View Full Version : R580 is just a X1800 XT speed bump up!
Treason
10-24-05, 04:33 PM
That's interesting. You have a keen knowledge of tech business operations. If you are indeed correct in your financial analysis about ATi's impending bankruptcy within 4 months, then you're truly ahead of the curve.
:)
Redeemed
10-25-05, 01:23 PM
God, I hope you're wrong. With ATI gone, nVidia would have no SERIOUS competitor (S3 isn't NEARLY capable of competing yet). We'd be screwed. $500 for a midrange card, $1k for a highend card about a year or two after ATI goes under. And these cards wouldn't be nearly the improvement we've been seeing thus far.
I'm still holding on that ATI will stick around and will provide a VERY competitive R580 and an EXTREMELY competitive R6XX series. After all, I don't think ATI's LAST generation can qualify as a COMPLETE failure, and the same can be said about THIS generation. I'm sure ATI will pull through- they have to for competition's sake. And the consumer's.
AthlonXP1800
10-26-05, 04:15 AM
God, I hope you're wrong. With ATI gone, nVidia would have no SERIOUS competitor (S3 isn't NEARLY capable of competing yet). We'd be screwed. $500 for a midrange card, $1k for a highend card about a year or two after ATI goes under. And these cards wouldn't be nearly the improvement we've been seeing thus far.
Well in Xmas 1988, Commodore had A500 fierced competed with Atari ST 520 and then a few months later in 1989, Atari had a big sales slumped with Atari ST 520 and killed it off and left Amiga with no SERIOUS competitor for 4 years. Throughout 4 years, Amiga A500, A500+, A600, A1200 and CD32 prices never doubled and alway stayed at the same prices.
I'm still holding on that ATI will stick around and will provide a VERY competitive R580 and an EXTREMELY competitive R6XX series. After all, I don't think ATI's LAST generation can qualify as a COMPLETE failure, and the same can be said about THIS generation. I'm sure ATI will pull through- they have to for competition's sake. And the consumer's.
It very difficult to see whether ATI will pull through Nvidia's upcoming fiercely prices wars in December. The consumers now recognised ATI's last generation X300, X600, X700 and X800 products as obsoleted since X1800 XL arrived. The trouble is here are so many X800 products in stores that still selling at high prices similar to X1800 XL such as slower PS 2.0 capabled X850 XT PE OEM are current sell at £299 and £315 while the faster and PS3.0 capabled X1800 XL OEM sell at £279. ATI still cannot managed to cleared off excess X800 inventory as they have yet to do when they need to move new X1600 chips into the inventory, that because the X800 products are not selling very well as ATI hoped to get rid of X800 very quick for good. So other consumers will instead buy readily available Geforce 6800 GS, Geforce 7800 GT and GTX that has PS3.0 already and others could rather buy new Physix cards for $200 than buy $239 ATI Crossfire motherboards or $399 X850 Crossfire Master card that nobody will buy.
So what ATI have to do is to hope for a miracle to turn the company around and get out of deep debts this xmas just like Commodore did in xmas 1993.
So how can they do a speed bump with the X1800?
The R520 has roughly 300M transistors. And they need to have it run at 600+ MHz to compete with the 7800 GTX. The G70 has also roughly 300M transistors, but runs with 470 MHz to achieve comparable speed.
So in my opinion the G70 is cleary the efficience winner: One transistor does more per Mhz than a transistor of the R520.
So what does ATI want to do? Increase the Mhz even more? I doubt this to be possible. Increase the pipes? How should they do that? If they increase to 24 Pipes the r580 would perhaps have 400M transistors. I think they will not be able to run this chip monster at 600+ Mhz! So they need to decrease frequency and will end up with a chip with 24 Pipes which runs at 500 MHz and is as fast as the R520. So, in summary i see no possibility to speed bump the r520, because it so inefficient (transistor-wise).
What are your ideas? Whats that i've overlooked?
Don't forget that the R520 is manufactured on 90nm micron process.
Don't forget that the R520 is manufactured on 90nm micron process.
