About ATI and DDR-II

[5150 Joker]

Here's a post straight from an ATi employee:

The card demonstrated on TechTV and the ones mentioned in the ATI press release are all full DDR2 based graphics cards. ATI is the first and only company to have demonstrated the use of DDR2 in a graphics card. There are no tricks being played. In fact, the president of JEDEC demonstrated that DDR2 card on TechTV. No games.

FUD from "unknown" sources is just a sign of ignorance or simple denial of reality.

Source: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33647901&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

[thcdru2k]

already been pointed out in another thread

[Joe Cool]

Seems then that Pelly's "news" post should be updated, right?

"...should this prove to be legit ATI's 'DDR-II demonstration' looks to be a rather deceptive act on their part."
Guess they weren't being deceptive, after all.

Pelly?

[thcdru2k]

he never said they were deceptive...notice "should this prove to be legit". but yeah, it should be updated.

[legion88]

Originally posted by Joe Cool
Seems then that Pelly's "news" post should be updated, right?


Guess they weren't being deceptive, after all.

Pelly?

I hope you are not suggesting that an unnamed (alleged) ATI employee posting in a forum, who may or may not represent ATI, as being more of a credible source than an unknown source of EETImes?

Pelly should add a new headline saying ATI contradicts EETimes but only if he can verify that it is actually ATI contradicting EETimes and not just a pretender in some forum.

[5150 Joker]

Originally posted by legion88
I hope you are not suggesting that an unnamed (alleged) ATI employee posting in a forum, who may or may not represent ATI, as being more of a credible source than an unknown source of EETImes?

Pelly should add a new headline saying ATI contradicts EETimes but only if he can verify that it is actually ATI contradicting EETimes and not just a pretender in some forum.

This guy is a known rep. of ATI along with a few others who frequent the forums. He's not some "alleged" employee that just happened to stroll in to make those comments. :rolleyes: I'd take his word over any EETimes article that purports to have "sources" especially since he made these statements as a representative of ATi not to mention the JEDEC president is the one that demonstrated the card.

[Mono]

Originally posted by legion88
I hope you are not suggesting that an unnamed (alleged) ATI employee posting in a forum, who may or may not represent ATI, as being more of a credible source than an unknown source of EETImes?

Pelly should add a new headline saying ATI contradicts EETimes but only if he can verify that it is actually ATI contradicting EETimes and not just a pretender in some forum.

Sieric is an ATi employee. Thanks for trying though :)

[budd_wm]

Heh...Pelly has just been saying the wrong things lately...

[legion88]

Originally posted by 5150 Joker
This guy is a known rep. of ATI along with a few others who frequent the forums. He's not some "alleged" employee that just happened to stroll in to make those comments. :rolleyes: I'd take his word over any EETimes article that purports to have "sources" especially since he made these statements as a representative of ATi not to mention the JEDEC president is the one that demonstrated the card.

Then what is the employee's actual name. Should I assume he is not posting anonymous? What method of verification did you (or someone you know) used to determine he is an employee? And assuming that he is an employee of ATi, the position that he holds.

And regarding the quote from the employee, what is meant by "full DDR2 based"? A graphics card with DDR2 memory running in "DDR-I compatibility mode", how does that dispute the claim of "full DDR2 based"? They don't contradict at all. Why would a DDR-I based card run in "DDR-I compatability"?

Only DDR 2 based solutions can run in DDR-I compatability mode. So the EETimes article was a little bit off when it states "The part was not designed for use with DDR-II...".

[LORD-eX-Bu]

Oh well, what they showed, running at DDR II spec or not, still was better than anything out yet. So whats all this complaining over little details about?;) :D

[5150 Joker]

Originally posted by legion88
Then what is the employee's actual name. Should I assume he is not posting anonymous? What method of verification did you (or someone you know) used to determine he is an employee? And assuming that he is an employee of ATi, the position that he holds.

And regarding the quote from the employee, what is meant by "full DDR2 based"? A graphics card with DDR2 memory running in "DDR-I compatibility mode", how does that dispute the claim of "full DDR2 based"? They don't contradict at all. Why would a DDR-I based card run in "DDR-I compatability"?

Only DDR 2 based solutions can run in DDR-I compatability mode. So the EETimes article was a little bit off when it states "The part was not designed for use with DDR-II...".

Why don't you take the 30 seconds to click the link I cited as "SOURCE" and find out? His name is sireric and he's one of 3 or 4 ATi reps/engineers that frequent the forum. The others that I know of are Catalyst Guy, OpenGL guy, and CBrennan (the guy who made the DX9 demos). They all have ATi logos, mod powers and generally answer most questions you have pertaining to ATi or programming. I don't know what else you expect as proof short fo them scanning their resumes.

[ASCI Blue]

I for one have seen the gent, sireric, assisting with problems in the tech forums and going as far as apologising for crappy response time on tech support e-mails. He's the real deal.

[LORD-eX-Bu]

Originally posted by ASCI Blue
I for one have seen the gent, sireric, assisting with problems in the tech forums and going as far as apologising for crappy response time on tech support e-mails. He's the real deal.

