R600 Delay - The Reason

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Warren21
I already knew all of that (ie. R300 = 9700 Pro), but the PC still got R420 and the whole R520 series -- so R400 wasn't completely scrapped, neither was R500.

In light of what you've said however, tell me more about how R400 was scrapped... was it supposed to be radically different from what we actually got with the Radeon X8x0 series? In the same way that R500 is radically different from R520/R580?

Yes. It was supposed to be a DX10 part. The closest thing to "R400" was the 1/2 DX10 core in the Xbox 360, which in reality was a 1/2 finished "R400". The R600 will hopefully be the "R400" brought to fruition!

The delays of Vista really messed up ATI's plans I think. They wanted to release a DX10 card, but with no OS to run it on they probably saw it as pointless. Microsoft also took a very long time to finalize the DX10 spec. With DX9 it was a different story.

*edit* R400 Cancellation article

 

[JPB]

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/977/12

Plus, honestly, as much as we hate to say it but ?fanboys? are going to want something until ATI?s upcoming R600 GPU comes out. Which of course brings us to another point - is R600 going to be faster then the 8800GTX? We would think so. Why? ATI simply cannot afford to release a product four months after their competitor with what could only be the same performance or *shock*, worse. Start paying more attention to The Inquirer for the next few weeks because it?s safe to say that if the R600 isn?t performing up to the level of the 8800GTX, words like ?delayed? will get leaked out all over the place.


_________________________________

Posted: 8th November 2006

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: JPB
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/977/12

Plus, honestly, as much as we hate to say it but ?fanboys? are going to want something until ATI?s upcoming R600 GPU comes out. Which of course brings us to another point - is R600 going to be faster then the 8800GTX? We would think so. Why? ATI simply cannot afford to release a product four months after their competitor with what could only be the same performance or *shock*, worse. Start paying more attention to The Inquirer for the next few weeks because it?s safe to say that if the R600 isn?t performing up to the level of the 8800GTX, words like ?delayed? will get leaked out all over the place.


_________________________________

Posted: 8th November 2006

So in essence you think that the R600 is too slow. I'm thinking this is quite likely, seeing as the G80 was a 'shock' release that took the market by complete surprise. ATI probably thought that they would be the only ones with unified shaders, but it didn't quite turn out as they planned...

 

[JPB]

I'm not too sure what to think actually. But apparently Tweaktown ( as quoted above from their article ) back on November 8th of 06 thought that R600 would be delayed if it couldnt keep up or match G80's potential. BUT...If I were to take a guess, imo....I would have to say that is true. I think the whole thing about being competitive leads to R600 not performing on G80 level. So they make excuses like....being competitive, making sure its a hard launch, making sure they have WHQL drivers available etc.

Ill be enjoying my GTS 640 by Friday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME....HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME....OH wait, that was two days ago. LoL

 

[the Chase]

ATI has been respinning this chip trying to best the G80 performance. They thought they had it on the last respin and with some driver improvements it would be good to go. They gambled on this and "set" a release date and started the press salivating on upcoming showings/coverage.

They could not hit their clockspeed goals and driver improvements could not push them over the top. Launch a slower than G80 card or???.......

RESPIN!!!

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: the Chase
ATI has been respinning this chip trying to best the G80 performance. They thought they had it on the last respin and with some driver improvements it would be good to go. They gambled on this and "set" a release date and started the press salivating on upcoming showings/coverage.

They could not hit their clockspeed goals and driver improvements could not push them over the top. Launch a slower than G80 card or???.......

RESPIN!!!

Do you work for ATI or something? That's some neat info if it's true. It sounds like insider information.

 

[ronnn]

If amd stopped the release of the r600 because it was too slow. Why do the big build up? Production issues seem the most likely. Maybe poor yield or some other bug. So it seems that amd's likely strategy is too dump high end this generation and beef up the midrange.

