Anandtech article up on 512GTX

[Steelski]

I think that this card is going to many peoples heads.
paying waaaaaaaaaaay too much for a graphics card.
Tell you guys what.
Why dont you guys buy one of these and i will buy an XT 256MB when they come out and after a few driver releases catch up a bit more.

 

[nts]

Originally posted by: Matt2
I personally can't wait till the X1800XTPE comes out. ATI is still gonna lose and the PE will cost just as much as the 7800 512. Then where will the faATIcs retreat to?

I very highly doubt that there will be an R520PE edition, simply because it isn't needed. The next chip will most likely be the R580, the refresh for the R520.

Oh yeah and nice prediction about ATi losing with hardware that doesn't exists and will probably never exist , NVIDIA fanboys never cease to amaze me.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: nts

Originally posted by: Matt2
I personally can't wait till the X1800XTPE comes out. ATI is still gonna lose and the PE will cost just as much as the 7800 512. Then where will the faATIcs retreat to?

I very highly doubt that there will be an R520PE edition, simply because it isn't needed. The next chip will most likely be the R580, the refresh for the R520.

Oh yeah and nice prediction about ATi losing with hardware that doesn't exists and will probably never exist , NVIDIA fanboys never cease to amaze me.

I'm a fanboy, yes, but not an Nvidia fanboy. Look at my sig, I got for whatever is the best in my certain price point.

I'm a fan of the company that points the industry in the right direction. Right now, that is Nvidia, not ATI.

An X1800XT PE is not going to farewell against the 7800 512. ATI is only going to be compounding their original mistake of just trying to add horsepower to an existing core design. Yields already seem pretty bad considering I have a better chance of ordering a 7800GTX 512 on the same day it launched compared to the X1800XT which launched over a week ago (more). SO how bad are the yields and availability, not to mention pricing, going to be on an overclocked version of an overclocked card?

 

[Zenoth]

I might be part of a minority ... but I am not impressed at all. Especially not at that price. Actually I am disappointed.

Not that I'm "impressed" by any of the ATi's recent products either.

But that "Ultra" GTX isn't worth it to me. I'll keep my GTX. It serves it purpose well enough.

 

[nts]

Originally posted by: Matt2
I'm a fanboy, yes, but not an Nvidia fanboy. Look at my sig, I got for whatever is the best in my certain price point.

I'm a fan of the company that points the industry in the right direction. Right now, that is Nvidia, not ATI.

Sounds fair, I'm the same way except atm my opinion is the opposite of yours.

An X1800XT PE is not going to farewell against the 7800 512. ATI is only going to be compounding their original mistake of just trying to add horsepower to an existing core design. Yields already seem pretty bad considering I have a better chance of ordering a 7800GTX 512 on the same day it launched compared to the X1800XT which launched over a week ago (more). SO how bad are the yields and availability, not to mention pricing, going to be on an overclocked version of an overclocked card?

The GTX-512 core is the same as the 256 core. Thats why a lot of them are available, there is no difference AFAIK (just cherry picked cores from day 1).

If you want to talk architecture then please PM me (dont want to derail the thread here) and no the R520 isn't an overclocked R300/420.

 

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: nts

I very highly doubt that there will be an R520PE edition, simply because it isn't needed. The next chip will most likely be the R580, the refresh for the R520.

Refresh of R580? R580 is designed by a different design ATI team and we don't know anything about the marchitecture and specs of this gpu. All we have is speculation? Is it gonna be 16pipes/4quads or 24pipes/6quads? What clock/mem speeds? How on earth do you reach the conclusion that r580 is a refresh of R520?

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: nts

Originally posted by: Matt2
I'm a fanboy, yes, but not an Nvidia fanboy. Look at my sig, I got for whatever is the best in my certain price point.

I'm a fan of the company that points the industry in the right direction. Right now, that is Nvidia, not ATI.

Sounds fair, I'm the same way except atm my opinion is the opposite of yours.

An X1800XT PE is not going to farewell against the 7800 512. ATI is only going to be compounding their original mistake of just trying to add horsepower to an existing core design. Yields already seem pretty bad considering I have a better chance of ordering a 7800GTX 512 on the same day it launched compared to the X1800XT which launched over a week ago (more). SO how bad are the yields and availability, not to mention pricing, going to be on an overclocked version of an overclocked card?

The GTX-512 core is the same as the 256 core. Thats why a lot of them are available, there is no difference AFAIK (just cherry picked cores from day 1).

If you want to talk architecture then please PM me (dont want to derail the thread here) and no the R520 isn't an overclocked R300/420.

