R520 = Nv30?

[AthlonXP1800]

The Inquirer (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25730) know something about R520, they are correct that R520 has 16 pipelines and higher clock but something ATI fans could find R520 very disappoint:

The performance will be very close to existing 7800 GTX but we don’t know weather will R520 end up faster or slower than this Nvidia flagship card. However it turns out it will be close, very close.

Not surprised to see 700MHz or 800MHz R520 XT PE will be slight faster than 430MHz Geforce 7800 GTX, if this turn to be true then R520 will be ATI's NV30.

[zoomy942]

i personally am all about the elegance of the design. ati's is using raw horsepower to get performance out of a product, while nvidia has an elegant design that is clocked slower but makes excellent use of each clock cycle.

[jAkUp]

Definetely sounds alot like the NV30.... late, overhyped, and the same performance..lol

Well, I guess we will see in the next few months... I still think ATI is gonna go with more pipes than 16, but we shall see...

[anzak]

The Inquirer (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25730) know something about R520, they are correct that R520 has 16 pipelines and higher clock

They are?

The inquirer also said that the R420 was 8 extreme pipelines. :rolleyes:

[Redeemed]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the R520 was only a 16 pipe card, but for some reason I'm expecting it to be 24 pipes with a core speed of 500Mhz< and >700Mhz. Maybe snug at 600Mhz with 24 pipes. If they could shove some fast memory, say clock it at 1.5 or 1.6Ghz- such a card should give the 7800GTX a good run for its money.

[nutball]

The Inquirer (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25730) know something about R520,

The Inq (actually Fudo) have been through every possible permutation of R520. From 8-32 pipes, 2000km to 90nm process, 1kHz to 10Ghz. They don't know *anything* that hasn't been known (and said, publicly, if you read the runes) by others for ... nearly a year now.

The only thing that Fudo has got right is that a) it'll be designed by ATI, and b) it'll make graphics.

Groo has more of a clue about R520 than Fudo.

[shadow001]

Definetely sounds alot like the NV30.... late, overhyped, and the same performance..lol

Well, I guess we will see in the next few months... I still think ATI is gonna go with more pipes than 16, but we shall see...



Well i wouldn't really go that far,not even close in fact...Especially as the R520 is pretty much one of the best kept secrets out there,no release date,no leaked specs beyond speculations from everyone and their uncle or even performance claims for that matter...


Hardly what happened with the NV30 when the 9700 first apeared,and Nvidia went into full panic mode because they got caught with their pants down,trash talking the 9700 cards every chance they could,promising released dates for the NV30 that kept being pushed back,performance claims that were never met,especially in DX9,driver cheats left and right and shader replacements that visibly lowered IQ and of course who can ever forget the cooling used,and what was likely the last words of an Nvidia employee when the some of the first NV30's were shown in public on Feb 2003 when people attending the trade show commented on how loud the cooling was...

REAL GAMERS WEAR HEADPHONES....
:lol2: :bs:

When it was all said and done,Nvidia pretty much only got their **** together some 18 months later with the NV40.... :tongue2:


So comparing the R520 to the epic story that was the NV30 is a little how shall i say,not really a valid comparison to say the least... :screwy:

[NoWayDude]

Well, in all honesty was not that the same thing that ATI is been doing with GF6800/7800?
S.M 3.0 is pointless, our cards are faster, they clock higher,we can do everithing in S.M 2.0 that S.M 3.0 card can do, shader replacement, optimizing for sinthetics benchmarks,releasing more and more products with odd clocks,
and now, 2 generations late of Nvidia products, they are late, losing money, and with a product that people are either divided between being "awsome" or just "OK"
BTW, a few more months and the answer from ATI to Nvidia S.M 3.0 *will be in the NV30 delay timeframe*

And for the record, no i don't think that R520 is going to suck as a bad as NV30.But for panic comparisons, i think ATI is on the same possition than Nvidia (They even got the Xbox deal ;) and all) was with NV30. MS IS EVIL peeps.

