buys AMD some time, but its debt level is high: prior to the offering, its long-term debt was $3.6 billion against Intel's $1.8 billion. Yesterday, AMD's credit rating was downgraded by Standard & Poor's to B, its fifth-highest junk grade.

AMD Announces $1.8 Billion Convertible Note Offering

AMD Announces $1.8 Billion Convertible Note Offering

Posted on Apr 24th, 2007 with stocks: AMD

Eric Savitz (Barron's) submits: The Street has been predicting for weeks now that Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was going to need to raise more capital, and now it has: yesterday afternoon, the company announced plans to offer $1.8 billion of convertible senior notes, with a potential $400 million in additional notes to cover over allotments.

Terms of the notes will be determined in negotiations between AMD and the initial purchasers, the company said. The notes will offered to institutional buyers under Rule 144A.

The company said at least $500 million of the proceeds will be used to repay a portion of its term loan from Morgan Stanley which was used to finance a portion of its ATI acquisition.

In after hours trading, the stock was down 19 cents at $13.85.

chart

 

[apoppin]

i just used theinq, G .. i already read your links ... they are far more depressing

otoh, when it comes to 'my thread' on the death of the xbox, i used Forbes instead of theinq



it's what America does ... keep mortgaging the house with higher and higher interest rate loans to finance the previous unpaid loans

till you lose it

 

[SlowSpyder]

http://www.theinq.com/default.aspx?article=39145

I know it's an Inquirer link, but it looks like some good info.

A bit from the article:

So, what is DAAMIT launching on May 14th? The answer is the Radeon HD 2900XT.

The key features of this GPU were already known about. We have disclosed that this second gen unified shader marchitecture part has 64 Vect5D units and seeing the 320 scalar unit number, we can now say this is official. Please bear in mind that the rumour that the chip has 64 vect4+scalar was wrong from day one.

Vect4+Scalar is not directly comparable to Nvidia, Vect5D is. So, we have a superscalar marchitecture with 320 scalar processsing units designed in-line with built-in Tessellation hardware, relatively similar to the Xenos chip from Xbox 360. But performance is far beyond we have imagined, and hearing that this is not limited to a certain version of DX10 only speaks of better days for PC gaming.

Geometry performance is vastly improved, as is expected from vect5D based marchitecture, and gamedevs can now use Geometry Shaders, unlike certain green products. Comparison between a single HD2900XT and 8800GTX SLI in geometry shaders will be quite interesting.

Anisotropic filtering and AntiAliasing were vastly improved as well, and R600 marchitecture marks off the start of "NextGen AA". A new AA mode is called Custom Filter AA (CFAA), and it peaks at 24x. 8x MultiSample AA mode was completely changed, so expect some fireworks and comparisons between G80 and R600 hardware. Of course, all existing AA tech is supported.

 

[Gstanfor]

tried Forbes ages ago, and they were just too spammy with the emails compared to Seeking Alpha.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
tried Forbes ages ago, and they were just too spammy with the emails compared to Seeking Alpha.

my thread: John Romero says only the Wii will survive-XBox360 and PS3 are *Doomed*

when it came to predicting the 'death of the 360' ... i thought i better use Forbes

Japanese Failure Dooms Xbox 360

instead of theinq
Microsoft gaming labelled a "disastrous endeavour"

the original article is much more credible ... the only problem with Forbes is with the C&P ... you get all their ads you have to edit by hand

 

[apoppin]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39145
AMD Radeon HD2900XT specs leaked

Next-generation Radeon technology coming to you in May

By Theo Valich in Tunis: Tuesday 24 April 2007, 15:30

AMD IS THE first semiconductor company to held a product briefing and now a launch in Africa, which was a bold move indeed.

But, the tech that company is bringing to the market is just brilliant, and the plan to keep the info for three weeks was an impossible task to overcome in a world of blackberries and cellphones - as we have already warned.

Since AMD could not invite the whole journalist corps to Africa, non-invited media such as IT-Review.Net and TechOne decided to publish information about the next-generation marchitecture from AMD.

