ATI RV530 & RV515 specs revealed

[Creig]

RV530

600MHz Core Clock
1400MHz Memory Clock
512MB Maximum Memory for "XT"
256MB Maximum Memory for "Pro"
128-bit Memory
12 Pipelines
Maximum 16x32MB 1.4ns GDDR3


RV515

450MHz Core Clock
800MHz Memory Clock
256MB Maximum Memory Support
128-bit Memory
4 Pipelines
Maximum 16x16MB 2.5ns GDDR2



ATI High Performance Roadmap
R520 "XT" Crossfire Dual Slot Mid October
R520 "XT" Dual Slot Early October
R520 "XL" Single Slot Early September

ATI Mid and Low Performance Roadmap
RV530 Crossfire Single Slot Late October
RV515 "XL" Single Slot Late September




http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2501

 

[Creig]

We have also hinted at performance rumors of the R520, but since the silicon has been overhauled so many times since then, R520 could be much different than what was originally speculated. (In fact, we know it is.)

The ATI roadmaps specifically claim the new R5xxx series cards have new video architectures, new memory controllers and now use a 90nm production process. Whether that equates to better performance will have to wait until the actual production launches.

Great. Now we can begin a whole NEW round of speculation as to its performance/architecture. The thing that surprised me was the fact that the mid-range RV530 has 1.4ns GDDR3 which is faster than anything found on a 7800GTX. Makes you wonder what the R520 will be strapping on.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Creig

We have also hinted at performance rumors of the R520, but since the silicon has been overhauled so many times since then, R520 could be much different than what was originally speculated. (In fact, we know it is.)

The ATI roadmaps specifically claim the new R5xxx series cards have new video architectures, new memory controllers and now use a 90nm production process. Whether that equates to better performance will have to wait until the actual production launches.

Great. Now we can begin a whole NEW round of speculation as to its performance/architecture. The thing that surprised me was the fact that the mid-range RV530 has 1.4ns GDDR3 which is faster than anything found on a 7800GTX. Makes you wonder what the R520 will be strapping on.

1.6 is the fastest "official" speed. Samsung is sampling at 1.8 i believe.

 

[nRollo]

Wow.

Crossfire one year later than SLI.

High end, unknown spec "launch" four months after 7800GTX- and we don't know if cards will even be available at launch.

Looks like the rumors of another tape-out may well be true.

People have been posting all year, "It's taped out! Wait a month or two!" and now at the end of the year, ATI finally tells us to wait two months. Will be interesting to see if they can deliver by November.

 

[Calagari]

I am really confused by these new realeases. I can't understand why ATI would release a new 530 card with only 4 pipes. The 520's have 24 is that correct?

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Wow.

Crossfire one year later than SLI.

High end, unknown spec "launch" four months after 7800GTX- and we don't know if cards will even be available at launch.

Looks like the rumors of another tape-out may well be true.

People have been posting all year, "It's taped out! Wait a month or two!" and now at the end of the year, ATI finally tells us to wait two months. Will be interesting to see if they can deliver by November.

Whats worse is it looks like even the 520 series has to have a dedicated master card. Look they have the 520XT listed twice, a standard and a Crossfire version. Also with the 520 being dual slot they better pray to god that it is the fastest thing out there. I bought My 7800GTX not only because it was the fastest but also because I personally refuse to take up 2 slots (3 because I always leave the Slot under the Fan open) for a video card and honestly Taking up all of my expansion slots for SLI is slightly retarded.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Calagari
I am really confused by these new realeases. I can't understand why ATI would release a new 530 card with only 4 pipes. The 520's have 24 is that correct?

We don't know if it has 16 extreme, 24, 32, 64 or 128 pipes. I can tell you that it will have at least 16. I couldn't even tell you if it's powered by a hamster in a squirrel cage at this point.

 

[ZobarStyl]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
We don't know if it has 16 extreme, 24, 32, 64 or 128 pipes. I can tell you that it will have at least 16. I couldn't even tell you if it's powered by a hamster in a squirrel cage at this point.

