apoppin - I am saying something quite different from what you're saying. I think they very well might have a competitor ready--for the 8800. What they don't have is a competitor for the 8600. This fact, coupled with the lack of Vista adoption and DX10 games, means that there is little reason to plow ahead with R600's launch, even if it probably will pull slightly ahead of the 8800.
The internal logic of Ruiz's statement doesn't support the meaning you're trying to place on it. That, however, says nothing, good or bad, about your opinion concerning the delay. You could very well be right.
What Ruiz says boils down to this (looking only at the logic and semantics of the two key sentences):
1) Launch change is due to market opportunities. (Sentence 1: "To better align our strategy with current market opportunities, we've changed the launch plan for R600.")
2) We will launch competitive products for more than the high-end market segment in Q2. (Sentence 2: "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.")
He does not explicity link the delay in launch to R600's performance. He links the delay to market conditions and links peformance/features/prices to addressing a broader market segment.
Logically, only reading the passage, there is nothing we can infer from R600's delay with regard to its performance. There may be a lot of other reasons to infer such a link, but they aren't here in this passage.
In some sense I think ATI/AMD is very much trying to avoid the whole 78xx/79xx vs. the X18xx/X19xx fiasco. The 7800s debuted with great success. ATI was late with the x1800s and had to move the x1900s out the door quickly to clearly retake the lead. By that time nVidia already had the 7900s and (this is more important) the 7600s ready.
nVidia got the early adopters (7800s), their share of continual upgrading high-end market (7900 was a good card relative to the x1900), and the midrange market (ATI had to use X8xx series cards to compete and it didn't have the feature set to compete with the 7600).
nVidia has been competing like a veteran boxer fights: by dictating the pace of the action. They land a stiff opening jab (7800), that provokes a trade of punches (7900/X1900), and then they get a belly shot in (7600) on the break.
They're set to do this again with this generation. They've got the opening jab (8800). They're ready to trade punches (8900), and they've got the belly shot (8600) setup anytime they want.
At this point, ATI/AMD is responding to nVidia's pace, not vice-versa. This has got to change quickly. The lesson is: if you know your adversary has a counter to your move, you need to plan a different move. nVidia has been doing much better of late in making the right moves relative to both the market and to ATI/AMD. ATI/AMD may have decided that, while r600 is competitive, it isn't going to change this cycle. It may be that R600 is just the x1800xt, a competitive product that put nVidia not one jot off their stride.
Ruiz may have learned a lesson from Intel's response to the Athlon64 architecture: Intel eventually backed up, took their time, and delivered a serious punch to recapture the lead and set the pace (Conroe).
Either ATI/AMD has learned that lesson, and thus are changing the launch schedule, or they haven't and R600 has massive problems.
I hope it's not the latter from the standpoint of what's best for the consumer but it doesn't really matter to me much. I've been dying to buy an eVGA card for a long time, since they seem to have some very consumer-friendly policies. I'm salivating over the 8600ultra (with 64 shaders at a very reasonable price point).
The internal logic of Ruiz's statement doesn't support the meaning you're trying to place on it. That, however, says nothing, good or bad, about your opinion concerning the delay. You could very well be right.
What Ruiz says boils down to this (looking only at the logic and semantics of the two key sentences):
1) Launch change is due to market opportunities. (Sentence 1: "To better align our strategy with current market opportunities, we've changed the launch plan for R600.")
2) We will launch competitive products for more than the high-end market segment in Q2. (Sentence 2: "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.")
He does not explicity link the delay in launch to R600's performance. He links the delay to market conditions and links peformance/features/prices to addressing a broader market segment.
Logically, only reading the passage, there is nothing we can infer from R600's delay with regard to its performance. There may be a lot of other reasons to infer such a link, but they aren't here in this passage.
In some sense I think ATI/AMD is very much trying to avoid the whole 78xx/79xx vs. the X18xx/X19xx fiasco. The 7800s debuted with great success. ATI was late with the x1800s and had to move the x1900s out the door quickly to clearly retake the lead. By that time nVidia already had the 7900s and (this is more important) the 7600s ready.
nVidia got the early adopters (7800s), their share of continual upgrading high-end market (7900 was a good card relative to the x1900), and the midrange market (ATI had to use X8xx series cards to compete and it didn't have the feature set to compete with the 7600).
nVidia has been competing like a veteran boxer fights: by dictating the pace of the action. They land a stiff opening jab (7800), that provokes a trade of punches (7900/X1900), and then they get a belly shot in (7600) on the break.
They're set to do this again with this generation. They've got the opening jab (8800). They're ready to trade punches (8900), and they've got the belly shot (8600) setup anytime they want.
At this point, ATI/AMD is responding to nVidia's pace, not vice-versa. This has got to change quickly. The lesson is: if you know your adversary has a counter to your move, you need to plan a different move. nVidia has been doing much better of late in making the right moves relative to both the market and to ATI/AMD. ATI/AMD may have decided that, while r600 is competitive, it isn't going to change this cycle. It may be that R600 is just the x1800xt, a competitive product that put nVidia not one jot off their stride.
Ruiz may have learned a lesson from Intel's response to the Athlon64 architecture: Intel eventually backed up, took their time, and delivered a serious punch to recapture the lead and set the pace (Conroe).
Either ATI/AMD has learned that lesson, and thus are changing the launch schedule, or they haven't and R600 has massive problems.
I hope it's not the latter from the standpoint of what's best for the consumer but it doesn't really matter to me much. I've been dying to buy an eVGA card for a long time, since they seem to have some very consumer-friendly policies. I'm salivating over the 8600ultra (with 64 shaders at a very reasonable price point).