To us, the idea of an NDA was silly anyway, since you could have read almost everything about R600 on this very pages, from the technical details of the GPU, PCB, HDMI, real reason for 12" cooler+PCB combo, product lineup and many, many more.

So, what is DAAMIT launching on May 14th? The answer is the Radeon HD 2900XT.

The key features of this GPU were already known about. We have disclosed that this second gen unified shader marchitecture part has 64 Vect5D units and seeing the 320 scalar unit number, we can now say this is official. Please bear in mind that the rumour that the chip has 64 vect4+scalar was wrong from day one.

Vect4+Scalar is not directly comparable to Nvidia, Vect5D is. So, we have a superscalar marchitecture with 320 scalar processsing units designed in-line with built-in Tessellation hardware, relatively similar to the Xenos chip from Xbox 360. But performance is far beyond we have imagined, and hearing that this is not limited to a certain version of DX10 only speaks of better days for PC gaming.

Geometry performance is vastly improved, as is expected from vect5D based marchitecture, and gamedevs can now use Geometry Shaders, unlike certain green products. Comparison between a single HD2900XT and 8800GTX SLI in geometry shaders will be quite interesting.

Anisotropic filtering and AntiAliasing were vastly improved as well, and R600 marchitecture marks off the start of "NextGen AA". A new AA mode is called Custom Filter AA (CFAA), and it peaks at 24x. 8x MultiSample AA mode was completely changed, so expect some fireworks and comparisons between G80 and R600 hardware. Of course, all existing AA tech is supported.

ATi AVIVO also makes a return in a form of Universal Video Decoder (UVD), scoring 128 on HQV test, and HD2900XT will of course, support high-resolution HDMI (1.2 spec), featuring AC3 5.1 output. When it comes to regular resolutions, Radeon HD2900XT supports both 2560x1560 and 2560x2048.

The board communicates with the computer using a PCIe x16 slot and processing data through internal ring bus and 512-bit external controller (8-channel memory interface). Clocks are set at 742 MHz for the GPU and 1.65 GHz for 512MB of GDDR-3 memory.
AMD promised extremely competitive pricing, and in many cases the HD2900XT will beat 8800GTX, yet alone 8800GTS. To boot, the company decided to team up with Valve and offer a free bundle featuring a couple of the upcoming hit titles. It is up to the partners to decide how the game will be bundled, but this will be marked as Return of The Coupon, if you remember Radeon 9800XT launch and alleged code-leak in Half Life 2 development, which was market by a year delay.

As Henri Richard said during the last quarterly conference call, AMD will not do a soft launch and HD2900XT boards will be massively available.

 

[swtethan]

742 mhz :Q


i can only oc mine to 630

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: apoppin
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39145
AMD Radeon HD2900XT specs leaked

Next-generation Radeon technology coming to you in May

By Theo Valich in Tunis: Tuesday 24 April 2007, 15:30

AMD IS THE first semiconductor company to held a product briefing and now a launch in Africa, which was a bold move indeed.

But, the tech that company is bringing to the market is just brilliant, and the plan to keep the info for three weeks was an impossible task to overcome in a world of blackberries and cellphones - as we have already warned.

Since AMD could not invite the whole journalist corps to Africa, non-invited media such as IT-Review.Net and TechOne decided to publish information about the next-generation marchitecture from AMD.

To us, the idea of an NDA was silly anyway, since you could have read almost everything about R600 on this very pages, from the technical details of the GPU, PCB, HDMI, real reason for 12" cooler+PCB combo, product lineup and many, many more.

So, what is DAAMIT launching on May 14th? The answer is the Radeon HD 2900XT.

The key features of this GPU were already known about. We have disclosed that this second gen unified shader marchitecture part has 64 Vect5D units and seeing the 320 scalar unit number, we can now say this is official. Please bear in mind that the rumour that the chip has 64 vect4+scalar was wrong from day one.

Vect4+Scalar is not directly comparable to Nvidia, Vect5D is. So, we have a superscalar marchitecture with 320 scalar processsing units designed in-line with built-in Tessellation hardware, relatively similar to the Xenos chip from Xbox 360. But performance is far beyond we have imagined, and hearing that this is not limited to a certain version of DX10 only speaks of better days for PC gaming.

