View Full Version : Some Dave Orton comments on R520.
ChrisRay
08-28-05, 08:01 AM
I caught this over at rage3d from Ratchet. The entire post is here.
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1333876423#post1333876423
1. Late September Launch Date Set for Three R500 Desktop Discrete Chips (R520, RV530, and RV515): Addressing the rampant rumours surrounding the R520 launch date, ATI stated its plan of record is to launch all three 90nm R500 desktop discrete chips (the enthusiast R520, the performance RV530, and the value RV515) in late September. The shipment dates will likely be staggered for the three chips, based on the delivery cycles from TSMC, with one likely shipping at launch date and the other two within the first half of October. The R520 was originally planned for a June launch, while the RV530 and RV515 launch times are only a few weeks delayed from their original schedule. The R520 had been sampling since Dec/04, and although the architecture and 90nm process were not a problem, ATI was not able to run the clock fast enough due to a “soft ground” issue that was discovered in late July after debugging with several re-spins. Specifically, the R520 and RV530 had functional yields, but could not run at high speeds, while the RV515 and the C1 (the 90nm Xbox graphics chip) did not have any issues. ATI concedes it has lost the OEM designs (primarily Dell) to NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800 GTX for enthusiast desktop PCs for both the back-to-school and holiday season, but believes the retail and channel (add-in-board) markets for the R520 chip remain available (representing over 2/3rds of the enthusiast market). Both ATI and NVIDIA did not refresh their back-to-school product stack for the performance/mainstream/value segments, with ATI indicating it has kept a significant share of design wins awarded in the March to May timeframe, based on its ATI X700, X600, X550, and X300 (competing against NVIDIA’s GeForce 6200 and 6600). In terms of performance, ATI believes the R520 should exceed the GeForce 7800 GTX in benchmark tests if it can get the proper clock speed, but recognizes that NVIDIA has some headroom to overclock the GeForce 7800 clock speeds. We do not expect ATI to launch its R580 (speculated to have 32 pixel pipelines) in C2005 (ATI does not want to stall the channel for the R520), and expect a refresh of the R500 family beginning in spring 2006 with RV560, followed by RV540 and RV505. We expect the R600 (DirectX 10, targeting Microsoft Vista operating system and WGF 2.0, the next generation graphics library) in Q4/F06 or Q1/F07.
Apparently, 10,000 in 3dmark2k5 and 20,000 with crossfire......pinch of salt.....wgf 2.0
At last something official! :)
AthlonXP1800
08-28-05, 10:05 AM
Ouch that not very good for 31 August Q4 2005 financial result. Back in June when 7800 GTX launched, ATI was left in completed silence and totally stunned that 7800 GTX in fact alots faster than flagship R520 XT PE, they attempted to increased the clock speed but couldnt increased it, then they went in panic mode, debug R520 and aggressived increased clock speed to 700 or 800MHz matched 7800 GTX performance. Really surprised to hear that R520 had done 7 respins, that will cost ATI $49M loss, R530 and R515 also could not increase the clock speed like it did with R520, I think it must be due to flawed, fault or bad designs. It shame to see ATI canned 32 pipeline R580 in favour of R560, ATI probably cant do 32 pipeline or canned it because of issues affected all R5xx chips.
On Wednesday, ATI stock probably will plummet to $6 to $7 and Nvidia stock could hit $30.
Much like the G70 release where soem people were expecting the nuclear toaster and were dissappointed by "only" being as fast as or just faster than 6800GT's in SLI, the R520 has been hyped and re-hyped again and again due to delays. The hope was that the respin process was to give the R520 an edge, but if you are re-running a chip, it is usually to decrease relative performance from the original engineered goals.
So, four months late with a struggle to meet the clockspeed required to equal the competition that has been readily available for four months is a pretty tough spot to be in. I think Orton did a good job of conveying the issues to the shareholders. ATI isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so let's welcome the competition...
lightman
08-28-05, 10:43 AM
It shame to see ATI canned 32 pipeline R580 in favour of R560, ATI probably cant do 32 pipeline or canned it because of issues affected all R5xx chips.
