R360 and RV360 taped out at TSMC

[Hanners]

I know, I know, it's according to The Inquirer, but nontheless:

ATi's R360 and RV360 taped out at TSMC (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=9470)

ATI WILL DISTRIBUTE its next generation GPUs, namely R360 for the high-end market and RV360 for the mainstream market, to its partners beginning in July, it has emerged.
Both R360 and RV360 will be manufactured by TSMC, using 0.15µ and 0.13µ processes, respectively. There will be a significant volume increase in ATI's Q3 orders at TSMC compared to the second quarter.

ATI will continue to draw on TSMC as its primary partner, although it has given part of its graphic chip orders to UMC this year, maintaining its dual-fab partnership strategy. According to sources, ATI is inclined to have UMC manufacturing its 0.15µ GPUs in the future, while concentrating its 0.13µ GPU orders at TSMC.

Faced with Nvidia's NV35 high-end GPU announced earlier this week, ATI plans to head into battle with Radeon 9800 first. It will deliver the more powerful R360 later to combat NV35. R360 will be manufactured by TSMC using 0.15µ process, while RV360, the successor of RV350 for the mainstream market, will use 0.13µ process.

TSMC has declined to comment on ATI's orders, the Chinese press reports here, but according to an ATI executive, the production of RV350 has been going quite smoothly, and its yield has met the company's expectation.

The volume of RV280 is continuing to increase at UMC, and ATI is considering to have another new product manufactured by UMC. This will be the second ATI GPU utilizing UMC's 0.15u process, though UMC has also declined to comment on customers' orders.

Besides the graphic chips, ATI will enter the integrated chipset market during the second half of this year, competing for the market share with VIA, Intel, SiS, and ALi in the P4 chipset market. ATI's chipsets will also be manufactured by TSMC and UMC.

ATI is the first company worldwide to obtain Pentium 4 chipset licenses from Intel. Targeting the integrated market, ATI's chipsets will enter mass production in July. ATI has had excellent performance in the notebook chipset market. As it steps into the desktop field, ATI will attempt to avoid over-lengthening its product line by not producing discrete chipsets.

[SurfMonkey]

I realise that ATI have to release another high end refresh to keep ahead of nvidia but isn't it a bit soon to be replacing the RV350? After all it doesn't fair badly in any benchmarks and is only beaten by the new NV31 Ultra with the flip chip packaging.

If they aren't careful either ATI or NVidia are going to osbourne themselves, what's the point in buying an R350 if the R360 will be here in a couple of months? The same went for the NV30, why buy when the NV35 was so close.

The gap between refreshes is getting rediculously small, I can see now why they say the the gap between new generations is going to get wider. They're all too busy making refreshes to invent anything else.

[StealthHawk]

What the hell is r360 :confused:

[Hanners]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
What the hell is r360 :confused:

Just think R350, but clocked high enough and tweaked a little to be faster than NV35. ;)

Similarly, RV360 will be a higher clocked, tweaked version of RV350, enough so to compete with NV36.


That's my assumption anyway, going on everything else I've heard recently.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Hanners
Just think R350, but clocked high enough and tweaked a little to be faster than NV35. ;)

Similarly, RV360 will be a higher clocked, tweaked version of RV350, enough so to compete with NV36.


That's my assumption anyway, going on everything else I've heard recently.

I thought that was r390...

Is r390 the monster ddrII card that was highly clocked and supposed to come out later this year? Or is that something else. Is that r360???

All these damn cards ATI is releasing are pissing me off. Too many mediocre increments.

[Hanners]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
I thought that was r390...

Is r390 the monster ddrII card that was highly clocked and supposed to come out later this year? Or is that something else. Is that r360???

All these damn cards ATI is releasing are pissing me off. Too many mediocre increments.

I know, it does get confusing. Hopefully this might clear it up:


R360 = Higher clocked and tweaked R350, to be released in a couple of months time to compete directly with NV35.