 

[Munky]

We still don't know how far it will be pushed back. If it's only a few weeks, then it was likely a supply problem - AMD wanted to do a hard launch, and not the 7800gtx-512 kind of ot 'hard launch.' If it gets delayed by more than a month then maybe they went for another respin so it would compete better not only with the 8800gtx but also the 8900gtx.

 

[fierydemise]

I hate to say it but ATI isn't late yet, CeBit is still on the horizon and we could see them launch it there.

My guess availability will be delayed due to short supply probably from GDDR4, 7800 512MB anyone?

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: the Chase
ATI has been respinning this chip trying to best the G80 performance. They thought they had it on the last respin and with some driver improvements it would be good to go. They gambled on this and "set" a release date and started the press salivating on upcoming showings/coverage.

They could not hit their clockspeed goals and driver improvements could not push them over the top. Launch a slower than G80 card or???.......

RESPIN!!!

Do you work for ATI or something? That's some neat info if it's true. It sounds like insider information.

Nah it's just a guess like everyone else here- but can I sound confident or what?

 

[Bateluer]

Well, it'd great to have a simultaneous launch of the mid and high end cards for once, but I don't think thats going to happen.

Just my opinion, but I think AMD/ATI wasn't hitting the clock frequencies they wanted to with the R600 and they're trying to get it higher. It is being manufactured on a relatively new 80nm process, after all.

I'm also pretty sure the buy out by AMD didn't exactly help things go faster.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: fierydemise
I hate to say it but ATI isn't late yet, CeBit is still on the horizon and we could see them launch it there.

My guess availability will be delayed due to short supply probably from GDDR4, 7800 512MB anyone?

ATI already has GDDR4 in their X1950XTX, so I can't see why they'd have trouble getting memory for the R600.

 

[nrb]

I don't believe this delay was caused by a performance problem. Whatever the reason was, it must have come up suddenly. Hector Ruiz had publically stated that R600 would launch in Q1 no matter what. ATI had actually booked hotels and flights for huge numbers of journalists to attend the expensive, glitzy launch-day event in Amsterdam... and all of those bookings had to be cancelled. The only possible interpretation of all this is that ATI was certain they were going to be able to launch on schedule, then, quite suddenly, at the very last minute, something surfaced. Something that forced a delay of... well, we don't know how long, but with the only estimate for a release now being "Q2", that could mean anything up to 3 months.

I simply don't see that this sort of sudden "Oh my God! Cancel the launch!" reaction could possibly have been triggered by performance problems. Certainly performance issues could postpone a launch, but they couldn't suddenly and unexpectedly postpone a launch. ATI have had many months to test performance, and they must have figured that it was good enough, or they wouldn't have booked the launch event to begin with. You don't quite suddenly realise that your product is performing at 50% of the speed you expected just a couple of weeks before shipping. It would have been obvious long before that.

The only sensible explanation (IMO) is that ATI suddenly uncovered a significant functional glitch. It could be a problem with the silicon; it could be a problem with the reference board design; or it could (much less plausibly) be a problem with the drivers. But it can't simply be "performance". Personally I think it's an actual bug in the silicon and we're now going to have to wait for a respin.

(AMD's "strategic" explanations are quite pathetically transparent. I don't know why they bother.)

 

[evolucion8]

Most rumours on internet states that the R600 is about 25-30% faster than the 8800GTX, but remember that nVidia is gonna release the G90 which is gonna have 25% more shaders and higher clocks, and since ATi is releasing this card near of the rumoured release date of the G90, then the R600 have to equal or outperform the G90, not the G80 which already outperforms by a nice margin. This is just my though made by information and rumours gathered from the internet.

 

[apoppin]

maybe i should start another thread giving the *real reasons*



:roll:

anyway

Hector Ruiz sings the AMD blues

WE'RE GRATEFUL TO AMD Zone for noticing a lengthy interview with CEO Hector Ruiz last Friday.

Halfway between interviewing Hector, the interviewer suddently seguees into interviewing Henri Richard, but the fact the two AMD majors feel it necessary to chat to a channel publication has its own significance, we believe.