Canned the 580 ? I think you should reread the article. Nowhere it is stated that they canned it. It is only stated that ATI won't release the R580 in 2005. The fact that the R560 is stated to be launched in Q1 2006 doesn't mean the R580 can't be launched at the same time.
The point is that noone, who isn't under NDA, knows jack about the R580.
Btw, having the R520 available in october (but, in which quantities ? hmm), and a R560 refresh out in Q1 2006 doesn't sound too good for ATI, imho. NV probably can, 1) put out a Ultra version of the G70 in the case the R520 should be somewhat faster than the 7800GTX (though there still is SLI to counter the R520 in that case; R520 Crossfire won't see the light of day at least until the end of october) and 2) counter the R560/R580 with the new G80 (though I don't expect them to, unless the difference in speed vs the 7800(Ultra) in SLI is astonishing).
Hmm. Interesting times... :D
Anyway I don't really want to talk about financials because I'm a hardware enthusiast and not a stockbroker. :)
Ati isn't going away anytime soon and I'm interested in seeing the 7800GTX and R520 fight in the ring.Ati is also launching their mid-low range cards in late September, can someone tell me when nvidia launchs theirs?
Anyway I don't really want to talk about financials because I'm a hardware enthusiast and not a stockbroker. :)
Ati isn't going away anytime soon and I'm interested in seeing the 7800GTX and R520 fight in the ring.
Ati is also launching their mid-low range cards in late September can someone tell me when nvidia launchs theirs?
Does nVIDIA have to launch new mid and low range cards? The 6800GT is now priced at the midrange online, so NVIDIA already has it. The 6800GT has all the features, the power of three ya know, and it is getting cheaper and cheaper to produce. The 6600GT is the new low end along with the 6600LE and the 6200 at the dirt cheap level.
Does nVIDIA have to launch new mid and low range cards? The 6800GT is now priced at the midrange online, so NVIDIA already has it. The 6800GT has all the features, the power of three ya know, and it is getting cheaper and cheaper to produce. The 6600GT is the new low end along with the 6600LE and the 6200 at the dirt cheap level.
6800GT is too expensive to produce for a mainstream product.AFAIK Nvidias CEO said they are cooking up 2 90nm cards for Q4 2005.
6800GT is too expensive to produce for a mainstream product.AFAIK Nvidias CEO said they are cooking up 2 90nm cards for Q4 2005.
Too expensive now, but the price continues to drop. The pricepoints can move based on what ATI releases. The 2 90nm GPUs will likely be released before the Christmas run as NV40 production finally wanes. Thing is, SLI has caused a longer product viability in the marketplace. NVIDIA is not under any pressure to release a new mid range card unlike the previous generation where the preceding GPU was still expensive to manufacture.
A little faster, speculatively, just won't cut it.
Who knows, they might still surprise but its disappointing to say the least.
shadow001
08-28-05, 06:18 PM
Ouch that not very good for 31 August Q4 2005 financial result. Back in June when 7800 GTX launched, ATI was left in completed silence and totally stunned that 7800 GTX in fact alots faster than flagship R520 XT PE, they attempted to increased the clock speed but couldnt increased it, then they went in panic mode, debug R520 and aggressived increased clock speed to 700 or 800MHz matched 7800 GTX performance. Really surprised to hear that R520 had done 7 respins, that will cost ATI $49M loss, R530 and R515 also could not increase the clock speed like it did with R520, I think it must be due to flawed, fault or bad designs. It shame to see ATI canned 32 pipeline R580 in favour of R560, ATI probably cant do 32 pipeline or canned it because of issues affected all R5xx chips.
On Wednesday, ATI stock probably will plummet to $6 to $7 and Nvidia stock could hit $30.
Do you always go on like this on every post,or do you actually have any sort of real information on the subject...Just wondering here. :rolleyes:
shadow001
08-28-05, 06:28 PM
A little faster, speculatively, just won't cut it.
Who knows, they might still surprise but its disappointing to say the least.
That's Real life for you,ATI or Nvidia won't release the absolute best they can at any given moment,just enough to beat the competition,since everyone still equals faster means better even though cards are at a point where you either bump against cpu limitations in a lot of games out there, or have to go into crazy land grahics settings and get all excited when one card pulls an extra 5~10 FPS,when both still get very good frame rates in any case...
