R600 Delay - The Reason

[SickBeast]

This thread is purely speculative.

So far the theories I have seen are:

1. ATI wanted to wait to have mainstream/low-end DX10 solutions for a "simultaneous launch".

2. R600's performance sucked compared with the 8800 series, so ATI just threw in the towel.

3. Some kind of crazy bug cropped up at the last minute which made the silicon either very slow or completely unusable, similar to what happened with the X1800.

I'm looking for some more concrete information, but for now I'd enjoy reading some more conspiracy theories.

 

[josh6079]

And this is different from the other "R600 Delayed AGAIN!" thread how?

 

[Wreckage]

There is a good chance we will never know. I would guess it was either a performance or a driver issue. Seems a bit late in the game for a hardware issue to crop up. Even if the G80 blindsided them, that was last year.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: josh6079
And this is different from the other "R600 Delayed AGAIN!" thread how?

That one's just saying it's delayed whereas this one is speculating as to the reason.:light:

I have also created a very handy summary of the other thread and a clean place for some fresh discussion and ideas.

If you don't like my thread, don't post in it!:lips:

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
There is a good chance we will never know. I would guess it was either a performance or a driver issue. Seems a bit late in the game for a hardware issue to crop up. Even if the G80 blindsided them, that was last year.

G90 maybe? It's 21% faster clock for clock vs. G80, and it's cheaper for nVidia to make. That's *my* theory; part of it anyway.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: Wreckage
There is a good chance we will never know. I would guess it was either a performance or a driver issue. Seems a bit late in the game for a hardware issue to crop up. Even if the G80 blindsided them, that was last year.

G90 maybe? It's 21% faster clock for clock vs. G80, and it's cheaper for nVidia to make. That's *my* theory; part of it anyway.

Yeah, but that is just speculation at this point and geared for much later in the year. I don't see how that can affect the launch of the R600 when it was originally rumored to launch in December of last year.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: Wreckage
There is a good chance we will never know. I would guess it was either a performance or a driver issue. Seems a bit late in the game for a hardware issue to crop up. Even if the G80 blindsided them, that was last year.

G90 maybe? It's 21% faster clock for clock vs. G80, and it's cheaper for nVidia to make. That's *my* theory; part of it anyway.

Yeah, but that is just speculation at this point and geared for much later in the year. I don't see how that can affect the launch of the R600 when it was originally rumored to launch in December of last year.

ATI wants to be 'competetive', and from what I understand the R600 barely kept up with the G80. If nVidia were to release G90 and bury the new ATI card, it would be an engineering embarassment on the level of NV30.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: Wreckage
There is a good chance we will never know. I would guess it was either a performance or a driver issue. Seems a bit late in the game for a hardware issue to crop up. Even if the G80 blindsided them, that was last year.

G90 maybe? It's 21% faster clock for clock vs. G80, and it's cheaper for nVidia to make. That's *my* theory; part of it anyway.

Yeah, but that is just speculation at this point and geared for much later in the year. I don't see how that can affect the launch of the R600 when it was originally rumored to launch in December of last year.

ATI wants to be 'competetive', and from what I understand the R600 barely kept up with the G80. If nVidia were to release G90 and bury the new ATI card, it would be an engineering embarassment on the level of NV30.

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?

 

[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.

 

[TraumaRN]

Simple...AMD/ATI delayed it to torture me.

Torture me because prices won't drop on current gen cards til the AMD/ATI cards come out. I'm dying to upgrade my system but I wont til those new cards come out.

Oh well. By the time it comes around I'll be making about 40% more than I make right now so it'll be easier to afford anyways. Plus AMD might also have their new CPUs out.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Simple...AMD/ATI delayed it to torture me.

I said 'speculative', not 'ridiculous'.

 

[TraumaRN]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Simple...AMD/ATI delayed it to torture me.

I said 'speculative', not 'ridiculous'.

Well damnit I wanna save money on my technology!

Hurry up AMD/ATI

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Hurry up AMD/ATI

My thought is that R600 is a perpetual project that ATI uses simply to research new technologies. It may *never* be released.

It was R400, then R500, then they stuck it in the Xbox 360, then R520, and now R600, and from there they may cancel it entirely?

It's bizarre. I'm guessing ATI doesn't care much about the high-end market, and is using this project as a guinea pig to get newer tech into their mainstream cards.

The delay makes no sense to me whatsoever. Perhaps the power draw was too much?

 

[TraumaRN]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Hurry up AMD/ATI

My thought is that R600 is a perpetual project that ATI uses simply to research new technologies. It may *never* be released.

It was R400, then R500, then they stuck it in the Xbox 360, then R520, and now R600, and from there they may cancel it entirely?

It's bizarre. I'm guessing ATI doesn't care much about the high-end market, and is using this project as a guinea pig to get newer tech into their mainstream cards.

The delay makes no sense to me whatsoever. Perhaps the power draw was too much?

I'm sure we'll find out in the next couple months for sure...God only knows...I do honestly wish it would come out so prices would come down...

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
God only knows...

Dude you're not giving us much in the way of concrete speculation!

 

[TraumaRN]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
God only knows...

Dude you're not giving us much in the way of concrete speculation!

Fine! My thought is something obviously went wrong. Companies don't push back launches for nothing...

Take the new Ford Edge crossover...it got bumped back because they didnt like the quality of some of the plastics and trims etc and issues with suppliers so they bumped launch back a month.

It has to be something along those lines.