Geometry performance is vastly improved, as is expected from vect5D based marchitecture, and gamedevs can now use Geometry Shaders, unlike certain green products. Comparison between a single HD2900XT and 8800GTX SLI in geometry shaders will be quite interesting.

Anisotropic filtering and AntiAliasing were vastly improved as well, and R600 marchitecture marks off the start of "NextGen AA". A new AA mode is called Custom Filter AA (CFAA), and it peaks at 24x. 8x MultiSample AA mode was completely changed, so expect some fireworks and comparisons between G80 and R600 hardware. Of course, all existing AA tech is supported.

ATi AVIVO also makes a return in a form of Universal Video Decoder (UVD), scoring 128 on HQV test, and HD2900XT will of course, support high-resolution HDMI (1.2 spec), featuring AC3 5.1 output. When it comes to regular resolutions, Radeon HD2900XT supports both 2560x1560 and 2560x2048.

The board communicates with the computer using a PCIe x16 slot and processing data through internal ring bus and 512-bit external controller (8-channel memory interface). Clocks are set at 742 MHz for the GPU and 1.65 GHz for 512MB of GDDR-3 memory.
AMD promised extremely competitive pricing, and in many cases the HD2900XT will beat 8800GTX, yet alone 8800GTS. To boot, the company decided to team up with Valve and offer a free bundle featuring a couple of the upcoming hit titles. It is up to the partners to decide how the game will be bundled, but this will be marked as Return of The Coupon, if you remember Radeon 9800XT launch and alleged code-leak in Half Life 2 development, which was market by a year delay.

As Henri Richard said during the last quarterly conference call, AMD will not do a soft launch and HD2900XT boards will be massively available.

how do we know 8800 has bad geometry performance. is there a source on this.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: yacoub

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: yacoub

Originally posted by: Regs
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7043

I'm tempted to see it as disappointing. I should probably wait for a full Anandtech review that will give info on its noise levels and heat levels, because I have a feeling they're going to suck but I should wait and see for sure. Also $500 for that when GTS goes for under $400... wtf.

Do you understand the difference between MSRP and street price? The GTS has a $500 MSRP, but sells closer to $400 street. Just like virtually every card in existence, street is lower than MSRP.

Do you understand the GTS has been out for several months and the ATi card hasn't even hit vendors yet? Do you understand that it takes time for prices to reach lower levels than MSRP? Do you understand that you won't see ATi's "hot new product" debut below much if at all below MSRP? "Do you understand?" LOL

I understand just fine. You made the comment, "Also $500 for that when GTS goes for under $400... wtf.". Its the same MSRP as the GTS. The street price will drop, as with the GTS's. As they almost always do. They arent going to launch it at a cheaper MSRP, than they already had setup, just because the GTS is selling at a cheaper street price. You need to understand that.

 

[palindrome]

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven

Originally posted by: apoppin
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39145
AMD Radeon HD2900XT specs leaked

Next-generation Radeon technology coming to you in May

By Theo Valich in Tunis: Tuesday 24 April 2007, 15:30

AMD IS THE first semiconductor company to held a product briefing and now a launch in Africa, which was a bold move indeed.

But, the tech that company is bringing to the market is just brilliant, and the plan to keep the info for three weeks was an impossible task to overcome in a world of blackberries and cellphones - as we have already warned.

Since AMD could not invite the whole journalist corps to Africa, non-invited media such as IT-Review.Net and TechOne decided to publish information about the next-generation marchitecture from AMD.

To us, the idea of an NDA was silly anyway, since you could have read almost everything about R600 on this very pages, from the technical details of the GPU, PCB, HDMI, real reason for 12" cooler+PCB combo, product lineup and many, many more.

So, what is DAAMIT launching on May 14th? The answer is the Radeon HD 2900XT.

The key features of this GPU were already known about. We have disclosed that this second gen unified shader marchitecture part has 64 Vect5D units and seeing the 320 scalar unit number, we can now say this is official. Please bear in mind that the rumour that the chip has 64 vect4+scalar was wrong from day one.

