ATI's R420XT is the Olympic Snowboard

[-=DVS=-]

Uhh a bit dissapointing only 500 Mhz core , was expecting some 600 maybe 700 :rolleyes: , that means prolly 300 core for Nvidias imaginary 16 pipe GPU lotsa lotsa heat.

I SAID THAT the DDR 1 version of ATI cards with R420 chip is codenamed Skateboard here, and now it's the right time to reveal what the Olympic Snowboard codename means.
This is the most detailed batch of information that we've manage to get since this card is getting close to its announcement, but as we said it most likely won't be announced at SnowBIT as previously planned.

R420XT is the high end card – the fastest one in the class - where XT stands for extreme performance and it will rock at around 500MHz for the GPU and around 1000MHz for the memory. Bear in mind that those are preliminary results that might vary. This means that ATI plans to get the cards on these speeds.

The printed circuit board (PCB) will be a 10 layer design and the memory on this high end card will be GDDR 3 8Mx32 8 pieces of memory. The card is AGP 4X/ 8X. ATI is a Canadian company and most of the people like skiing, snow and hockey unlike yours truly, that ended up damaged when I tried to drink too much beer ski.

The NDA preview of the cards will be at CeBIT so please stand in line to sign up to see them. µ




Source Inq (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14460)

[silence]

/me points to source.....;)

[ClyssaN]

lets wait and see... but its nothing new, i dont understand why ATI is so conservative about the mem clock speeds :(

For the core, i think its right.

[-=DVS=-]

Originally posted by ClyssaN
lets wait and see... but its nothing new, i dont understand why ATI is so conservative about the mem clock speeds :(

For the core, i think its right.

That must be design decision , GPU is not dependant so much on memory speed like Nvidia cards are i guess, similar to Pentium 4 vs Athlon 64. Or maybe just cost saveings.

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally posted by -=DVS=-
Or maybe just cost saveings.

You missing the point, it not cost saving, was NV30 cost saving? Of course not. NV30 had a 8 layer PCB, it was very expensive board and after months of waiting, very few retail boards shipped to few stores in UK and it cost £500, it was a disaster.

Nvidia learnt so much from NV30 disaster and learnt about GDDR3 with NV36 prototype that used 4 layer PCB, it do not need more expensive PCB. NV35 is bigger than NV30 with 130M transistors, it working great with cheaper 6 layer PCB and 8 memory chips are so much closer to the GPU core.

Now I know why ATI wanted to keep everything quiet about R420XT because it is NV30 in mirror, it a disaster and ATI called the codename skateboard because of the most expensive ever PCB with 10 layer, that 2 layer more than NV30 was with 8 layer PCB.

5800 Ultra with 8 layer was £500 at retailers first and then the price tumbled down to £300 in 2 months because of NV35 to replaced NV30, Nvidia never made a profit out of NV30.

R420XT with 10 layer will not going to be cheap, it will going to be the most expensive ever, I wonder how many will buy it for £600 here in UK and $1000 in USA? Not everybody with high end cards, it will be the few very rich with high income.

[MUYA]

Don't count your chickens before they hatch!!! We know nothing of the actual R420 performance and sale price vs nv40 however, all leaks etc seem to point towards NV getting their stuff right with NV40. Oh man the waiting.......

They (ATI) can always subsidize the high end by shifting more competively priced mid and low end products. High ends are for the IHV to see who can urinate the furthest ;)

[Ady]

Originally posted by AthlonXP1800
Now I know why ATI wanted to keep everything quiet about R420XT because it is NV30 in mirror, it a disaster and ATI called the codename skateboard because of the most expensive ever PCB with 10 layer, that 2 layer more than NV30 was with 8 layer PCB.

R420XT with 10 layer will not going to be cheap, it will going to be the most expensive ever, I wonder how many will buy it for £600 here in UK and $1000 in USA? Not everybody with high end cards, it will be the few very rich with high income.

Classic stuff AthlonXP1800! If the R420 board whatever it is called costs US$1000 I will personally buy you one. Even you should know you're being a little ridiculous with those comments. You are claiming the R420 is a “disaster” before any of us know anything at all about it. None of this information has been confirmed. Its all Inquirer ramblings.

[EMunEeE]

Originally posted by Ady
Classic stuff AthlonXP1800! If the R420 board whatever it is called costs US$1000 I will personally buy you one. Even you should know you're being a little ridiculous with those comments. You are claiming the R420 is a “disaster” before any of us know anything at all about it. None of this information has been confirmed. Its all Inquirer ramblings.

Exactly, with all the info that has leaked out about the NV40 and the R420 I'm holding my opinions until more concrete information is released.