Yeah, R520 has to be the biggest mystery in GPU's in a while. The problem is, it's still too late to the table...it has to seriously blow the GTX out of the water in perf to get as many sales now. ATi doesn't seem to realize that it doesn't matter how damn fast the setup is if it's 6-12 months late, first with still-MIA Crossfire and now with 90nm R5xx. It looks more and more like their nV30, what with the talk of 'extreme' pipelines, sounds kind of like nV's experiment in multitexturing.

 

[blckgrffn]

Originally posted by: ZobarStyl

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
We don't know if it has 16 extreme, 24, 32, 64 or 128 pipes. I can tell you that it will have at least 16. I couldn't even tell you if it's powered by a hamster in a squirrel cage at this point.

Yeah, R520 has to be the biggest mystery in GPU's in a while. The problem is, it's still too late to the table...it has to seriously blow the GTX out of the water in perf to get as many sales now. ATi doesn't seem to realize that it doesn't matter how damn fast the setup is if it's 6-12 months late, first with still-MIA Crossfire and now with 90nm R5xx. It looks more and more like their nV30, what with the talk of 'extreme' pipelines, sounds kind of like nV's experiment in multitexturing.

Sigh. Agreed. I just want them out already, I am getting bored with the x800 & 6800 series cards. My 7800GT should be here soon, but I really want to be reading reviews, etc on the the ATI bad boys.

The RV515 sounds like a 6200 competitor. The RV530 will be hamstrung by the 128 bit memory interface. While that will be a lot of bandwidth due to the high speed of it, a 256 bit solution would have been better.

And will the RV515 really use DDR2? That seems unlikely, but hey, what do I know...'

*not much *

 

[Genx87]

Double slot cooling?

This launch is more and more like the NV30 by the day. ATI now has their own dustbuter to showoff

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: ZobarStyl
ATi doesn't seem to realize that it doesn't matter how damn fast the setup is if it's 6-12 months late, first with still-MIA Crossfire and now with 90nm R5xx.

Where are you getting your timetable from? AFAIK, the R520 was originally to be released in Q2 of this year and has now been pushed back to Q3.

ATI 2005 Desktop Roadmap

That's hardly 6-12 months. Same goes for Crossfire motherboards.

Originally posted by: ZobarStyl
Yeah, R520 has to be the biggest mystery in GPU's in a while. The problem is, it's still too late to the table...it has to seriously blow the GTX out of the water in perf to get as many sales now.

While it's true that ATI has lost sales to the 7800GTX, it's nowhere near "too late to the table". After the R520 is released, nobody who needs a high performance video card is going to care which one was released first, only which one fits their needs the best.

 

[lifeguard1999]

Here is a quick comparison between the rumored ATI cards and the current NVidia cards.

R530 vs 6600GT
600MHz Core Clock vs 500MHz Core Clock R530 wins
1400MHz Memory Clock vs 1000MHz Memory ClockR530 wins
128-bit Memory vs. 128-bit Memory (tie)
12 Pipelines vs. 8 Pipelines R530

R515 vs 6200
450MHz Core Clock vs 300MHz Core Clock R515 wins
800MHz Memory Clock vs 550MHz Memory Clock R515 wins
128-bit Memory vs. 128-bit Memory (tie)
4 Pipelines vs. 4 Pipelines (tie)

What else did you expect but to have ATI win the low and mid end with a new generation of cards versus the old generation of cards from NVidia. And yes I know you really can't tell performance just from the specs. The real question, which Anand alludes to, is how will NVidia respond? It would be very interesting to see a low end NVidia part with 8 pipes and a mid-range part with 16-pipes.