Hector-Henri admits all has not been well, but does say things are getting better. And it's all here in three bits and pieces, down under.

check the many comments at

http://www.amdzone.com/

their response basically is "its been much worse before"

and they say it will *get better* ... "no hurry" as they are confident in AMD and their ability to deliver competitive products for the "all important" Q3-Q4

we'll see

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
All these things you are saying: "G90 21% faster clock for clock than G80" "from what I understand the R600 barely kept up with the G80". Can you please post links to where you are getting this seemingly very detailed tidbits?

G90 clockspeeds etc.

The R600 speed stuff I just stumbled upon, I think it was to a page linked from the inquirer or something (which usually means it's BS). It was just some dudes on the internet; one of them was definately bogus.

Hmm, the 8900GTS looks very tasty. 128 unified shaders, 640MB memory, 80nm, and default core/memory clock speeds higher than the 8800GTX. Yummy!

 

[Greenman]

Perhaps they just can't make it work. They have the card and drivers all set up on a new computer and it's slow. No one knows why, no one knows how to fix it, so someone from marketing says "we prolly shouldn't sell this till it works". Crazy? Perhaps, but its happened before.
I'm a big fan of AMD/ATI, but the fact is both companies have dropped the ball, and since both companies are now in the "also ran" category, it really doesn't matter what they do.

 

[nrb]

Originally posted by: Greenman
Perhaps they just can't make it work. They have the card and drivers all set up on a new computer and it's slow.

You don't think maybe someone might have tried doing that at least once before booking hundreds of flights and hotel rooms for the "Editors' Day" event? :disgust:

 

[terentenet]

Originally posted by: the Chase
ATI has been respinning this chip trying to best the G80 performance. They thought they had it on the last respin and with some driver improvements it would be good to go. They gambled on this and "set" a release date and started the press salivating on upcoming showings/coverage.

They could not hit their clockspeed goals and driver improvements could not push them over the top. Launch a slower than G80 card or???.......

RESPIN!!!

Performance issues might actually be the point of postponing the launch. They worked in R600 for 4-5 years according to some and now, when the time is right to steal some of the DX10 market, they delay the launch. Who in their right minds would do that?
If they were worried about G90, they could have launched the R600 now and respin it until G90 was out to counter it with a R620.

I don't seem to find the link and I'm too lazy to search the net for it again, but when the R600 specs were first leaked, ATI even said something about "being faster with the proper software tweaks". What do they mean by software tweaks?
Probably that at the current state of hardware and with the current drivers the R600 is on par or slightly better than G80. With proper software tweaks, they can better it by 25-30%.

ATI's specs mentioned about 64 unified shaders with the capability to process 4 instructions/clock. That sounds like the old Pentium 4 HyperThreading. You only got benefit from it if the application was written for it. Otherwise, you got worse performance with HT ON. And the gain from the second virtual core was never very big. Hence, 25-30% lead advantage over G80 WITH software tweaks.
This is just speculation, but might those be the software tweaks they mentioned?

On 8900GTX's side, something is wrong with the current leaked specs. They said 25% more shading power, not 21% clock increase. Yet we still see the same 128 stream processors which is oddly same as 8900GTS.
When did we ever see something like this from Nvidia? The GT(S) version was allways lower clocked and had less shaders than GTX. With a GTS having the same number of shaders and just a lower clock speed, it would mean that no GTX will sell. Everybody will get the GTS and overclock it to GTX level.
Something's amiss here. Either the GTX has 160 stream processors, or, same 128 stream processors clocked 25% higher (current: 1350MHz, 8900GTX: 1700MHz). 80nm would allow that.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: nrb

Originally posted by: Greenman
Perhaps they just can't make it work. They have the card and drivers all set up on a new computer and it's slow.

