R600 nice read

[JPB]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35707

Maybe info like this will start leaking. No flames please, I know the source is most of the time false like everyone else.

 

[Cooler]

"R600 has to be able to support a large number of resolutions and, if we take a look at today's massive 5Mpix resolutions, it is quite obvious that R600 should feature at least five times more eDRAM than Xbox 360 has. "
Can someone say Free 4-6 AA!

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: Cooler
"R600 has to be able to support a large number of resolutions and, if we take a look at today's massive 5Mpix resolutions, it is quite obvious that R600 should feature at least five times more eDRAM than Xbox 360 has. "
Can someone say Free 4-6 AA!

Ugh! Thats NOT what they meant (though you are partially forgiven - making sense of anything the inquirer says is like translating hyroglyphics without the rosetta stone existing)...

irst of all, the GPU is a logical development that started with the R500Xenos, or Xbox GPU, but without the 10MB eDRAM part. Unlike the Xbox GPU, the R600 has to be able to support a large number of resolutions and, if we take a look at today's massive 5Mpix resolutions, it is quite obvious that R600 should feature at least five times more eDRAM than Xbox 360 has.

5 times more eDRAM than what is in Xenos is simply not commercially feasible and not likely to be within the next year or so either. Perhaps around the 45 nanometer mark i may be doable.

 

[SpeedZealot369]

I like that part about the 1 gigabit internal ring bus sounds tasty

 

[JPB]

I for one and very looking forward to this R600 card. I hope it is ( as fast ) if not faster than G80. Because ill tell ya this...Im SOOOOO tempted to upgrade to G80. That card just looks utterly amazing. But ( as much as I dont want to ) im going to wait till R600 then decide. Ati must have some serious architecture for a 16 pipe card to keep up with the G80 though. Unless i'm just misreading it.

 

[Hyperlite]

Ok so R600 will be badass. G80 will be on 65nm (hopefully) by the time R600 is released, which means lower price, lower temp, and higher clocks. This will help it keep up with a 512 bit interface. man this spring is going to be AWESOME!

Edit: Horrible article title though :roll:

 

[Giffen]

By the time ATI releases that card Nvidia will be well on their way to releasing their next gen card, and I doubt the R600 will hold a candle to the G80 anyway.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: x80064
I for one and very looking forward to this R600 card. I hope it is ( as fast ) if not faster than G80. Because ill tell ya this...Im SOOOOO tempted to upgrade to G80. That card just looks utterly amazing. But ( as much as I dont want to ) im going to wait till R600 then decide. Ati must have some serious architecture for a 16 pipe card to keep up with the G80 though. Unless i'm just misreading it.

It will end up faster .. it will come and beat a G80 but after few Driver update it will run way faster than G80. Same problem with R520 faced i think R600 will face. X1800XTX were fast but had so many issue like heat/power consumption/noise and performance was just arround 7800GTX but then after few driver update and few AVIVO updates it was way faster and future proofed than 7800GTX.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: Giffen
By the time ATI releases that card Nvidia will be well on their way to releasing their next gen card, and I doubt the R600 will hold a candle to the G80 anyway.

lol newbie ;( ... it takes atleast few months to counter attack ... i say G81 will come out in April earliest. Also Nvidia wouldn't need to worry about R600 when they have all noobs believed Nvidia is the best and ATI knows crap all. A noob like you Giffen

 

[Munky]

First of all, it's 16 ROP, not pipes. Those are completely different things, and until the g80 Nv was also using 16 ROP's. But it doesnt make sence if the r600 will have a 512-bit external memory bus, a 1024-bit mem controller, then why stick with only 16 ROP's? With such bandwidth available, you could surely benefit from more. Then again, it's the INQ, so this info has as much probablility of being true as it does of being false.

And for all those prophesizing doom for the r600 from the g80 refresh, well that sure worked out well for the g71 refresh and the r580, didn't it? :roll:

 

[child of wonder]

I'll bet the R600 ends up being slightly better overall, however, I'm sure Nvidia has something waiting in the wings to counter attack, like they did with the 512MB 7800GTX.