[shadow001]

Well, in all honesty was not that the same thing that ATI is been doing with GF6800/7800?
S.M 3.0 is pointless, our cards are faster, they clock higher,we can do everithing in S.M 2.0 that S.M 3.0 card can do, shader replacement, optimizing for sinthetics benchmarks,releasing more and more products with odd clocks,
and now, 2 generations late of Nvidia products, they are late, losing money, and with a product that people are either divided between being "awsome" or just "OK"
BTW, a few more months and the answer from ATI to Nvidia S.M 3.0 *will be in the NV30 delay timeframe*

And for the record, no i don't think that R520 is going to suck as a bad as NV30.But for panic comparisons, i think ATI is on the same possition than Nvidia (They even got the Xbox deal ;) and all) was with NV30. MS IS EVIL peeps.


I honestly don't think so,since i've never seen ATI offcially say that SM 3.0 is pointless as it obviously is very usefull,especially for possibilities like branching and flow control,but those use up a ton of transistors and even with the 6800,the performance hit is very substancial even with it's hardware support,so just because a card supports it,doesn't in no shape of form imply a usable performance level in a gaming environment...


ATI may have done their math,counted the transistors needed for a solid,real world usable SM 3.0 feature set that can agressively be used in a real gaming environment.including agressive use of it's more advanced features like flow control and branching,and come to the conclusion that they need 0.09 micron to make it happen....


Nor to my knowledge,bad mouth the 6800 series in any way that comes even close to just how bad Nvidia trashed talked the 9700 when it first arrived,even to the point of offcially claiming that accoding to them,it wasn't future proof enough compared to their upcoming super NV30 card....

Ask how many gamers are still using their 9700 and 9800 for gaming duty to this very day,compared to the 5800/5900 to get your answer... :)


The fact that the R420/480 clocked higher had in my view more to do with it's manufacturing fab process advantage since it used low-k dialectrics with 0.13 micron,something wich Nvidia didn't want to screw with in the 6800 cards,and the same goes for the 7800 series since 0.11 micron isn't available with Low-k either,so ATI just used that to their advantage,just like Nvidia would if they judged necessary to do so...

[superklye]

They are?

The inquirer also said that the R420 was 8 extreme pipelines. :rolleyes:
Heh, this pretty much sums up everything I hate about the Inquirer.

[toxikneedle]

I hope this is true, even if R520 is a little better, I wouldn't mind since I'll have 2 7800GTXs in SLi.

One thing I did notice is that during quakecon, when the ATi rep went up to give his speech. He talked about R520 in october, crossfire fall, etc, xbox ati chip, blah blah. But he really didn't say anything about the R520, how its gonna blow us away. How we should wait for ATi instead of buying 7800s. He wasn't very excited about it. Didn't even really talk about it at all. If ATi wants to sell R520 they should create hype about it so people hold off on 7800s, instead of just going out there and going "ummm.... it's coming in the fall."

[jAkUp]

hehe... maybe theres a reason he doesnt want to hype it......

[shadow001]

I hope this is true, even if R520 is a little better, I wouldn't mind since I'll have 2 7800GTXs in SLi.

One thing I did notice is that during quakecon, when the ATi rep went up to give his speech. He talked about R520 in october, crossfire fall, etc, xbox ati chip, blah blah. But he really didn't say anything about the R520, how its gonna blow us away. How we should wait for ATi instead of buying 7800s. He wasn't very excited about it. Didn't even really talk about it at all. If ATi wants to sell R520 they should create hype about it so people hold off on 7800s, instead of just going out there and going "ummm.... it's coming in the fall."



In the TNT and early Geforce days,Nvidia used to give farily large hints,starting the hype and releasing some info on their lineup,sometimes months before the actual hardware was available,reaching the pinnacle with the NV30,but ever since then,the 6800 and 7800 marketing machine only started a couple weeks before the actual cards were in reviewers hands,with the 7800 making the best possble launch by actually have cards on retail shelves at release day....


So in a sense,the NV30 experience taught them to be more carefull about future product launches...

[shadow001]

hehe... maybe theres a reason he doesnt want to hype it......


Generally speaking,ATI doesn't really have a history of hyping their cards until they're actually available for reviews,they did that with the 9700 cards right up the R520,which even though they're only a little over a month away,nobody really knows what they're about,and those who do are under NDA and aren't spilling the beans...

[jAkUp]

Yea I guess you are right... ATI doesnt play the hype game as much as nV does...