Alright, I already posted the link to THG claiming the 7800GTX 512 has a 512bit internal bus. Asssuming that is concrete (not saying it is), would that not require a respin? Wouldnt that respin on a more mature process create better yields with higher clocks?

I'm just throwing out a theory which happens to contradict your theory of cherry picked cards.

 

[nts]

Originally posted by: jim1976

Originally posted by: nts

I very highly doubt that there will be an R520PE edition, simply because it isn't needed. The next chip will most likely be the R580, the refresh for the R520.

Refresh of R580? R580 is designed by a different design ATI team and we don't know nothing about the marchitecture and specs of this gpu. All we have is speculation? Is it gonna be 16pipes/4quads or 24pipes/6quads? What clock/mem speeds? How on earth do you reach the conclusion that r580 is a refresh of R520?

By looking at the model numbers of the previous generation and knowing that the next generation is the R600

On the contrary we do know quite a bit, the GPU will be 16 ROPS, 3 Shader Processors per pipe/ROP (this is where the 48 pipes comes from), still has 16 Texture Units (same as R520) and 1 stencil/depth out per ROP. Ofcourse the above is not final but from leaked specs the R520/R515/R530 all turned out to be correct so I'm making the assumption that the R580's leaked specs will also be correct.

The clock speeds unfortunately I dont know about.

 

[nts]

Originally posted by: Matt2
Alright, I already posted the link to THG claiming the 7800GTX 512 has a 512bit internal bus. Asssuming that is concrete (not saying it is), would that not require a respin? Wouldnt that respin on a more mature process create better yields with higher clocks?

I'm just trying throwing out a theory which happens to contradict your theory of cherry picked cards.

I dont have time to explain right now but I can see where the confusion can come from (memory being DDR and all), I'll fire off a PM later tonight.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Ronin
Rollo and I have 4 words to say. Take them for what they're worth.

"We told you so"

We already know ATi is going to counter, as they've authorized a core/mem bump on their cards, but for the numbers we're talking about, they're going to need more than a 25MHz bump here and a 25MHz bump there. It's not going to cut it.

4 more words for you, actually.

"nVidia isn't done yet"

Don't think for one second this is all they've got.

90nm

Geforce 7200, Geforce 7600, Geforce 7800 Ultra / Geforce 7900 series.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: nts

Originally posted by: Matt2
I personally can't wait till the X1800XTPE comes out. ATI is still gonna lose and the PE will cost just as much as the 7800 512. Then where will the faATIcs retreat to?

I very highly doubt that there will be an R520PE edition, simply because it isn't needed. The next chip will most likely be the R580, the refresh for the R520.

Oh yeah and nice prediction about ATi losing with hardware that doesn't exists and will probably never exist , NVIDIA fanboys never cease to amaze me.

I'm a fanboy, yes, but not an Nvidia fanboy. Look at my sig, I got for whatever is the best in my certain price point.

I'm a fan of the company that points the industry in the right direction. Right now, that is Nvidia, not ATI.

That's all good and well, but in that case please don't go around making totally random speculation about (possible) future ATI products and then declaring that ATI has already "lost". Looking at the benchmark numbers, a ~700/1800 X1800XT would be pretty competitive with a 550/1800 7800GTX. If/when we'll see a card like that, and what it might cost, I don't know (and, frankly, neither do you).

An X1800XT PE is not going to farewell against the 7800 512. ATI is only going to be compounding their original mistake of just trying to add horsepower to an existing core design.

Arguing card architecture is a different topic (and it was beaten to death pretty soundly when details on G70 and R520 were first announced). You can look at it the other way, too, and say that NVIDIA blundered so badly on the NV3X hardware that they've basically had to completely rebuild their GPU in the last few years, while ATI has been able to leverage the guts of the R3XX architecture for three full generations now without enormous changes.

Yields already seem pretty bad considering I have a better chance of ordering a 7800GTX 512 on the same day it launched compared to the X1800XT which launched over a week ago (more). SO how bad are the yields and availability, not to mention pricing, going to be on an overclocked version of an overclocked card?

Availability is bad on the X1800XT largely because ATI was having manufacturing issues with the cores all summer, and probably wasn't producing a whole lot of viable X1800XT cores until late August or September at the earliest. This has screwed their availability pretty badly thus far, but hopefully we will see this turn around in the next few weeks.

 

[g3pro]

It turns out that all this time the 7800 was built on a 32pipeline architecture.