Soon even results at 1600*1200 32 bit 4x AA and 16x Aniso won't have any meaning at all,since cards will pull that off at 60+ FPS,then what do you use as a metric to gauge performance when any higher resolutions than that require displays that nearly no one uses and are very expensive to boot..
Treason
08-28-05, 07:01 PM
ATI isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so let's welcome the competition...
Are you sure about that? What if the shareholders bolt in Q4 and ATi's stock falls to $5-$7? The only competition would come from a new startup after the eventual breakup of ATi. In the meantime it would be only nVidia vs. Intel for a couple of years.
shadow001
08-28-05, 08:07 PM
Are you sure about that? What if the shareholders bolt in Q4 and ATi's stock falls to $5-$7? The only competition would come from a new startup after the eventual breakup of ATi. In the meantime it would be only nVidia vs. Intel for a couple of years.
Ati never made any decent amount of money until the radeon series was released,often times just barely breaking even,and even then,they only started making serious money once the 9700 cards were out,and they've been in business for 20 years now,so what does that tell you...
Are you sure about that? What if the shareholders bolt in Q4 and ATi's stock falls to $5-$7? The only competition would come from a new startup after the eventual breakup of ATi. In the meantime it would be only nVidia vs. Intel for a couple of years.
Too much cash in the bank to fall back on. They aren't at an excessive burn rate right now, even with out a viable contender for the speed crown.
http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=NVDA&t=2y&q=l&l=off&z=m&c=ATYT&a=v&p=s
Looking at the last five years, you can see that NVIDIA has turned the tables after NV30. NVIDIA certainly did not go away and the similarities are there.
3dfx made some severely bad business decisions to get taken over. The primiary mistake was to buy STB. ATI realized that potential pitfall and scaled back in-house production by out-sourcing there ATI board manufacturing. Fabless chipmakers will always have the out-of-pocket expense of respins and time delays because of them, but both NVIDIA and ATI have planned for these things by keeping cash available for the famine.
Ratchet
08-28-05, 11:06 PM
3DFx's primary mistake was to buy STB and then turn their backs on their AIB partners to produce their own cards. No listening to consumers didn't help them much either.
3DFx's primary mistake was to buy STB and then turn their backs on their AIB partners to produce their own cards. No listening to consumers didn't help them much either.
True. I don't see ATI making that mistake either.
Red_Shift
08-29-05, 09:06 AM
That's Real life for you,ATI or Nvidia won't release the absolute best they can at any given moment,just enough to beat the competition
I don't agree, it's clear to me that ATi isn't able to release what they first planned, so they will truly be releasing the absolute best they can now. As for nVidia they also did they best they could, you can only complain a bit on the clocks, the rest they did was the best they could, keeping in mind they would get a good production of the chips, ofcourse they could do a super-duper chip but if they'd get an ultra-low yield rate, I don't consider that is doing the absolute best they can.
Soon even results at 1600*1200 32 bit 4x AA and 16x Aniso won't have any meaning at all,since cards will pull that off at 60+ FPS,then what do you use as a metric to gauge performance when any higher resolutions than that require displays that nearly no one uses and are very expensive to boot..
Have you played F.E.A.R.? EQ2? UE3 based games are also not far away, and other ones. There will be allways games that'll push the graphic cards to the limit.
Apparently, 10,000 in 3dmark2k5 and 20,000 with crossfire......pinch of salt.....wgf 2.0
Was that post meant to be a joke?
The R520 is certainly not WGF2.0 compliant because it doesn't have a unified shader architecture which is required for WGF2.0.
10,000 in 3dmark2k5? Maybe, but only if the card runs @ 700-800MHz and ATI will not release a high-end card with those speeds because the yields would be too bad to satisfy the enthousiastic market demand.
20,000 using crossfire? Certainly not because in that case a single R520 need to score around 15,000 in 3dmark2k5 and even if that was possible then you would still be limited by the fastest CPUs out there to achieve 20,000.
So, I'll take it that your comment was not meant seriously...
Red_Shift
08-29-05, 12:41 PM
The R520 is certainly not WGF2.0 compliant because it doesn't have a unified shader architecture which is required for WGF2.0.