R390 (a.k.a 'Loci') = 0.13 micron R300-based architecture, most likely running with DDR-II. ATi are shooting for double the performance of R300 with this, and are setting it up as the direct competitor to NV40. To be released this Fall at the earliest.

[T-Spoon]

Originally posted by Hanners
I know, it does get confusing. Hopefully this might clear it up:


R360 = Higher clocked and tweaked R350, to be released in a couple of months time to compete directly with NV35.


Yeah, it's the thingie that Dave Baumann over at Beyond3D hinted at earlier last week. So it should be here within 2 months (that's minus 1 week since the announcement at B3D)...

So do you think it's available in July? That would be like 1 month after FX5900Ultra is widely available... :p

Quote from B3D frontpage:
ATI did not take the opportunity to increase clock speeds on this particular product, however it has recently been confirmed to us that ATI will produce another high end desktop solution within the next few months. This increase in performance will not come through the die shrunk product at this time, as ATI still feel there is more headroom in their current ASIC (which is surprising given that it is a 150nm core). It's Beyond3Ds belief that this will consist of another spin of R350 to increase the core speed beyond the 400MHz levels.

[Ninja Prime]

All these damn cards ATI is releasing are pissing me off. Too many mediocre increments.

You have nvidia to thank for that.

[Blasphemer]

Well as long as they keep fighting it out and there is no clear winner, the close releases force the price down and we all get good performance while the performance "got to have it right now" brigade pay the price for the rest of us to enjoy a bit down the road.

Keep it up :D

[Riptide]

Actually blasphemer, I'm not so sure that's 100% true.

Seems like the 9700 Pro is still expensive. I can't find it for under about $280 which isn't much less than it was several months ago..

Looks more like they just "lifted the ceiling" up on the price for the high end cards like the 9800. They're up in the $400 area while the 9700 pro sits right where it's been for quite some time now.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Ninja Prime
You have nvidia to thank for that.

Not really. r9700Pro was already better than gfFX5800Ultra. There really was no need for the r9800Pro, especially with the moderate speed increase that it brought. My feeling is that they should have released r360 instead of r350.

Also look at the r9600. By all accounts, RV350 is a badass overclocker. Why are the default clocks so low then? Another mind boggling decision. Just clock r9600 higher and phase out r9500. Simple.

And yet now they are going to release a RV360 too? Jeez.

[Dazz]

I see ATi has got the taste for waring the crown and doesn't want to give it up :D

I guess the R360 is the Radeon 9900.

[Fusion]

Boring. :zzzz:

So it's now a 3 month cycle with ATI, then ?

Way to treat people who just go a 9800. :rolleyes:

You have nvidia to thank for that.

Yeah, lets all blame Nvidia. :rolleyes: Knob.

[CaptNKILL]

I like this "cycle splitting" thing Nvidia and ATI are doing. They used to have 12 month new product cycle with a 6 month refresh... lol, Nvidia will have like 11 DX9 products by July! The 5200, 5200 Ultra, 5600, 5600 Ultra, 5600 256Mb, 5800, 5800 Ultra, 5900 Ultra 256Mb, and then the other 3 (I think) NV35 cards. Thats not including mobile chips!

Then theres ATI:
9500, 9500 Pro, 9700, 9700 Pro, 9800, 9800 256Mb.... I know there are more, but Im an Nvidia guy so I dont really look too closely at the low-end ATI cards. Im only interested in the ones that are competing with the cards that I WILL buy :)

Remember the "old" days?

Geforce 2 MX, Geforce 2 GTS 32Mb, Geforce 2 GTS 64Mb, Geforce 2 Ultra..... that covered the whole spectrum and it only required 4 products :D

[ntxawg]

gosh so many freaken new cards coming, is nvidia gonna come out with a nv38 or something? in anycase i hope all these new cards will drop the prices of the 9800 and nv35 cuz 500 bucks for a highend card is really really really wayyyyyyy toooo freaaaaken much.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by ntxawg
gosh so many freaken new cards coming, is nvidia gonna come out with a nv38 or something? in anycase i hope all these new cards will drop the prices of the 9800 and nv35 cuz 500 bucks for a highend card is really really really wayyyyyyy toooo freaaaaken much.