 

[Matt2]

That's all good and well, but in that case please don't go around making totally random speculation about (possible) future ATI products and then declaring that ATI has already "lost". Looking at the benchmark numbers, a ~700/1800 X1800XT would be pretty competitive with a 550/1800 7800GTX. If/when we'll see a card like that, and what it might cost, I don't know (and, frankly, neither do you).

I dont think it was random at all. Now that both flagship cards are on the market and taking into account the recent history and practices of each company, I dont think I'm gonna be that far off.

Besides, there's already been speculation about R580 which will have a different architecture, by nts. I was merely referring to a PE edition of the current X1800XT. Far less speculative then talking about R580.

I'm sorry for saying that the X1800XT PE has already "lost", but looking at the numbers I see from 7800GTX 512 benches, I see a different picture being painted than you. That's all.

 

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: nts

Originally posted by: jim1976

Originally posted by: nts

I very highly doubt that there will be an R520PE edition, simply because it isn't needed. The next chip will most likely be the R580, the refresh for the R520.

Refresh of R580? R580 is designed by a different design ATI team and we don't know nothing about the marchitecture and specs of this gpu. All we have is speculation? Is it gonna be 16pipes/4quads or 24pipes/6quads? What clock/mem speeds? How on earth do you reach the conclusion that r580 is a refresh of R520?

By looking at the model numbers of the previous generation and knowing that the next generation is the R600

On the contrary we do know quite a bit, the GPU will be 16 ROPS, 3 Shader Processors per pipe/ROP (this is where the 48 pipes comes from), still has 16 Texture Units (same as R520) and 1 stencil/depth out per ROP. Ofcourse the above is not final but from leaked specs the R520/R515/R530 all turned out to be correct so I'm making the assumption that the R580's leaked specs will also be correct.

The clock speeds unfortunately I dont know about.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2574
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20051111144411.html

Just because the codename is R5xx does that mean that they are under the same marchitecture? They are designed by different teams, so I wouldn't exactly call this a "refresh" of r520.. You mentioned some speculated specs yourself. Look at them and tell me how close are to the r520?

 

[crazydingo]

Originally posted by: Ronin

Originally posted by: crazydingo
Ronin, remember our deal?

Originally posted by: crazydingo

Originally posted by: Ronin
I find it highly unlikely that a pair of GTs will outperform the 512MB GTX, if the clock speeds fall in line.

A pairt of GTs will outperform the 512MB GTX even if those clock speeds fall in line.

B&W2: @ 2048x1536 no AA, SLi GTs best the 512MB GTX by 2.8fps
B&W2: @ 2048x1536 with 4xAA, a single 512MB GTX bests the SLi GTs by 4.6fps
DoD:S @ 2048x1536, a single 512MB GTX bests the SLi GTs by 5.2 fps
DoD:S @ 2048x1536 with 4xAA, a single 512MB GTX bests the SLi GTs by 7.7fps
D3 @ 2048x1536 with no AA, SLi GTs best the 512MB GTX by 12.6fps
D3 @ 2048x1536 with 4xAA, SLi GTs best the 512MB GTX by 9fps
F.E.A.R @ 2048x1536 with no AA, SLi GTs best the 512MB GTX by 1fps
F.E.A.R @ 2048x1536 with 4x AA, SLi GTs best the 512MB GTX by 4fps
Q4 @ 2048x1536 with no AA, SLi GTs best the 512MB GTX by 21.7fps
Q4 @ 2048x1536 with 4xAA, SLi GTs best the 512MB GTX by 9.8fps

Add to that the following games not benched:
Serious Sam 2 17%
HL2:LC 8%
IL2 18%
COD2 19%

And the tally changes to:

SLi GTs: 9
512MB GTX: 3
Draw: 2

Remember there are more missing games such as FarCry, Riddick which are all SLI beneficiaries ..

Originally posted by: Ronin
So, here's the question. Is it worth it to buy 1 512MB GTX over 2 7800 GTs?

Thats not the question but rather the question was asked by the 7800GT owners if it was better to add another 7800GT or fork out $650+ for the 512MB GTX. This comparision was not fair to begin with (1 card vs 2 cards) but since it came from that perspective (adding one 7800GT vs ...) I gave it more thought.

Originally posted by: Ronin
Comes down to a personal choice, I'd say. Personally, I'd take the opportunity to have 2 512MB GTXs over 2 GTs.).

Personally, I'd take the oppurtunity to have 4 512MB GTXs over 2 512MB GTXs .. so on and so forth. (Gigabytle Quad Royal motherboard)

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Matt2
I'm sorry for saying that the X1800XT PE has already "lost", but looking at the numbers I see from 7800GTX 512 benches, I see a different picture being painted than you. That's all.