 

[apoppin]

there is already a Part Two:

in part

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35708

his PCB (Printed Circuit Board) is the most expensive one that DAAMIT has ever ordered. It's a complex 12-layer monster with certain manufacturing novelties used in order to support the requirements of the R600 chip, most notably the 512-bit memory controller and the distribution of power to the components.

The memory chips are arranged in a similar manner as on the G80, but each memory chip has its own 32-bit wide physical connection to the chip's RingBus memory interface. Memory bandwidth will therefore range from anywhere between 115 (GDDR3 at 8800GTX-style 900MHz in DDR mode - 1.8GHz) and 140.1GB/s (GDDR4 at 1.1GHz DDR, or 2.2GHz in marketingspeak).

This will pretty much leave the Geforce 8800 series in the dust, at least as far as marketing is concerned. O course, 86GB/s sounds pretty much like nothing when compared to 140GB/s - at least expect to see that writ large on the retail boxes.

The R600 board is HUGE...

The PCB will be shorter than 8800GTX's in every variant, and you can compare it to X1950XT and 7900GTX. The huge thing is the cooler. It is a monstrous, longer-than-the-PCB quad-heat pipe, Artic-Cooling style-fan on steroids looking beast, built from a lot of copper. Did we say that it also weighs half a ton?

This is the heaviest board that will hit the market and you will want to install the board while holding it with both hands. The cooler actually enhances the structural integrity of the PCB, so you should be aware that R600 will bring some interesting things to the table.

...

There will be two versions of the board: Pele comes with GDDR4 memory, and UFO has GDDR3 memory, as Charlie already wrote here. DAAMIT is currently contemplating one and two gigabyte variants, offering a major marketing advantage over Graphzilla's "uncomputerly" 640 and 768MB.

Did we mention two gigabytes of video memory? Yup, insane - though perhaps not in the professional world, where this 2GB board will compete against upcoming G80GL and its 0.77/1.5GB of video memory. We do not expect that R600 with 2GB will exist in any other form than in FireGL series, but the final call hasn't been made yet.

The original Rage Theatre chip is gone for good. After relying on that chip for Vivo functions for almost a decade, the company decided to replace the chip with the newer digital Rage Theatre 200. ...

...

For starters, the rumour about this 80nm chip eating around 300W is far from truth. The thermal budget is around 200-220 Watts and the board should not consume more power than a Geforce 8800GTX. Our own Fudo was right in a detail - the R600 cooler is designed to dissipate 250 Watts. This was necessary to have an cooling headroom of at least 15 per cent. You can expect the R680 to use the same cooler as well and still be able to work at over 1GHz. This PCB is also the base for R700, but from what we are hearing, R700 will be a monster of a different kind.

...

Just like RV570, the X1900GT board, the R600 features new dual-bridge connector for Crossfire capability. This also ends nightmares of reviewers and partners, because reviewing Crossfire used to be such a pain, caused by the rarily of the Crossfire edition cards.

Expect this baby to be in stores during Q1'07, or around January 30th. . . .

January 30th!
:Q

edit:

HIGHly doubtful

let me guess .. Feb or March ... DAAMit will lay low till then

 

[Munky]

Well, if anyone complained about the lack of rumors from Ati to steal the g80 thunder, there you have it...

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: munky
Well, if anyone complained about the lack of rumors from Ati to steal the g80 thunder, there you have it...

as expected ... and on time

unlike the product

 

[DeathReborn]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: Giffen
By the time ATI releases that card Nvidia will be well on their way to releasing their next gen card, and I doubt the R600 will hold a candle to the G80 anyway.

lol newbie ;( ... it takes atleast few months to counter attack ... i say G81 will come out in April earliest. Also Nvidia wouldn't need to worry about R600 when they have all noobs believed Nvidia is the best and ATI knows crap all. A noob like you Giffen

Ignore him Giffin, he's just jealous that ATi dropped the timing ball AGAIN and nVidia came out giving better performance than many expected.

nVidia won't have a new gen ready in H1 07 but they wil have a refresh (possibly 65nm, more likely 80nm) on the way (possibly with 512bit GDDR4).

tuteja, X1800XTX????? What the hell are you smoking cos I want some.