The only way I can see it being delayed because of 'less performance' is that less performance was 10% or less across the board compared against a 8800GTX....perhaps they had a supplier problem with the GDDR4??

There did I speculate enough for you?

 

[Warren21]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Hurry up AMD/ATI

My thought is that R600 is a perpetual project that ATI uses simply to research new technologies. It may *never* be released.

It was R400, then R500, then they stuck it in the Xbox 360, then R520, and now R600, and from there they may cancel it entirely?

It's bizarre. I'm guessing ATI doesn't care much about the high-end market, and is using this project as a guinea pig to get newer tech into their mainstream cards.

The delay makes no sense to me whatsoever. Perhaps the power draw was too much?

This is QUITE the speculation. Since when does R400, R500, R520 and R600 all constitute one big experiment?

Those are the different generations of Radeon chips... It's also not one continuous string of R&D either. EX: R600 was designed from the ground up vs. any other chip -- only carrying some previous technologies like the Ring Bus, etc. Not like R300 ~ R480.

And while the mainstream/lower segment is where all the money is made (a la GF 6600/7600 popularity/price/performance) a company's reputation is made with its flagship models, ie. the high-end.

And lastly, since when has power draw ever bothered ATI ?

***

Also, the most believeable stuff I heard prior to pushing R600 from late Q1 to early Q2 was that the silicon was basically finished, rev A12 or A13 I believe. I think I read they were planning on going into production the 2nd week of March.

After AMD made that announcement:

"To better align our strategy with current market opportunities, we?ve changed the launch plan for R600. We are going to deliver a competitive configuration to market with an extremely attractive combination of performance, features and pricing, targeting a broader market segment in Q2. With the revised strategy, AMD will be better able to capitalize on the broad appeal of 3D graphics and DirectX 10, being driven in part by the growing popularity of Windows Vista?."

"This was a tough decision to make for us, but a necessary one that will ultimately result in bringing a better product to market."

It seems they are taking their time to make sure if R600 is going to be this late to the party, it can nock the socks off G80 and G90.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
There did I speculate enough for you?

Ya, that was alright, but you still mashed up my thread with 3 posts or so that said essentially "God only knows" or "Hurry up AMD/ATI". :|

 

[TraumaRN]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
There did I speculate enough for you?

Ya, that was alright, but you still mashed up my thread with 3 posts or so that said essentially "God only knows" or "Hurry up AMD/ATI". :|

Well sorry bout that!

I like what Warren posted too, that perhaps they want a completely rock solid launch....no half assed launchs where you cant buy the product for a month. To that end it'll force Nvidia to have a hard launch for their G80 refresh.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Warren21

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Hurry up AMD/ATI

My thought is that R600 is a perpetual project that ATI uses simply to research new technologies. It may *never* be released.

It was R400, then R500, then they stuck it in the Xbox 360, then R520, and now R600, and from there they may cancel it entirely?

It's bizarre. I'm guessing ATI doesn't care much about the high-end market, and is using this project as a guinea pig to get newer tech into their mainstream cards.

The delay makes no sense to me whatsoever. Perhaps the power draw was too much?

This is QUITE the speculation. Since when does R400, R500, R520 and R600 all constitute one big experiment?

Those are the different generations of Radeon chips... It's also not one continuous string of R&D either. EX: R600 was designed from the ground up vs. any other chip -- only carrying some previous technologies like the Ring Bus, etc. Not like R300 ~ R480.

And while the mainstream/lower segment is where all the money is made (a la GF 6600/7600 popularity/price/performance) a company's reputation is made with its flagship models, ie. the high-end.

And lastly, since when has power draw ever bothered ATI ?

***

Also, the most believeable stuff I hear as to the reason for pushing R600 from late Q1 to early Q2 is that AMD wants a rock-solid launch, with immediate availability. The silicon is basically finished, rev A12 or A13 I believe. I think I read they are goinging into production the 2nd week of March.

I guess you haven't followed ATI as much as I have over the years. R300 was the 9700Pro, and the R400 was its successor. R400 was eventually scrapped, and it carried over into R500. ATI decided to use the R500 in the Xbox 360, probably due to the timing involved. The PC equivalent was put on hiatus, and a chunk of it became R520. The true 'sucessor' to R300 *is* R600, which was apparently developed by the same team of engineers, which I can only assume are the same bunch that used to work for ArtX.

So: R600 has been in the making for probably 4-5 years, which is longer than the 2-3 year development cycle of the G80.

nVidia seems to be ruthless and very efficient in their product development cycle. If it sucks and it's not ready, they release it anyways à la NV30.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
There did I speculate enough for you?

Ya, that was alright, but you still mashed up my thread with 3 posts or so that said essentially "God only knows" or "Hurry up AMD/ATI". :|

Well sorry bout that!

S'alright...I guess you were just getting 'warmed up' or something.

Some people seem opposed to my creation of this thread in the first place anyways. Who am I to say anything?

 

[MemberSince97]

Confirmerd not slower benchmarks

 

[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 (as you claim), and R500 in the Xbox 360 I believe was meant for Xbox 360 all along -- unless I've missed some underground news back from R500 development.

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?

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: MemberSince97
Confirmerd not slower benchmarks

Well, if it had 128 shader units, very similar clock speed, and significantly faster memory speed, low performance can be ruled out.

That leaves a 'fundamental hardware bug' or a driver problem, or perhaps even something else.

Interesting post, thanks!

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: MemberSince97
Confirmerd not slower benchmarks

:roll: That was from the 505 website that even the most naive individual knew was steaming pile of BS.