GPU doesn't need to a have an unified shader architecture to run WGF2.0, unified at software level and not unified at hardware level is possible, this doesn't mean I think R520 is WGF2.0 compliant which I don't.
GPU doesn't need to a have an unified shader architecture to run WGF2.0, unified at software level and not unified at hardware level is possible, this doesn't mean I think R520 is WGF2.0 compliant which I don't.
No, that's why WGF1.0 exists. WGF2.0 is the next DirectX and to be 100% WGF2.0 compliant you'll need a unified shader architecture on a hardware level.
Non-unified shader architectures are still WGF2.0 compatible but not compliant. That's the difference.
shadow001
08-29-05, 07:07 PM
I don't agree, it's clear to me that ATi isn't able to release what they first planned, so they will truly be releasing the absolute best they can now. As for nVidia they also did they best they could, you can only complain a bit on the clocks, the rest they did was the best they could, keeping in mind they would get a good production of the chips, ofcourse they could do a super-duper chip but if they'd get an ultra-low yield rate, I don't consider that is doing the absolute best they can.
Have you played F.E.A.R.? EQ2? UE3 based games are also not far away, and other ones. There will be allways games that'll push the graphic cards to the limit.
Fear is still a demo,not the full game with no set release date that i know of, and as far as UE3 goes,the release date is set at sometime next year,and in that particular case,epic started working on the engine in 2002,so like i said before,that's roughly 4 years of development right there for the first game that absolutely requires a DX9 lvl card as the bare minimum to play and by that i mean at least a 9700 pro card...Even if it means playing the game at 640*480 resolution and low quality settings.
The proof in right there,just from the simple fact that you need to use AA and AF in combination with very high resolutions to slow down the cards enough to make bench scores have any meaning at all....
Playing pretty much every game at 1600*1200 with the in game settings maxed out,most of which don't have built in AA or AF options, on a 7800 GTX simply results in performance being limited by your CPU even at those resolutions,so the game itself and the effects it uses,isn't even close to using all the card's speed...
Playing pretty much every game at 1600*1200 with the in game settings maxed out,most of which don't have built in AA or AF options, on a 7800 GTX simply results in performance being limited by your CPU even at those resolutions,so the game itself and the effects it uses,isn't even close to using all the card's speed...
Don't you think games are going to be more gpu demanding as time goes on? If not you must be pretty silly.
shadow001
08-29-05, 08:51 PM
Don't you think games are going to be more gpu demanding as time goes on? If not you must be pretty silly.
Obviously they will,but the improvement in actual visuals in past,present and more than likely,future games aren't advancing nearly as fast as the rate of improvement in video card hardware,the the proof is that there used to be a time when you could take a 500$ video card just a few years ago,say a Geforce 2 ultra,which back in the day,was the hottest thing you could get your hands on,benchmark it using the most demanding games of the time,and the best it could do was getting good smooth,60+ FPS at 1024*768 32 bit color,forget about AA or AF at all...
Now current games easily have 5x more detail than they did in those days(likely even more),but they also take a lot longer to develop(3~4 years rather than just 1.5 to 2 years on average in those days),and the current 500$ speed champion is easily 30X faster than a Geforce 2 ultra,and capable of effects that the former could only dream of...
That extra speed and capabilities will likely take even longer to fully exploit,as it creates even more work on the developers end of things,so game development might very well take even longer than it currently does,and with current cards being able to play nearly every game out there right now at pretty amazing display settings,the ceiling for meaningfull benchmarks based mostly on speed is about to be hit since cpu limitations present themselves in a lot of situations as it is,unless somehow,games next year manage to have at least 5x more detail than even the most demanding ones today have,and that may be far too much to ask in such a short timeframe...
It's pretty much a given that if the current improvement trend in video cards maintains itself, a single high end card released 12 months from now might very well be at least as fast as as 2 7800 GTX's in SLI or R520's in crossfire...Now imagine the speed of 2 of those future cards in either SLI or crossfire when CPU's by then will probably have improved in performance by maybe 20~25% at most and you've got a lot more graphics horsepower under the hood....Can you say cpu limitation 100% of the time no matter what the settings used,because i can...
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