Well, i think that does not speak in favour of ATI. Its the opposite. I think they where only able to push r520 at 600+ MHz because of the 90nm process. Nvidia is still at 110nm, and still they achieve the same performance. What would happen if they produce a G70 in 90nm? I think they could easily reach 550+ MHz clock. That coupled with faster RAM would be a nice graphics card!
But what can ATI do? They are already at 90nm, and i doubt they change to 65nm production anytime soon.
So I still dont see what the r580 could be. It really puzzles me! :confused:
It's not just core and memory clock speeds. There's still a lot of untapped potential in the R5XX architecture. Look what ATi have achieved just by tweaking the programmable ring-bus memory controller.
It's not just core and memory clock speeds. There's still a lot of untapped potential in the R5XX architecture. Look what ATi have achieved just by tweaking the programmable ring-bus memory controller.
Sounds interesting. Any detailed information on that?
AthlonXP1800
10-26-05, 08:08 AM
It's not just core and memory clock speeds. There's still a lot of untapped potential in the R5XX architecture. Look what ATi have achieved just by tweaking the programmable ring-bus memory controller.
Achieved what? Through OpenGL fix? Probably but Beyond3D (http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r520/index.php?p=21) tested X1800 with Far Cry with both HDR and AA, HDR with no AA turned be to much slower than Geforce 7800, actually it took massive performance hits with HDR on X1800 XT and XL and small performance hits on Geforce 7800s. To need to be playable HDR with 6xAA and 16xAF, it will run best at 800x600.
deimos47ca
10-31-05, 06:44 AM
It's not just core and memory clock speeds. There's still a lot of untapped potential in the R5XX architecture. Look what ATi have achieved just by tweaking the programmable ring-bus memory controller.
I though everybody already knew that it was a bug for 4xAA mode only. that is why the performance with 6xAA was higher than 4xAA (clearly wrong). The patch just fixes that bug. Firingsquad has some graphs mislabeled... check back a few pages.. they use 4xAA fps scores to show the big gains.
I though everybody already knew that it was a bug for 4xAA mode only. that is why the performance with 6xAA was higher than 4xAA (clearly wrong). The patch just fixes that bug. Firingsquad has some graphs mislabeled... check back a few pages.. they use 4xAA fps scores to show the big gains.
Hmm, interesting. So the question remains: What will ATIs r580 be? And how do they make it faster than the r520? :confused:
I though everybody already knew that it was a bug for 4xAA mode only. that is why the performance with 6xAA was higher than 4xAA (clearly wrong). The patch just fixes that bug. Firingsquad has some graphs mislabeled... check back a few pages.. they use 4xAA fps scores to show the big gains.
It's not just 4xAA only now. That's the first patch. There's a second driver fix which improved peformance for all modes with or without AA.
Redeemed
10-31-05, 04:44 PM
It's not just 4xAA only now. That's the first patch. There's a second driver fix which improved peformance for all modes with or without AA.
He's right. Read this thread for more info on that patch:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=58092
If ATI can pull of something like this by merely improving the drivers, imagine what else can be done.
I have no idea what the R580 could be. Faster core or memory clocks? Possible, but not probable. Possible because ATI could rework the core (improve upon the R520's core) and produce a faster and more efficient core for the R580- but that is a lot of work and I doubt it'll happen. The memory, they could possibly plug faster (1.1ns memory) on the card, but with all the money they've lost can they afford this? Does the card support that speed (fully programmable memory controller might enable the card to support it, and faster memory for all we know).
I just know that ATI needs to perform some cool magic quick (that fully programmable memory controller was the first trick) otherwise nVidia may wind up with a monopoly on the graphics market and we'll all be pretty unhappy consumers.
From what i hear the R580 will be 16 pipes with 48 pixel shader engines, rather then the current 16 pipes and 16 shaders. Meaning in pixel shadered games it will be insainly fast but in older games it won't be much faster then a X1800.
Richteralan
11-01-05, 05:24 PM
It's not just 4xAA only now. That's the first patch. There's a second driver fix which improved peformance for all modes with or without AA.