On Topic... it does look interesting but excessively expensive. Maybe they're going to put 50MB eDRAM on their equivalent of the 7800GTX 512. I just don't see it on the x2800XT or XTX just yet. But then this is the INQ and we all know how often they get it right...

 

[apoppin]

theInq gets it right very often when it comes to ati

the x1800xt turned out to be a nice card -- after driver updates

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Inquirer

 

[Genx87]

Isnt the 8800GTX's thermal envelope 189 watts?

If they are budgeting out for 250 watts, I highly doubt their claims it wont eat more power than the 8800GTX.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Isnt the 8800GTX's thermal envelope 189 watts?

If they are budgeting out for 250 watts, I highly doubt their claims it wont eat more power than the 8800GTX.

The thermal budget is around 200-220 Watts and the board should not consume more power than a Geforce 8800GTX. Our own Fudo was right in a detail - the R600 cooler is designed to dissipate 250 Watts. This was necessary to have an cooling headroom of at least 15 per cent.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Genx87
Isnt the 8800GTX's thermal envelope 189 watts?

If they are budgeting out for 250 watts, I highly doubt their claims it wont eat more power than the 8800GTX.

The thermal budget is around 200-220 Watts and the board should not consume more power than a Geforce 8800GTX. Our own Fudo was right in a detail - the R600 cooler is designed to dissipate 250 Watts. This was necessary to have an cooling headroom of at least 15 per cent.

Like I said, I doubt their claims.

Why are they specing their cooler for 250 watts if they expect it to remain on par with the 8800GTX? Their claim a thermal budget of 200-220 is still higher than the envelope of the 8800GTX which afaik is 189 watts.

Time will tell, but knowing ATI's history, I am not expecting it to match the Nvidia part on heat and power consumption.

 

[ayabe]

I'm a little concerned about price, with the way he described the PCB, plus the 1 GB vs 768 for G80, I can see the MSRP being above $600.

Undoubtedly G80 will have come down in price by then and if the differences between the cards aren't that big then ATI will lose out on a lot of potential business from the 'smart' GPU shoppers.

Guess we will wait and see.

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: apoppin
theInq gets it right very often when it comes to ati

the x1800xt turned out to be a nice card -- after driver updates

You mean the one they said was going to have 32 pipes?

But yeah, it did turn out to be a great card.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Genx87
Isnt the 8800GTX's thermal envelope 189 watts?

If they are budgeting out for 250 watts, I highly doubt their claims it wont eat more power than the 8800GTX.

The thermal budget is around 200-220 Watts and the board should not consume more power than a Geforce 8800GTX. Our own Fudo was right in a detail - the R600 cooler is designed to dissipate 250 Watts. This was necessary to have an cooling headroom of at least 15 per cent.

Like I said, I doubt their claims.

Why are they specing their cooler for 250 watts if they expect it to remain on par with the 8800GTX? Their claim a thermal budget of 200-220 is still higher than the envelope of the 8800GTX which afaik is 189 watts.

Time will tell, but knowing ATI's history, I am not expecting it to match the Nvidia part on heat and power consumption.

can't agree

i think you will be very surprised

 

[thilanliyan]

I doubt the January 30th release date. If it IS true then DAMN...I should have waited before purchasing the 8800GTS. I decided not to wait since estimated release date was in late Feb. early March was it??

I suppose it would be fitting if released with Vista.

 

[ArchAngel777]

I am really looking foward to ATI this round. However, if they come out with a 384 bit bus, neither company is going to get my money. We have been on 256bit bus long enough and moving from 256bit to 384bit bus isn't my thing... So I will not be buying my next card until it features a 512bit bus.

So I am totally hoping that ATI R600 does indeed debut with a 512 bit bus, otherwise I will be waiting for the refresh of either the G80 or R600...

I am budgeting for my next PC build sometime next fall, so I have a year to wait.