 

[Creig]

NVIDIA actually has a current generation 6200 replacement already, the GeForce 6500 (geared specifically to target the Radeon X550). Our sources say the GeForce 6500 will fall somewhere between the performance of a 6600LE and a GeForce 6200, but at a much lower price point than the 6600LE.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: Rollo

People have been posting all year, "It's taped out! Wait a month or two!" and now at the end of the year, ATI finally tells us to wait two months. Will be interesting to see if they can deliver by November.

same goes for g70 until its launch.

Hopefully the XL will be the same as the XT just clocked lower, then I won't mind the XT comming later.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: ZobarStyl
ATi doesn't seem to realize that it doesn't matter how damn fast the setup is if it's 6-12 months late, first with still-MIA Crossfire and now with 90nm R5xx.

Where are you getting your timetable from? AFAIK, the R520 was originally to be released in Q2 of this year and has now been pushed back to Q3.

ATI 2005 Desktop Roadmap

That's hardly 6-12 months. Same goes for Crossfire motherboards.

Originally posted by: ZobarStyl
Yeah, R520 has to be the biggest mystery in GPU's in a while. The problem is, it's still too late to the table...it has to seriously blow the GTX out of the water in perf to get as many sales now.

While it's true that ATI has lost sales to the 7800GTX, it's nowhere near "too late to the table". After the R520 is released, nobody who needs a high performance video card is going to care which one was released first, only which one fits their needs the best.

I don't know Creig. Most people here seem to see things a different way.
If you want to get into semantics about a time table, here you go:

Original supposed launch date is Q2 2005. Now its pushed back to Q4 2005(October). Now this could be as little as 90days late (if original supposed lauch date was June 30th and new supposed launch date is Oct 1st) or as much as 270 days late (if original supposed launch date was April 1st and new supposed launch date will be December31st)

As it stands, everybody knows R520 was "supposed" to be here by late June. No, there was no official launch date, but everybody was "hearing" this and knew the deal. Now we are "hearing" October for R520. IF, and this is a big IF, it does get here by October, it will be 4 months overdue. 4 months is almost a whole refresh cycle used to be before switching to 12 months.

Whatever. It is what it is. Obviously ATI is having headaches over their high end part.

 

[SAINTSINNER]

What is missing and very important from comaprsion and article is prices for cards. Even with ATIs better performance price might be the one element which will determine the winner.

 

[Malladine]

They sound like garbage. What is that 128bit crap? :frown: 12 pipes? Why even release these cards?

 

[Killrose]

I think at this point Ati will have to paper launch as soon as they are reaching even a trickle of production. They can't wait the month or so it takes to build up enough inventory to do a launch/release at the same time.

nVidia will no doubt have an instant conter-measure to R520 by the time it reaches market. The whole 32pipe vs 24pipe aurgument will be null and void by that time.

And 128bit at this point in time? what a waste of silicon.

 

[blckgrffn]

Because mainstream cards are sub $200 and make up the vast majority of cards sold and are where all the profit is. Clear enough?

128 bit will be fine for resolutions of 1024*768, maybe 1280*1024. I think that many people play at those resolutions. Games are really shader bound at this point anyway, and 12 pipes @ 600 mhz should be a pretty awesome GPU for the mainstream market.

 

[JBT]

128 bit memory? weak....

 

[ZobarStyl]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
I don't know Creig. Most people here seem to see things a different way.
If you want to get into semantics about a time table, here you go:

Original supposed launch date is Q2 2005. Now its pushed back to Q4 2005(October). Now this could be as little as 90days late (if original supposed lauch date was June 30th and new supposed launch date is Oct 1st) or as much as 270 days late (if original supposed launch date was April 1st and new supposed launch date will be December31st)

As it stands, everybody knows R520 was "supposed" to be here by late June. No, there was no official launch date, but everybody was "hearing" this and knew the deal. Now we are "hearing" October for R520. IF, and this is a big IF, it does get here by October, it will be 4 months overdue. 4 months is almost a whole refresh cycle used to be before switching to 12 months.

Whatever. It is what it is. Obviously ATi is having headaches over their high end part.