Huh?!?:confused:

[euan]

Don't be daft. If they had mod powers there would be no threads about problems.:rolleyes:

[legion88]

Originally posted by euan
Don't be daft. If they had mod powers there would be no threads about problems.:rolleyes:

It is unlikely that real employees with actual "mod powers" would delete threads simply because that would create a large public relations problem for the company. If they deleted threads, then it makes it appear that they were trying to hide problems of their hardware. See HardOCP as an example on what deleting threads can do to your reputation.

The problem here is that the only "proof" that these pundits have is a big fat ATI logo right by the name of certain forum posters at Rage3D. Rage3D itself (front page) stated that they will get confirmation from another "ATI rep soon" but I have not seen it.

All we see on the 'net (including this comment from sieric) are statements that actually do not contradict EETimes' core claim which was that the demonstrated ATI product was not running in DDR2 mode.

You can demonstrate a product using DDR2 memory running in DDR1 compatibility mode. A confirmation from ATI would be a clear statement saying that the product was NOT running in DDR-I compatibility mode--as claimed by EETimes. Instead, we have a PR spin from ATI saying that DDR2 memory was used. But that was never the point. Only DDR2 memory can use DDR1 compatibility mode. What mode was it using?

ATI reiterated that the RADEON 9700 memory controller does indeed support DDR2 and that was the memory type used in the demonstration board. http://firingsquad.gamers.com/features/comdex2002/page3.asp

Nobody is question whether DDR2 memory was used. Again, the issue is what mode was it using?

[Bigus Dickus]

Originally posted by legion88
All we see on the 'net (including this comment from sieric) are statements that actually do not contradict EETimes' core claim which was that the demonstrated ATI product was not running in DDR2 mode.

You can demonstrate a product using DDR2 memory running in DDR1 compatibility mode.

I'm not going into the lengthy details here, but there are two major differences between DDR and DDR-II. The first is that DDR-II runs at half the clock speed and twice the bandwidth per pin internally. The second is that latencies, burst length, and a few strobe filtering details are different.

The first cannot be changed, or "ran in DDR compability mode," but perhaps the second can. It is possible that the demonstrated board did not have the DDR-II filtering on both chip and controller end, thus the DDR-II memory would have been clocked at relatively slow speeds (say, 300 MHz DDR), and it is possible that the memory controller was using DDR protocol burst length and timings, thus didn't offset some of the increased latency that DDR-II suffers from.

The important point is that DDR-II chips are fundamentally of a different architecture internally compared to DDR chips. It is impossible to put a DDR-II chip on a PCB and make it operate like a DDR chip (that is, twice the core speed and half the bandwidth per pin than it normally would). Even making such a suggestion is ridiculous. Either ATi used DDR-II chips, operating internally like DDR-II chips do, or they have repeatedly lied and actually had no DDR-II chips on the board, were running DDR chips, and just figured no one would noticel.

Nobody is question whether DDR2 memory was used. Again, the issue is what mode was it using?That's irrelevant. If it was DDR-II chips, then they were DDR-II chips, running internally like DDR-II chips do. You can't flip a switch and make a DDR-II chip operate like a DDR chip... it's impossible. If the interface wasn't optimized for the subtle timing differences between DDR and DDR-II, is that reason to crucify ATi? :rolleyes:

[euan]

Originally posted by legion88
It is unlikely that real employees with actual "mod powers" would delete threads simply because that would create a large public relations problem for the company. If they deleted threads, then it makes it appear that they were trying to hide problems of their hardware. See HardOCP as an example on what deleting threads can do to your reputation.

The problem here is that the only "proof" that these pundits have is a big fat ATI logo right by the name of certain forum posters at Rage3D. Rage3D itself (front page) stated that they will get confirmation from another "ATI rep soon" but I have not seen it.

All we see on the 'net (including this comment from sieric) are statements that actually do not contradict EETimes' core claim which was that the demonstrated ATI product was not running in DDR2 mode.

You can demonstrate a product using DDR2 memory running in DDR1 compatibility mode. A confirmation from ATI would be a clear statement saying that the product was NOT running in DDR-I compatibility mode--as claimed by EETimes. Instead, we have a PR spin from ATI saying that DDR2 memory was used. But that was never the point. Only DDR2 memory can use DDR1 compatibility mode. What mode was it using?

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/features/comdex2002/page3.asp

Nobody is question whether DDR2 memory was used. Again, the issue is what mode was it using?


The proof is you only have to email them at ATI, and reference a post you talked to them at rage3d.com.

For example, I post a message in the 3d coders bit, to a ATI employee, and I get an email back from "*@ati.com" afterwards from the same person. I won't say the names, not that's hard to figure out. But I am 99.9% sure they are all real ATI employees. I'm also in one of the ATI developer programs, with contacts, that are the people that are in rage3d. Jeff Royle is the only one I would mention that is easy to confirm. He's head of Developer Relations. I spam him when ever a Scene demo doesn't work, or becomes broken. The demo is always fixed in the next driver release. :) He likes his demos just us much as we do. :D

[styles-T]

If this is true..

Then I think that it is pretty cool of ATI getting involved in the forums at rage..

Can we get some Nvidia reps in here
:D

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by !plonk*
Can we get some Nvidia reps in here

Just check out the Linux forum. There are two NVIDIA employees that I know of who post there. Andy Meacham is one of them and I don't know offhand the name of the other.

They don't post in the other forums from what I've seen, but they do an excellent job in helping out our Linux bretheren. :)