Perhaps you can find a better way to phrase that then:

I personally can't wait till the X1800XTPE comes out. ATI is still gonna lose and the PE will cost just as much as the 7800 512. Then where will the faATIcs retreat to?

The implication is that you would like to see ATI fail. Plus you somehow know exactly what a card that doesn't even exist yet will cost. I'm all for having a sensible discussion about these cards if you want, but that is NOT the way to do it.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Matt2
I'm sorry for saying that the X1800XT PE has already "lost", but looking at the numbers I see from 7800GTX 512 benches, I see a different picture being painted than you. That's all.

Perhaps you can find a better way to phrase that then:

I personally can't wait till the X1800XTPE comes out. ATI is still gonna lose and the PE will cost just as much as the 7800 512. Then where will the faATIcs retreat to?

The implication is that you would like to see ATI fail. Plus you somehow know exactly what a card that doesn't even exist yet will cost. I'm all for having a sensible discussion about these cards if you want, but that is NOT the way to do it.

ok, I really dont wanna get into this argument.

You're right, I coulda worded it differently, point taken.

Let's all have a :beer: and be friends again

Cheers!

 

[nts]

Originally posted by: jim1976
Just because the codename is R5xx does that mean that they are under the same marchitecture?

They should be the same base/core architecture (same design requirements, principals, etc). It wouldn't make sense to develop two different architectures at the same time. This architecture is what future chips are gonna be based on, about half way inbetween a unified chip already and the next gen R600 will be totally unified AFAIK.

It seems like the PCB will change more than the GPU here (R520->R580) if the socket flip chip turns out to be true.

They are designed by different teams,

Different teams yes, but that doesn't mean they dont communicate with one another

so I wouldn't exactly call this a "refresh" of r520..

Maybe not in the traditional sense since the architecture is a bit different and it isn't just an upped clock but AFAIK it will act like a refresh.

You mentioned some speculated specs yourself. Look at them and tell me how close are to the r520?

In the specs i posted, the only thing that the R580 and R520 differ in is the "Shader Processors" per ROP. The R520 has 1 but the R580 has 3. The texture units dont change (still 16) and the depth/stencil out is the same at 1 (only the RV530 has 2).

So it triples the ALU power of the R520 but leaves the texture units alone, might sound a bit weird at first but ATi has been pushing the ratio of 3:1 (ALU ops per TEX ops). It looks like R580 will make that a reality.

Why is the 3:1 ratio important, well because texture operations take time and while a thread is waiting for a texture op the scheduler can schedule another thread to run ALU ops (across pipes?). The efficiency is literally going to go through the roof (if the ratio is kept in shaders but something would be very wrong if you have more tex ops then alu ops ).

Again all just speculation on leaked specs, but the R515/R530/R520 all turned out to be correct so hopefully the R580 will also. Looking very impressive atm

There are a lot more differences internally (ALU arrangements, etc) obviously but from the higher level I believe its just the ALUs that get trippled.

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by: nts

Originally posted by: Matt2
I'm a fanboy, yes, but not an Nvidia fanboy. Look at my sig, I got for whatever is the best in my certain price point.

I'm a fan of the company that points the industry in the right direction. Right now, that is Nvidia, not ATI.

Sounds fair, I'm the same way except atm my opinion is the opposite of yours.

An X1800XT PE is not going to farewell against the 7800 512. ATI is only going to be compounding their original mistake of just trying to add horsepower to an existing core design. Yields already seem pretty bad considering I have a better chance of ordering a 7800GTX 512 on the same day it launched compared to the X1800XT which launched over a week ago (more). SO how bad are the yields and availability, not to mention pricing, going to be on an overclocked version of an overclocked card?

The GTX-512 core is the same as the 256 core. Thats why a lot of them are available, there is no difference AFAIK (just cherry picked cores from day 1).

If you want to talk architecture then please PM me (dont want to derail the thread here) and no the R520 isn't an overclocked R300/420.

There are a few key changes from the original 7800 GTX silicon that allow the 7800 GTX 512 to perform so highly. The 7800 GTX 512 still uses a 110nm process like the original 7800 GTX, but NVIDIA has tuned their fab process to speed up key data paths in the chip. These enhancements, while not altering the feature set in anyway, allow the chip to reach clock speeds of 550MHz (which is 120MHz faster than the original 7800 GTX). On top of changes in the silicon, the 7800 GTX 512 has gotten a PCB revision. And just in case anyone is wondering, the huge HSF solution is actually very quiet. NVIDIA is using a fan with larger blades that move a good volume of air without needing to run at super high RPMs. While it may look like an industrial sized leaf blower, it bark is certainly nothing compared to the bite this thing takes out of our performance tests.

