R480 Taped out

[bkswaney]

there are many more aspects to the "clockspeed" story.. Let me give a good example.. The Intel Pentium IV processor @ .13u clockspeeds ranging from 2.4Ghz up to 3.4Ghz.. when the 2.4Ghz were released there was no 3.4Ghz version. But by fixing stuff on the core design (revising) they could bump the speed higher and higher. the same story goes for AMD. their first .13u processors weren't as highly clocked as their latest .13u counterparts.

Low-K and stuff can boost performance without making big revisions. But the most gains can be found in the design. hell.. with your reasoning the Athlon64 wouldn't go past the 500Mhz barrier. But they do.. they reach as high as 2600Mhz (stock versions, not OC'd ones) that's 2100Mhz more.


But in the graphic card area there are no
years to revise cores.
There are whole new cores every 12 to 24 months.

NV and ATI cannot do like intel and amd does on cpu's.

[ragejg]

NV and ATI cannot do like intel and amd does on cpu's.

...or can they?

I don't have the link off-hand, but I've heard talk like this over the past couple years, talk of a slowdown in the GPU innovation/core improvement cycle... which lends itself to a longer living core undergoing manufacturing/yield improvements resulting in a leap in core speed over the product's lifetime.

[nIghtorius]

yes but the r480 won't have a different design it can't be modified too much either unless its rebuilt from the ground up or there will be no major changes.

but it may be revised to allow higher clock speeds. squeeizing some performance out of it. just look at the Radeon 9700 clockspeeds vs the Radeon 9800 clockspeeds.. both have the same "micron process".. yet the other runs with higher clockspeeds.. and the core is almost basicly the same as the 9700.

[Riptide]

God this is ridiculous. The XTPE still is hard to find and for less than $600. And yet they want to introduce the sucessor in December?

Maybe the XTPE really will end up being a fairly rare card.

[nIghtorius]

God this is ridiculous. The XTPE still is hard to find and for less than $600. And yet they want to introduce the sucessor in December?

Maybe the XTPE really will end up being a fairly rare card.

it might or might not. Since they may want to improve yields and clockspeeds with this successor. maybe the ones who just couldn't cut it will be demoted to X800XTPE's..

see Radeon 9800 Pro's with the R360 core. (the original had a R350 core)