There is going to be an NV36 sometime down the road in a few months. But that is a mainstream card and it is supposed to replace NV31(gfFX5600).

[Hanners]

Originally posted by T-Spoon
So do you think it's available in July? That would be like 1 month after FX5900Ultra is widely available... :p

No, I don't - The Inquirer article say it's available to their partners in July, so my guess is that it'll probably be launched around that time, and available to buy 30 days later.

[Uttar]

As I said on GPU:RW, this tape-out information is accurate, but I do not 100% know if the codenames are accurate. I guess they are, but I don't know.

nVidia's ASICs coming later this year:
NV36
NV40
Maybe NV33 ( there is a fair bit of debate about whether that part actually exists. There are two references to it, one is very credible but could be a mistake and the other is maybe BS )

ATI ASICs coming later this year
R360 ( codename unsure ) VS NV35
RV360 ( codename unsure ) VS NV36
Loci ( may be delayed until next year ) VS NV40

That's all AFAIK, as always. Could be wrong, could be right :D


Uttar

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Uttar
As I said on GPU:RW, this tape-out information is accurate, but I do not 100% know if the codenames are accurate. I guess they are, but I don't know.

nVidia's ASICs coming later this year:
NV36
NV40
Maybe NV33 ( there is a fair bit of debate about whether that part actually exists. There are two references to it, one is very credible but could be a mistake and the other is maybe BS )

ATI ASICs coming later this year
R360 ( codename unsure ) VS NV35
RV360 ( codename unsure ) VS NV36
Loci ( may be delayed until next year ) VS NV40

That's all AFAIK, as always. Could be wrong, could be right :D


Uttar

shall we discuss this over a pint of tetley's ?

:D

btw.. loci is teh r420 is it not ?

/me is lost now..

[LS32]

Originally posted by Sazar
shall we discuss this over a pint of tetley's ?

:D

btw.. loci is teh r420 is it not ?

/me is lost now..

So umm...is the r420 ATI's inside joke for when the nVidia CEO said if they think they will keep the performance crown they are smoking something halucigenic. :confused:

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Sazar
btw.. loci is teh r420 is it not ?

/me is lost now..

From what I can discern, MuFu has said that Loci = R390 = R420.

[ChrisRay]

I wish people would stop getting so excited about refresh products, Like the Nv30-35 or the R300 to r350,



refresh products are basically tweaked cores of their original series. I want something new. And I'm getting tired of ATI milking the r300 core for all its worth. if I see Nvidia milking the Nv30 core in 10 months I'll be saying the same thing about them

[StealthHawk]

NV35 has a lot of changes from NV30. It seems like they finally have a chip that can run FP in full speed, unlike the buggy NV30.

[Hanners]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
From what I can discern, MuFu has said that Loci = R390 = R420.

Correct. :)


Originally posted by ChrisRay
refresh products are basically tweaked cores of their original series. I want something new. And I'm getting tired of ATI milking the r300 core for all its worth.

I agree with you as far as R360 goes, but I think Loci is a different prospect - Despite still being R3x0-based, if ATi manage to pull off the twice the performance of R300 aim they are shooting for, then I'll be pretty impressed. :)

[nutball]

Originally posted by ChrisRay
I wish people would stop getting so excited about refresh products, Like the Nv30-35 or the R300 to r350,



refresh products are basically tweaked cores of their original series. I want something new. And I'm getting tired of ATI milking the r300 core for all its worth. if I see Nvidia milking the Nv30 core in 10 months I'll be saying the same thing about them

Some DX9 games would be nice.