Current 7800 GTX cards feature 8Mx32 GDDR3 with four chips on each side of the PCB. Most cards have a heat spreader on the back of the board, while some vendors have attached heatsinks. NVIDIA needed a better way to cool their RAM in order to hit the memory clock speeds they wanted. To this end the 7800 GTX 512 sees all of its RAM on the front of the PCB cooled by the very large heatsink previously employed on the Quadro FX 4500. Moving all the RAM to one side of the PCB may also have improved the routing to certain memory modules, which would also help increase attainable stable memory clock speeds. There are still only 8 modules total, as NVIDIA has also moved to higher density 16Mx32 GDDR3. The RAM used is also rated at 900MHz (1800MHz data rate), giving the stock memory clock speed of 1700MHz a little head room for vendors who like to overclock the cards they sell.

 

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: nts

They should be the same base/core architecture (same design requirements, principals, etc). It wouldn't make sense to develop two different architectures at the same time. This architecture is what future chips are gonna be based on, about half way inbetween a unified chip already and the next gen R600 will be totally unified AFAIK.

I see your point , but 2 different architectures can exist as it happened with the Xenos gpu. Of course you may say that this is different since it is a console gpu, but nevertheless this doesn't negate the fact of its simultaneous development with R5xx architecture.

Maybe not in the traditional sense since the architecture is a bit different and it isn't just an upped clock but AFAIK it will act like a refresh.

Let's just leave it like that. Makes much more sense to consider it as a "refresh" if rumours that R580 have working silicon (and it's almost ready for mass production rather than just being a pre-production prototype) are true, rather than actually being one IMO.

In the specs i posted, the only thing that the R580 and R520 differ in is the "Shader Processors" per ROP. The R520 has 1 but the R580 has 3. The texture units dont change (still 16) and the depth/stencil out is the same at 1 (only the RV530 has 2).

]There are a lot more differences internally (ALU arrangements, etc) obviously but from the higher level I believe its just the ALUs that get trippled.

Rumours also say that it may operate 2 stencil ops as well, but let's not get more technical in here... Anyway my point is that R4xx had 4quads too for example , but this doesn't mean that it can be considered similar architecture with r5xx. In some things they look same in some others totally different . Performance wise I hope rumours about R580 turn out to be true

Again all just speculation on leaked specs, but the R515/R530/R520 all turned out to be correct so hopefully the R580 will also. Looking very impressive atm

Indeed

 

[BFG10K]

Some impressive performance, it's just a shame tech-report didn't manage to pull any dB readings of the cooler.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

I personally can't wait till the X1800XTPE comes out. ATI is still gonna lose and the PE will cost just as much as the 7800 512. Then where will the faATIcs retreat to?

The implication is that you would like to see ATI fail. Plus you somehow know exactly what a card that doesn't even exist yet will cost. I'm all for having a sensible discussion about these cards if you want, but that is NOT the way to do it.

This is hilarious. Are you majoring in psychology? Whether or not, I'd like your analysis on the *implication*. If anything, your analysis seems to imply *your* state of mind. Wake up, Mr. This is a hardware forum, not a mind-reading class.

Sorry, I couldn't help but LMAO.

 

[imported_drx]

Originally posted by: archcommus
Don't crap on ATI, guys, remember a time when nVidia was putting out crap and ATI was stomping all over them with their new Radeons?

Things go back and forth, this round nVidia has clearly won.

Yeah, and people were crapping on Nvidia then (and still do might I add), as they should have. Not saying the x1800s are ATi's FX or something, just saying...

 

[Ackmed]

Looks like a very nice card. Seems like it has lower temps, and noise. Dual slot though, but that doesnt matter to me. I just wish all the hot air out out of the case, looks like only half does.

Price it too much for the ones in stock. $700 is just too much. I suspect prices will drop when card availability comes up. Hopefully that will be sooner, rather than later.

Two things I would like added in the review. If they would use a card at 490/1.3 such as the eVGA's and others, so people can see if the extra cost is worth it, or not. They are about $200 cheaper right now. The second thing is image quality comparisons. I have no idea why these are not added, seems like the review was rushed.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Some impressive performance, it's just a shame tech-report didn't manage to pull any dB readings of the cooler.

Most of what I'm hearing is, big fan, slow mover, high cfm, large blades, yada. And its much quieter than it looks.