Well, let's hope the best, right?;)
If games start featuring more complex pixel shaders, I think the perception of this generation of products from ATi will look a lot more competitive.
That being said, I think the gaming industry is still focused on publishing mega-games, and there's more pressure to deliver quantity than quality. That means "quick and dirty" and "brute force" solutions, and that definitely favors nVidia's current hardware.
Well fear is one of the games that shows the R5xx range what they can do which is heavily pixel shadered.
He's right. Read this thread for more info on that patch:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=58092
If ATI can pull of something like this by merely improving the drivers, imagine what else can be done.
I have no idea what the R580 could be. Faster core or memory clocks? Possible, but not probable. Possible because ATI could rework the core (improve upon the R520's core) and produce a faster and more efficient core for the R580- but that is a lot of work and I doubt it'll happen. The memory, they could possibly plug faster (1.1ns memory) on the card, but with all the money they've lost can they afford this? Does the card support that speed (fully programmable memory controller might enable the card to support it, and faster memory for all we know).
I just know that ATI needs to perform some cool magic quick (that fully programmable memory controller was the first trick) otherwise nVidia may wind up with a monopoly on the graphics market and we'll all be pretty unhappy consumers.
R520 supports GDDR4 ;)
I'll wait till I see some more mature drivers from ATi to reserve my judgement, and let's see what that beast 512mb 7800 can do.
Where the hell is my sig? :confused:
Edit: \/ There it is!! :D
Frostw4k3
11-04-05, 04:34 PM
Anyone read this ? http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27456
Sounds interesting specially this part "ATI's next generation R580 chip will re-use this controller and all what R520 marchitecture really needs its more pipelines. Our own Theo Valich suggested 32 pipelines for ATI next generation R480 chip and we know it's already taped out. ATI will add more pipes to R580 and it will get back in the game, aiming for the performance crown."
(now dont quote me on saying this is true... i wish it were but im not keeping my hopes up)
killahsin
11-05-05, 09:17 PM
guys ati isn't going anywhere =)
they may end up not holding speed crowns but the industry is alot larger now then it was when 3dfx died. The only way ati could fall is if they missed 2 product cycles completly. Then they will ahve no product on store shelves whatsoever. A vast majority of consumers know nothing about what they are purchasing, and only till recently almost all the retail segment had shelves only filled with ATI cards. The money these companies make doesn't come from the high end cards they come from the 199 and below segment. Now if ATI were to miss 2 cycles completly with no product on the shelves, sure ati would fall within 4 months of that. But this is one cycle one half miss. It's not even ATI's 5800. It's just nvidias power moves. You must remember both ATI and nvidia right now are basically operating under the same 'management teams' from SGI, heh. Hell i often wonder if some of them still hang out.
Treason
11-24-05, 04:03 PM
Just an update bump. ATi will be bankrupt and be broken up in three months from now according to AthlonXP1800's prediction and research into Amiga and Commodore.
Heinz68
11-25-05, 08:33 AM
Just an update bump. ATi will be bankrupt and be broken up in three months from now according to AthlonXP1800's prediction and research into Amiga and Commodore.
Thanks for the update I almost missed that one.
Heinz68
11-25-05, 09:03 AM
About:
R580 is just a X1800 XT speed bump up!
Well I'm almost sure that there is going to be little more than speed bumb up, but why speculate?
The point is what is all off a sudden wrong with just speed bumb up?
FearMeAll
11-25-05, 10:13 AM
I hope ATi does do this.. I have to say I like both companies and I would love to have a more difficult choice as which one to upgrade to. I tend to like ATi's anistropic filtering a little more and their dvd decoding looks a little better at least to me unless you buy a very expensive nvidia codec which I did.
But I also love how responsive and aggressive nvidia's driver team is. I remember when I had a 9800pro I never even used ATi's control panel but just 3rd party programs because they worked better, while I really don't have to use anything like this for my nvidia card.
But all in all I hope both companies keep competing like hell with eachother because a part of me wants to play with an ATi card again.
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