You don't think maybe someone might have tried doing that at least once before booking hundreds of flights and hotel rooms for the "Editors' Day" event? :disgust:

sure ... they do extensive testing

and expect to fix some bugs as they progress

it appears they found something *unexpected*
--or they would NOT have scheduled the launch in the first place

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: terentenet

Originally posted by: the Chase
ATI has been respinning this chip trying to best the G80 performance.

Another month or so delay would not really allow for any major hardware changes. They may have just had similar problems with their Vista drivers and are gun shy after all the crap NVIDIA has been getting lately.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: terentenet

Originally posted by: the Chase
ATI has been respinning this chip trying to best the G80 performance.

Another month or so delay would not really allow for any major hardware changes. They may have just had similar problems with their Vista drivers and are gun shy after all the crap NVIDIA has been getting lately.

drivers were never an *issue* before with ATi
[no precedent]

they were never ashamed or "gun shy" to release beta drivers with awesome HW - before r600

and they would have a *long time* to work on their Vista Drivers as they has near-final silicon for quite some time

only a HW issue *should* be a reason to CANCEL a Hard Launch

How much *crap* is nvidia getting - now - over their developing drivers?

 

[Greenman]

Originally posted by: nrb

Originally posted by: Greenman
Perhaps they just can't make it work. They have the card and drivers all set up on a new computer and it's slow.

You don't think maybe someone might have tried doing that at least once before booking hundreds of flights and hotel rooms for the "Editors' Day" event? :disgust:

I'd like to think so, but look at the facts. Just before the big kickoff they "discover" a problem and decide to cancel the whole deal. That means it has to be a big issue, and it has to be something that prevents most users from being able to use the card. So it sure seems it wasn't tested properly until the last minute.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Greenman

Originally posted by: nrb

Originally posted by: Greenman
Perhaps they just can't make it work. They have the card and drivers all set up on a new computer and it's slow.

You don't think maybe someone might have tried doing that at least once before booking hundreds of flights and hotel rooms for the "Editors' Day" event? :disgust:

I'd like to think so, but look at the facts. Just before the big kickoff they "discover" a problem and decide to cancel the whole deal. That means it has to be a big issue, and it has to be something that prevents most users from being able to use the card. So it sure seems it wasn't tested properly until the last minute.

evidently it was properly tested ... just too late in relation to the launch's schedule ...

i am guessing it worked really well as they *leaked* specs and pics ... some *issue* -- at the last hour

imagine if they discover an issue AFTER hard launch
--'recall', anyone

better this way ... just *fix* it

like x1800

it won't cripple AMD - IF they have their 'stuff' together in Q2.

 

[SexyK]

As the days go by I'm starting to believe more firmly that some type of hardware bug was uncovered. I can't really think of any other scenario that would lead to this turn of events (i.e. scheduled launch, plane tickets, hotels, etc... then canceled).

Just because they (presumably) had been testing production silicon and decided to schedule the launch doesn't mean that all possible usage scenarios had been tested. I could see the situation unfolding something like this: ATI/AMD get production silicon to their testing centers and begin polishing drivers and testing popular software. Weeks go by without issue, the chip seems to be performing well, and driver development is on course, so they schedule launch. A few more weeks go by and testing continues. One day someone loads up a new (or old) piece of software to further test compatibility, a specific feature or even a specific piece of shader code and *whoops* it crashes. Or it performs WAY under expectations. Revised drivers don't fix the problem. Uh oh, time to look at the hardware. Small bug (or large bug) is uncovered in the hardware and it's simply impossible to fix the design or code the drivers around it in time for launch.

This doesn't mean the whole architecture is FUBAR by any stretch of the imagination, but it's very possible that some aspect of the design that isn't central to usability wasn't tested sufficiently before scheduling the launch. Even though it could be an obscure usage scenario, they decide not to launch until its resolved on the off chance that the problem is larger or has other unforeseen consequences. Remember the case of the flaw in the original Pentium, which caused no problems for 99.9% of users in 99.9% of usage scenarios, but still caused a major media backlash and precipitated a recall? That's the kind of situation I suspect they're dealing with and trying to avoid.