[jAkUp]

I can skateboard on it??!!!:D

[cthellis]

The highest-end boards have all been starting at ~$500 anyway, and NV30 was not a "failure" due to its price (or the 9800XT and 5950 would be that as well), but for many other reasons.

The bleeding edge is all about status. They will ALWAYS be low volume, and so margins don't have as much impact either; they're basically marketing tools. Performance uber alles. Expense is no real issue; the only issues that would make it "NV30"-like at all would be in failing to deliver on time, overreaching for unproven tech, or slap-dashing something on top like a bad cooling system. Since none of that appears to be the case, it may just be them sacrificing more margin, and they could feasably break even and still get a lot of value from the card, so long as it would maintain the performance lead or show off other marketing numbers... The effect spills down into where they actually MAKE the money.

[silence]

as far as i remember ATi stated they are willing to go for lower margins on R420 just to keep #1. count that in when u call it disaster.....

I wonder how many layers will NV40 have and more important what kind of cooling monster will be there if 150W is true for NV40.
just buying new high-end PSU, which will be required in many systems if that rumor is true, might be enough for many ppl to go ATi this round. not to mention heat issues inside case.... (once again, IF that rumor is true)

[goofer456]

Originally posted by Ady
Classic stuff AthlonXP1800! If the R420 board whatever it is called costs US$1000 I will personally buy you one. Even you should know you're being a little ridiculous with those comments. You are claiming the R420 is a “disaster” before any of us know anything at all about it. None of this information has been confirmed. Its all Inquirer ramblings.

Fear for repeating history is a wrong inspirator and often results in denial of the hard reality of real life (ie other green dustbuster) .:angel:

[MUYA]

Originally posted by goofer456
Fear for repeating history is a wrong inspirator and often results in denial of the hard reality of real life (ie other green dustbuster) .:angel:

A dustbuter wouldn't make a difference to me relly as I have 2 screaming fans on me setup. one 80mm screaming delta on the SLK-900A and another 92mm fan blowing across my zalman heatpiped 80a fitted on my 9700pro. Those two are loud enough already.

I would think it leaned more towards the performance than a cooling setup. As gamers (most of) would consider such a trade off.

[-=DVS=-]

Originally posted by AthlonXP1800
You missing the point, it not cost saving, was NV30 cost saving? Of course not. NV30 had a 8 layer PCB, it was very expensive board and after months of waiting, very few retail boards shipped to few stores in UK and it cost £500, it was a disaster.

Nvidia learnt so much from NV30 disaster and learnt about GDDR3 with NV36 prototype that used 4 layer PCB, it do not need more expensive PCB. NV35 is bigger than NV30 with 130M transistors, it working great with cheaper 6 layer PCB and 8 memory chips are so much closer to the GPU core.

Now I know why ATI wanted to keep everything quiet about R420XT because it is NV30 in mirror, it a disaster and ATI called the codename skateboard because of the most expensive ever PCB with 10 layer, that 2 layer more than NV30 was with 8 layer PCB.

5800 Ultra with 8 layer was £500 at retailers first and then the price tumbled down to £300 in 2 months because of NV35 to replaced NV30, Nvidia never made a profit out of NV30.

R420XT with 10 layer will not going to be cheap, it will going to be the most expensive ever, I wonder how many will buy it for £600 here in UK and $1000 in USA? Not everybody with high end cards, it will be the few very rich with high income.

Heh you think NV40 will be cheaper ?, and you don't even know how many layers NV40 will have , personally i think 10 layers is becouse of QDDR2 ram thats why.....

Remember the Athlons 1s to current revision Barton it got several extra layers , to fight with heat and get speed ;) , hardly cost increase....

Thats ok you Nvidiots think R420 is dissaster we fanATIcs think its NV40 :p

[Sazar]

Originally posted by -=DVS=-
Heh you think NV40 will be cheaper ?, and you don't even know how many layers NV40 will have , personally i think 10 layers is becouse of QDDR2 ram thats why.....

Remember the Athlons 1s to current revision Barton it got several extra layers , to fight with heat and get speed ;) , hardly cost increase....

Thats ok you Nvidiots think R420 is dissaster we fanATIcs think its NV40 :p

IMO its 10 layers (instead of more) coz of low-k... considering the speeds and the likely 256mb ram onboard plus extra trannies.. chatter is quite likely to be a prob... black diamond can help as will extra layers on the pcb for starts like you said...

[MUYA]

How much more expensive would it be to produce a card with 10 layers as opposed to 8? or 6? Anyone?

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally posted by Sazar
IMO its 10 layers (instead of more) coz of low-k... considering the speeds and the likely 256mb ram onboard plus extra trannies.. chatter is quite likely to be a prob... black diamond can help as will extra layers on the pcb for starts like you said...