QFT, because he replied for me. Argue the semantics of my statement all you want, I'll drop it to 4-8 months if it really makes all that much difference. As keys stated though, Q2 2005 to October at the earliest (ATi dates are, more often than not lately, utter fiction) would be Q2-Q4, which is pushing 6 months.

Moreover, I was especially referring to ATi's move in the multi-GPU arena, where Crossfire is still quite behind, and considering the substantial entry cost of a vendor-specific multi-GPU setup, I would say it hurt them a lot. Also, in the time frame I was referencing, I'm alluding slightly not only to being late on their internal estimates, but compared to the equivalent nVidia release, which is more important from a business standpoint.

Either way, I'm not saying that R520 won't be spectacular success, but rather that ATi can't afford to keep lagging behind and handing nV these free headstarts.

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: ZobarStyl

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
I don't know Creig. Most people here seem to see things a different way.
If you want to get into semantics about a time table, here you go:

Original supposed launch date is Q2 2005. Now its pushed back to Q4 2005(October). Now this could be as little as 90days late (if original supposed lauch date was June 30th and new supposed launch date is Oct 1st) or as much as 270 days late (if original supposed launch date was April 1st and new supposed launch date will be December31st)

As it stands, everybody knows R520 was "supposed" to be here by late June. No, there was no official launch date, but everybody was "hearing" this and knew the deal. Now we are "hearing" October for R520. IF, and this is a big IF, it does get here by October, it will be 4 months overdue. 4 months is almost a whole refresh cycle used to be before switching to 12 months.

Whatever. It is what it is. Obviously ATi is having headaches over their high end part.

QFT, because he replied for me. Argue the semantics of my statement all you want, I'll drop it to 4-8 months if it really makes all that much difference. As keys stated though, Q2 2005 to October at the earliest (ATi dates are, more often than not lately, utter fiction) would be Q2-Q4, which is pushing 6 months.

Moreover, I was especially referring to ATi's move in the multi-GPU arena, where Crossfire is still quite behind, and considering the substantial entry cost of a vendor-specific multi-GPU setup, I would say it hurt them a lot. Also, in the time frame I was referencing, I'm alluding slightly not only to being late on their internal estimates, but compared to the equivalent nVidia release, which is more important from a business standpoint.

Either way, I'm not saying that R520 won't be spectacular success, but rather that ATi can't afford to keep lagging behind and handing nV these free headstarts.

Ummm... ya, considering that they JUST might plan on having a hard launch instead of a paper launch? We don't know when they will get released. ATI says september.. but we do not know if its paper or hard, since we speculate that ATI must answer Nvidia's 2 sucessful launches of the 7800 series.

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: blckgrffn
Because mainstream cards are sub $200 and make up the vast majority of cards sold and are where all the profit is. Clear enough?

128 bit will be fine for resolutions of 1024*768, maybe 1280*1024. I think that many people play at those resolutions. Games are really shader bound at this point anyway, and 12 pipes @ 600 mhz should be a pretty awesome GPU for the mainstream market.

What? Profits? What?

They can keep their stinky low end crap :frown:

That said, i am still curious enough to want to see some benchies

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Wow.

Crossfire one year later than SLI.

High end, unknown spec "launch" four months after 7800GTX- and we don't know if cards will even be available at launch.

Looks like the rumors of another tape-out may well be true.

People have been posting all year, "It's taped out! Wait a month or two!" and now at the end of the year, ATI finally tells us to wait two months. Will be interesting to see if they can deliver by November.

Who said anything about SLI or the 7800? Back to you thread-crapping as usual, I see.

 

[KeepItRed]

Originally posted by: Rollo

High end, unknown spec "launch" four months after 7800GTX- and we don't know if cards will even be available at launch.

They have to be available at launch because ATI knows if they delay it after an announce or do another paper launch, it would drastically hurt their corporal image.

EDIT: Munky: :thumbsup:

Also, how did Anandtech find this out? ATI is very quiet about the R5xx series...