Vect4+Scalar is not directly comparable to Nvidia, Vect5D is. So, we have a superscalar marchitecture with 320 scalar processsing units designed in-line with built-in Tessellation hardware, relatively similar to the Xenos chip from Xbox 360. But performance is far beyond we have imagined, and hearing that this is not limited to a certain version of DX10 only speaks of better days for PC gaming.

Geometry performance is vastly improved, as is expected from vect5D based marchitecture, and gamedevs can now use Geometry Shaders, unlike certain green products. Comparison between a single HD2900XT and 8800GTX SLI in geometry shaders will be quite interesting.

Anisotropic filtering and AntiAliasing were vastly improved as well, and R600 marchitecture marks off the start of "NextGen AA". A new AA mode is called Custom Filter AA (CFAA), and it peaks at 24x. 8x MultiSample AA mode was completely changed, so expect some fireworks and comparisons between G80 and R600 hardware. Of course, all existing AA tech is supported.

ATi AVIVO also makes a return in a form of Universal Video Decoder (UVD), scoring 128 on HQV test, and HD2900XT will of course, support high-resolution HDMI (1.2 spec), featuring AC3 5.1 output. When it comes to regular resolutions, Radeon HD2900XT supports both 2560x1560 and 2560x2048.

The board communicates with the computer using a PCIe x16 slot and processing data through internal ring bus and 512-bit external controller (8-channel memory interface). Clocks are set at 742 MHz for the GPU and 1.65 GHz for 512MB of GDDR-3 memory.
AMD promised extremely competitive pricing, and in many cases the HD2900XT will beat 8800GTX, yet alone 8800GTS. To boot, the company decided to team up with Valve and offer a free bundle featuring a couple of the upcoming hit titles. It is up to the partners to decide how the game will be bundled, but this will be marked as Return of The Coupon, if you remember Radeon 9800XT launch and alleged code-leak in Half Life 2 development, which was market by a year delay.

As Henri Richard said during the last quarterly conference call, AMD will not do a soft launch and HD2900XT boards will be massively available.

how do we know 8800 has bad geometry performance. is there a source on this.

Wow, if only parts of this are true, it is STILL very interesting!!!! I sure as sally hope the refresh comes out soon so I can buy another x1800xt

 

[palindrome]

So is the HD 2900XT going to be the top model this time? or is there going to be an XTX?

 

[Pugnate]

XT will compete with the GTS and the XTX will compete with the GTX.

 

[palindrome]

Originally posted by: Pugnate
XT will compete with the GTS and the XTX will compete with the GTX.

Ah, I see.

 

[flexy]

AFAIK...if i am not wrong that Tunis event was yesterday AND today..so (THEORETICALLY) today at 0:00 (on the 25th) the NDA should be lifted when the event is OVER.

tunis IS the same timezone as Germany..so...THEORETICALLY the event is over in 3,5 hrs..and THEORETICALLY the NDA is lifted then ?

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
also 165.01 is slightly faster than 158.19 so some (slight) handicapping there also.

They're both beta garbage so who really cares? It's nvidias own fault after all...

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: yacoub

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: yacoub

Originally posted by: Regs
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7043

I'm tempted to see it as disappointing. I should probably wait for a full Anandtech review that will give info on its noise levels and heat levels, because I have a feeling they're going to suck but I should wait and see for sure. Also $500 for that when GTS goes for under $400... wtf.

Do you understand the difference between MSRP and street price? The GTS has a $500 MSRP, but sells closer to $400 street. Just like virtually every card in existence, street is lower than MSRP.

Do you understand the GTS has been out for several months and the ATi card hasn't even hit vendors yet? Do you understand that it takes time for prices to reach lower levels than MSRP? Do you understand that you won't see ATi's "hot new product" debut below much if at all below MSRP? "Do you understand?" LOL

Stop being an idiot. They aim for approximately the same street price, whatever it will be at the time of launch, the MSRP was just stated as a reference point - cant you read, fanboy?

 

[yacoub]

cool, now I'm an NVidia fanboy!

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: yacoub
cool, now I'm an NVidia fanboy!

I don't think that. You're just playin devils advocate or just being negative.