R360 Speculation Revisited

[CapsLock]

no way the rumour specs posted at DH and R3D front page are true (420 Mhz / 400 Mhz mem)

this will be a very important product for ati. fall super games will be out. people upgrading for the winter. N35 will be out.

420-5 core would produce an insignificant performance boost. r350 is already Oc'ing to that easily

not to mention that before r350 was launched they said it was only a refresh and that the next big bump would occur in Jul/Aug

watch.impress posted a chart saying r360 would be .13 (sorry can't find link, it was recent though)

this makes perfect sense to me. no architecture changes, no driver changes (needed) instant 500 Mhz core without power draw probs or temp probs. should leave good OC headroom too
by summer the .13 process will be nicely matured and producing good yields.

then there's the article I just read in cpu mag that was about ddr3 micron are already working on .11 700 Mhz mem ddr3 is designed strictly for graphics, new IO system is used. article said min ddr3 speed of 500 Mhz. so what if thats already available? (pure speculation)

at any rate 450 Mhz ddr is here, hence r360 should/will be min

500 Mhz core/ 450 - 500 Mhz mem

mem bandwith: 28.7 G/s - 31.9 G/s

producing ACTUAL gains of 30 - 50 % (based on r350 oc's and extrapolating plus ddr3 bonus performance)

course, what the hell do I know?

caps

[duckofdeath]

ddr3 won't bringt any other speed improvments except the higher frequency! is only means that it requires less voltage to operate!
but i don't think the r360, if it even exists and is not only an internal name for r350 with higher clockspeeds, will be 0,13µ!

[SurfMonkey]

The chart with all the chips on it is here (http://home.clara.net/surfmonkey/kaigai02l.gif). It's a pretty big picture, dmiensions wise, or a 105Kb download.

It puts the R3xx in the .13u bracket, but then again we may not see anymore R3xx series chipsm the next lot will probably be the R4xx series starting with LOCI.

[Lezmaka]

Originally posted by SurfMonkey
It puts the R3xx in the .13u bracket, but then again we may not see anymore R3xx series chipsm the next lot will probably be the R4xx series starting with LOCI.

R390 = R420 = Loci. Everything I've read from people I trust say its based on R3xx.

Oh, and notice the color around the boxes for different ATI chips. Red/Maroon around R9700/9800 meaning .15u. Purple around R9600/R3xx meaning .13u.

[SurfMonkey]

I get what you mean there, but it looks like Loci will be up against the NV40. So I think ATI will want to distance it from the R3xx generation so that, even though it isn't, it looks like a next gen product. Hence putting it in the R4xx bracket.

[CapsLock]

duckofdeath-

great tag, great movie

also the cpu magazine article said that ddr3 had a unique input/output (IO) process, which I do not claim to understand, unfortunately, which is optimized for graphics memory specifically

I imagine if they bothered to come up with something fundamentally new it would have to provide some significant benefit

I was wondering, since the rv350 core was being "respun", if this was something to do with changing it to adapt to the new kind of memory

again just speculation on my part

caps

[Hanners]

Originally posted by SurfMonkey
I get what you mean there, but it looks like Loci will be up against the NV40. So I think ATI will want to distance it from the R3xx generation so that, even though it isn't, it looks like a next gen product. Hence putting it in the R4xx bracket.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Next-generation performance, current generation features most probably. :p

[Upke]

What if the RV360 is just a succesor to the Radeon 9000/9100/9200? But its a direct X 9.0 part.

[cowboy be-bop]

man, that card is going to be great. I think i might buy one when it comes out.

[GlowStick]

Originally posted by Upke
What if the RV360 is just a succesor to the Radeon 9000/9100/9200? But its a direct X 9.0 part.

Good point, it would be a good explination.

[Upke]

DX 9 for 79, even I would fall for that if I didn't know the real specs of the FX 5200 cards. I think a lot of people will go from buying a 9 /0/1/2/ 000 since they don't support DX 9. The masses won't know that, but if Nv makes a bif marketing campaign they will.

All the pieces are in places. 13 micron is ready. The chip design is ready. (The 9600's aren't that expensive, you can get them from up 130 dollars. Just delete some technologie {smartshader 2.1) ) Clock it a fair bit lower. And the Radeon 9300 name hasn't been used yet. Ring a bel?

Radeon 9300 - RV360
Radeon 9900 - R360

Makes sence to me.

[MuFu]

I wouldn't get too excited about R360/RV360 if I were you.

MuFu.

[Hanners]

Originally posted by MuFu
I wouldn't get too excited about R360/RV360 if I were you.

MuFu.

Does that mean it's not going to happen, or it's going to happen but not going to be worth waiting for?

[MuFu]

Not worth waiting for, IMO. Wait for R400.

MuFu.

[GlowStick]

Originally posted by MuFu
Not worth waiting for, IMO. Wait for R400.

MuFu.

can we translate this not worth waiting for into number format ; D

[Upke]

Ok, it seems the INQ was right about this. Only a speed bump.

[BigFish7]

Originally posted by GlowStick
can we translate this not worth waiting for into number format ; D

:rofl that's a good one :D
so why not? mufu so numbers? :cool:

[pgn.inertia]

Speedbump would be logical too, thinking about how much headroom the current batch of R350 has and how little NVIDIA is ahead with NV35...

A speedbump from 380 to let's say about 425-450 would take ATI on top again...

[nagus]

Originally posted by MuFu
Not worth waiting for, IMO. Wait for R400.

MuFu.


IMHO the R360 will never make it into market. i guess ati is focusing on R400 (LOCI).

but thats not tragic. ati doesn´t need the R360 IMHO

[Geforce4ti4200]

how many radeon names do we need LOL. we have radeon 9000, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800, 9900 oh they forgot the 9400 which is a lower clocked 9600 :D

[Upke]

There is no 9300 or 9400

[pgn.inertia]

Originally posted by Upke
There is no 9300 or 9400

These are fictional names for RV360 and R360...

Radeon 9300/9400 - RV360
Radeon 9900 - R360

Though I doubt there will be any of these, as nagus said...

[Brick_Top]

Originally posted by MuFu
Not worth waiting for, IMO. Wait for R400.

MuFu.

I thought they were not going to make the R400.
Change of Plans?

[sbp]

Originally posted by Brick_Top
I thought they were not going to make the R400.
Change of Plans? MuFu is talking about Loci which has become the R400.

[R.Carter]

Saw this on the Inquirer... only the best rumors that are fit to print :p

Orignal post ATI's new secret weapon is the R420 (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10001)

AFTER ATI INTRODUCES its late summer speed update, codenamed the R360, we can reveal today that it is set to make a significant change to eighteen months of R300 architecture.

The R350 and R360 are just speed bumps of existing architecture with some features enabled, but the technology called R420 is a totally new architecture.

We're still trying to fathom what happed to R400 and why ATI has codenamed its next generation technology the R420.

The R420 is being developed under the project name Loki, named after the Norse deity, son of Farbauti, held responsible for fire and magic, and able to take numerous different shapes. Loki was also held directly responsible for the death of the god of light, Baldur.

The R420 will be a PCI Express chip and at this time we can only wonder how many transistors it will have, but we have every reason to assume more than 110 million and probably less than 150 million.

PCI Express is a major technology scheduled for Q2 2004, and Intel's Grantsdale chipset will support this new wave in computing.