Radeon 9600XT PCB got 6 layers.

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally posted by MUYA
How much more expensive would it be to produce a card with 10 layers as opposed to 8? or 6? Anyone?

I remember 2 years ago somewhere in Nvidia interview that a 5800 Ultra cost $250 to produced with 8 layers PCB. With 10 layers PCB probably will require $300 to $350 to produce a card.

[Sazar]

Originally posted by AthlonXP1800
Radeon 9600XT PCB got 6 layers.

that means diddly squat wrt r420 because of the tranny count difference... :)

muya.. its costs more... how much more you might wanna check with a fab about that but it does cost more...

afaik r300 dropped with 8 layers and the nv30 dropped with 12 layers... just for reference...

[AthlonXP1800]

Oh my god!

It not $250 for a 8 layer PCB.

I send a email to http://www.pcbquote.com for a quote price on 8 layers and I recieved the email.

Here is your PCB Quote
Quote is based on the following: FR4 Material, 0.062" Thinkness, 6/6 Minimum Trace/Gap, & no cutouts

Total Price = $693
Quantity = 1
Lead Time = 3 Day
Layer Count = 8 Layer

PCB Dimentions of 4 X 8.5 in.
Silkscreen = Both Sides

The PCB size is about the size of my 5900 Ultra.

$693 :eek:

PCBQuote.com do not have price for 10 layers, they got 2 to 8 layers.

So with 6 layers cost $494 to make, it $199 difference with 2 layers from 6 to 8 layers so 10 layers will require $892 to make.

Can you imagine R420XT PCB cost $892 to make, I wonder how much ATI will make at loss with R420.

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally posted by Sazar
afaik r300 dropped with 8 layers and the nv30 dropped with 12 layers... just for reference...

Yeah you are correct about NV30's 12 layers, I searched Yahoo for NV30 layers numbers, I was very confused by many sites claimed it got 8, 10 and 12 layers. :lol:

[Mariner]

As far as I'm aware, the PCB is not near to being the most expensive part of any card. Getting so excited about the extra cost of a 10 layer PCB is absolutely ridiculous when NV40 is reputed to be 210 million transistors! Not to mention the stupidly high-speed (and therefore expensive) memory to be used with the new top of the line cards.

By the way, have you actually heard how many layers the PCB for NV40 is going to be? Hey, it might even be 10 layers itself!

Everything I've heard so far leads me to believe that the R420 will be a fair bit cheaper to produce than NV40 (i.e. a lot less transistors, cheaper memory, much less heat production). As for performance differences between the chips, who really knows at the moment?

:confused:

[nForceMan]

Originally posted by silence
ATi stated they are willing to go for lower margins on R420 just to keep #1.
1. They are NOT #1

2. Just lowering margins won't be enough for this! :box:

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally posted by Mariner
Everything I've heard so far leads me to believe that the R420 will be a fair bit cheaper to produce than NV40 (i.e. a lot less transistors, cheaper memory, much less heat production). As for performance differences between the chips, who really knows at the moment?

:confused:

Well I think NV40 will be cheaper to make with a patent technology to make chips at 100% yield for NV4x lines. Nvidia learnt so much about NV3x lines that did not done well with lower yields and will never do the same mistakes with NV4x.

Now it ATI make complex chips on 0.13 micron process, I think they will have problems at first like it did with Nvidia and NV30, it will cost ATI more to make it right and in 1 year time ATI will learnt the lessons of mistakes today.

[MUYA]

ATI already have experience with 130nm manufacturing tech with the RV350 and RV360. I don't think process migration is much of a big deal for them as it really isn't a full migration.

Encouragingly for NV, is that they claim to have realised what was wrong with their nv3x part in terms of designing a die layout which gave them low yields. Their experience of nv30 will hopefully help them achieve higher yeilds. That said, they also reckon that their design for nv40 is highly scable. I do not know what they are refering to? Speed-wise or in terms of modularity for the supposed 5 models of the nv4X line which implies they are on an all out assualt for each budget sector/market.

On the surface it does point to nv40's costing more to produce than r420s with a higher transistor count which may affect yields. Also per wafer die count is theoretically lower than that of r420. But thats all speculative as yields can be good or bad for either IHVs and also on the basis at which they pay their fabrication partner, per die delivered or per wafer? I dunno too much about that. Both also might ship with the same memory modules. Either case scenarios for which the IHVs have to lower profit margins on both high end GPUs, it does seem NV has more financial resources to do so. I dunno how much of the reserves they had are left but I would guess, speculate quite a fair deal to cope with this round of the GPU wars.

As always interesting times ahead for the GPU crowd ahead :D