[Redeemed]

Yeah, ATI hasn't said much about either the R520 or CrossFire. The last e-mail I ever recall getting from ATI was in regards to their X950XT PE, which never appeared as it turned out. Oh well. I hope that they bring something great to the table, I'm currently all for buying a dual 7800GTX setup right now. But I'd also like some options to choose from. That's why I'm holding out until CrossFire/R520 release.

So, next month is the big month supposedly? Can this be confirmed?

[AthlonXP1800]

Generally speaking,ATI doesn't really have a history of hyping their cards until they're actually available for reviews,they did that with the 9700 cards right up the R520,which even though they're only a little over a month away,nobody really knows what they're about,and those who do are under NDA and aren't spilling the beans...

No it not a month away, actually it 2 to 3 months away when someone were at ATI Launch event in Sydney and found out ATI just launched Crossfire and ATI rep told R520 wont be launch for the next 2 to 3 months away in October/November.

The whole R520 thing really stinking, ATI really have very serious problem with 90nm R520 production and the XT PE version is not much faster than 7800 GTX that GTX version can compete with flagship R520 XT PE and Nvidia decided there no need to launch 90nm 7800 Ultra with 32 pipelines and 12 Vertex Shaders at the moment because here are no R520 announcement, they will release 7800 Ultra samples in October, the 90nm G71 Ultra yield are as good as 110nm G70 GTX yield. 7800 Ultra launch will be move to next year to compete with R580.

ATI will braced to prepare for the worst next week with ATI creditors and shareholders criticised at the company with yet another bad result for Q4 of 2005 with still no R5xx products on shelves. They will be pissed off when they hear R520 wont be release for the next 2 to 3 months on time for Q1 2006 result, if it will be bad one then the creditors and shareholders will give ATI the final straw, if ATI failed to deliver R580 and then they have no other options but get their money back and vote to sack the board of directors and bankrupt the company to open the door for big company to takeover ATI.

[toxikneedle]

Yeah don't forget that the R520 that'll come first won't be the Crossfire edition. The ATi rep at quakecon said that the Crossfire edition of the R520 will come out several weeks after the regular R520. So could be as late as November til u see SLi competition.

[Redeemed]

Well, we can all bash ATI but for all we know the R520 might end up being worth the wait. Maybe they really do have 24 "wide" pipes that are equivalent to 32 "normal" ones. Maybe those "wide" pipes are what is causing all these problems. So, if they get that under wrap and keep the clock and mem speeds up, this R520 could do serious damage to the 7800GTX (in terms of performance). And, if/when nVidia launches the 7800Ultra, ATI could come back with the R580 that'd have 32 "wide" pipes (in essence probably around the equivalent of 48 "normal" pipes) and 900MHz and 2.2GHz memory to shatter the 7800GT/GTX/Ultra rein once and for all!!! Match that with CrossFire and the casket is sealed!!!

Then again, I highly doubt ATI will be able to do any of that. Merely hoping that they could/would/ and will. ;)

[shadow001]

The whole R520 thing really stinking, ATI really have very serious problem with 90nm R520 production and the XT PE version is not much faster than 7800 GTX that GTX version can compete with flagship R520 XT PE and Nvidia decided there no need to launch 90nm 7800 Ultra with 32 pipelines and 12 Vertex Shaders at the moment because here are no R520 announcement, they will release 7800 Ultra samples in October, the 90nm G71 Ultra yield are as good as 110nm G70 GTX yield. 7800 Ultra launch will be move to next year to compete with R580.


And you would know all that exactly how,especially if the only company that has working 0.09 micron fab process and low-k right now is TSMCwhich ATI is currently using on the R520,and in all likehood would also be the choice that Nvidia would pick for a 0.90 micron version of the G70 core,which they'll release no matter how the R520 performs,since it'll reduce the production cost of each GPU since each wafer yeilds more of them...More profit to be made if yeilds are good.


While i don't doubt that there have been several respins of the R520 core,with the original tapeout having happened as far back as december of last year,and according to rumors here and there,the main issue they had wasn't a current leakage or the actual fab process,but a grounding problem that only got solved fairly recently,and even as far back as 5 months ago,ATI 's CEO stated that they weren't counting on R5xx sales ot have any meaningfull effect on revenues for Q4,so that told me plenty about the problems they were at one point facing...


ATI will braced to prepare for the worst next week with ATI creditors and shareholders criticised at the company with yet another bad result for Q4 of 2005 with still no R5xx products on shelves. They will be pissed off when they hear R520 wont be release for the next 2 to 3 months on time for Q1 2006 result, if it will be bad one then the creditors and shareholders will give ATI the final straw, if ATI failed to deliver R580 and then they have no other options but get their money back and vote to sack the board of directors and bankrupt the company to open the door for big company to takeover ATI.


A little overdramatic aren't we,especially considering that Nvidia admitted in it's marketing campaign for the NV30,that the underlying tech cost them 300 million to develop,was according to them,the largest contribution to graphics technology up until that point,and as we all are well aware,they went thru 18 months of hell trying to compete with the 9700/9800 series for many reasons,in wich ATI cards vastly outsold them thru that entire period,being the first to actually ship 1 million DX 9 class cards between the 9600/9700 and 9800 cards combined,yet somehow,someway, despite all that,Nvidia is still alive and kicking now is it...

So i wouldn't put a couple months late with their R520 as doom and gloom for ATI,if nothing more than the simple fact that ATI actually has about 2x the cash reserves than Nvidia right now,since from the point in wich the 9700's were released(august 2002) right up until the NV40 showed up(almost 2 years straight),ATI sold a ton of cards and made a lot of money in the process...

[toxikneedle]

Well ATi has been losing money on more than just 7800s. 6600s and SLi has cost ati a lot of money aswell I'm sre. So I dunno how much more of a cash reserve ATi is holding over nvidia.

[Fotis]

Good old inquirer! :D They've covered every possible combination,from 16 to 32 pipes.
Anyway,R520 was supposed to launch in early June and David Orton admited to the delay and said it would launch in September.We've heard all kinds of rumors from all kinds of people but there is not a grain a proof in them.
We'll just have to wait. :(

[AthlonXP1800]

Well ATi has been losing money on more than just 7800s. 6600s and SLi has cost ati a lot of money aswell I'm sre. So I dunno how much more of a cash reserve ATi is holding over nvidia.

I checked ATI Q3 2005 statements, they had $644m of cash reserve, I guess the Crossfire and R520 products delays could cost ATI $20m, R520 had 3 respins but now there are rumours ATI recalled all 7000 R520 chips from all partners due to hardware faults in the core caused Render error in 3D Mark 2005 Game 3, ATI may need a 4th respin to rectify the bug, the total of 4 spins will cost ATI $28m charges, Crossfire had 2 respins that could cost them $14m charges. ATI now has 2 latest lawsuits, they will have to aside some money for legal fees about $20m. The launch of 2 millions 7800 GTX and GT cards, also 2 millions SLi boards could cost ATI $120m. The latest price cuts of all ATI products will likely be $100m.

ATI could lose as much as $302m cash in just 3 months from June to August, it will left them $342m in cash reserve for Q4 2005. Nvidia will have around over $750m in cash reserve by end of August next week.

[5150 Joker]

Look, ATi firmly kicked the 6800 Ultras ass with the X850XT PE, that is a fact in most benches. nVidia finally answered after several months with the 7800 GTX and likewise ATi will answer that with a faster R520. There is no rule that both companies must introduce a product at the same time. As long as the R520 is faster than a 7800 GTX or a faster clocked 7800 Ultra, ATi has nothing to worry about. I do not doubt their ability to design a kick ass next gen chip since the Xbox 360 chips are already finished and in silicon - that proves ATi has their design ready and refined for a unified shader architecture so I doubt they'd really be struggling with an evolutionary design like the R520.

Frankly, the 7800 GTX isn't as impressive as people make it out to be. A lot of the time I find it's not a whole lot faster than my old X800XT PE was at 600/600 and the IQ is definitely not as good due to flawed aniso filtering. That said, at this point I wouldn't recommend any ATi R3xx/R4xx based card simply because they lack SM 3.0. Once R520 and it's derivatives are available and if they match the GTX in speed and retain ATi IQ, I will have no trouble recommending them over nVidia.

[ricercar]

Ask how many gamers are still using their 9700 and 9800 for gaming duty to this very day,compared to the 5800/5900That would be me? I'm still using a 5800, two 5800Us, and one 5900U in gaming rigs. Never used a 9700/9800 except in Macintoshes, but for all my love of Macs, they really don't count as gaming rigs.