New Radeon 9900 at .15 and Pro at .13 micron?

[Spotch]

Check this out at X-Bit:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1044532924

Are these ATI guys good or what?

If they can pull off a .13u by May it becomes very clear to me what ATI and Intel's cross-licensing agreement was all about. Ati showed intel a few Graphic tricks while Intel showed ATI a few tricks about making very little things go very fast... :)

What do you think?

[AGP64]

Originally posted by Spotch
Check this out at X-Bit:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1044532924

Are these ATI guys good or what?

If they can pull off a .13u by May it becomes very clear to me what ATI and Intel's cross-licensing agreement was all about. Ati showed intel a few Graphic tricks while Intel showed ATI a few tricks about making very little things go very fast... :)

What do you think?

Nah... There seems to be a lot of gossip/confusion about the .30 and .15 in regards with the new Ati cards.

If you follow rage3d and some other (non official) sources the best guess is:

R350 .15 8x1 375 to 400+ Mhz (core) = new top end card
Rv350 .13 4x1 or 8x1 = new r300 based budget card and mobile VPU to replace the R9000 mobility VPU.

If you want to be absolutely sure you have to wait untill Cebit.

[Spotch]

Originally posted by AGP64
Nah... There seems to be a lot of gossip/confusion about the .30 and .15 in regards with the new Ati cards.

If you follow rage3d and some other (non official) sources the best guess is:

R350 .15 8x1 375 to 400+ Mhz (core) = new top end card
Rv350 .13 4x1 or 8x1 = new r300 based budget card and mobile VPU to replace the R9000 mobility VPU.

If you want to be absolutely sure you have to wait untill Cebit.

I am not sure... This article was put out today and its new news/rumor info. Those Russians over there usually know what they are talking about. :)

It makes sense too.... R350 .15u taped out since November? I am willing to bank that the R400 may be the stake in the NVIDIA beasts back when it come to superior gaming tachnology. All ATI needs to topple NV is to maintain the speed and tech superiority for a couple years and they will have all the gaming shops in thier tent. Once that happens the NVIDIA drivers will be the ones that have to constantly adjust themselves to each and every game engine to come out.

That has been the case with ATI since the beginning of time. All games are developed on other hardware by nearsighted, one track mind dev-shops. The underdog graphics shops have to make up for it with flexibility.

Now NV has become so narrow minded in their focus, that their products seem to be just more crap stacked up in a pile on top of inefficient cores. Don't get me wrong NVIDIA has brought the state of the art to the table. They have (or had) wonderful innovation and imagination which has made them the leader but ATI seems to be taking the pot in the 3D game of poker right now. On board memory cacheing and high core speeds don't last for ever. :)

I like NV... they made me alot of money in the market... But I think ATI will bring the gold to my trading purse in the next year or two.


Holy **** !!!!!! Did I just spill that fanboy dribble out ???? Man I must be hammered beyond comprehension!!!!

:-D

[Skuzzy]

You did bring up an intersting point. Having cross-licensing with Intel is really going to help ATI.

NVidia has pooped on Intel's shoes, which was not a smart thing to do.

Long term, it could be pretty interesting.

[Dazz]

People said the extra 1TMU will be worthless on the PRO? Really i think an extra 8 textures perclock will come in very handy to get around an extra 50% out of FSAA & AA with out the need to rake up the MHz of the core :)

[volt]

No way there will be a .13 micron version with 8x2.

[Uttar]

That rumor makes no sense. 8x2? Impossible. 0.13 *and* 0.15 for the same part? Ridiculous. Too expensive for the little benefit it gives.

There are two possible mistakes xbit could have made:
- The RV350 could be 4x2 and on 0.13, while the R350 is 8x1 and on 0.15
- The RV350 could be 4x2 and on 0.13, while ATI would release two high-end products: a R300 at 375Mhz ( 0.15 ) and a R350 at 400Mhz+ ( 0.13 ) .

It would make a lot of sense to sell a R300 at 375Mhz, too. It sounds like the yields authorize it.
But if the only difference between a revised, bug-cleared R350 and a beefed-up R300 is "Pro", then ATI is going to beat the Ti4800 in naming stupidity.

Uttar

[Mono]

Don't believe anything.. just wait for the official word from ATi. God knows though, with all these sites guessing everything possible that one of um is probablly right.

[Spotch]

Originally posted by Uttar
That rumor makes no sense. 8x2? Impossible. 0.13 *and* 0.15 for the same part? Ridiculous. Too expensive for the little benefit it gives.

There are two possible mistakes xbit could have made:
- The RV350 could be 4x2 and on 0.13, while the R350 is 8x1 and on 0.15
- The RV350 could be 4x2 and on 0.13, while ATI would release two high-end products: a R300 at 375Mhz ( 0.15 ) and a R350 at 400Mhz+ ( 0.13 ) .

It would make a lot of sense to sell a R300 at 375Mhz, too. It sounds like the yields authorize it.
But if the only difference between a revised, bug-cleared R350 and a beefed-up R300 is "Pro", then ATI is going to beat the Ti4800 in naming stupidity.

Uttar

To Beat the Ti4800 in naming stupidity is almost impossible. :) On the other hand the .13u part would require a redesign anyhow. Why not throw in some architectural optimizations and a second TMU while your at it? An 8x2 .13u part at 400+ Mhz would offer more than just "little benefit" over the current R300 part IMO. The primary weakness of the R300 seems to be fillrate. Wouldnt that second TMU and the bumped up core speed help to alleviate that shortcoming? My guess is 20-40% performance improvement over the R300. As for the .15u R300, as you said the yeilds may simply call for a speed bump. There is no cost in bringing this core to market. It is still just a 9700Pro with faster memory.

[Myrmecophagavir]

Originally posted by Spotch
To Beat the Ti4800 in naming stupidity is almost impossible. :)They already have done... Ti 4800 SE :rolleyes: :banghead:

[Evildeus]

I thought I might note this as many of you keep sending it to me. Xbitlabs is reporting information on the "Radeon 9900" and "Radeon 9900 Pro". Just to give you a heads up, nearly all the "facts" they have posted are wrong or a bit twisted when it comes to the truth.
[H]

[Hellbinder]

These guys are smoking crack.. and not the good stuff either. That Dime bad addict stuff...

R350
375-400mhz
350/375mhz RAM
8x1 Pipelines
a coupple spiffy new features..
VERY likely 256mb ram.
.15u

If not Ati, several of their partners are going to offer 256mb cards. And i happen to know that the R350's are VERY overclockable. Like to the tune that many users will 450mhz with semi standard cooling, with a dustbuster they could hit close to 500.

[borntosoul]

i wonder if we will see a difference in performance with 256 meg on the new generation of cards .

[volt]

Originally posted by borntosoul
i wonder if we will see a difference in performance with 256 meg on the new generation of cards .

You will definetly see it in new games (UT2003, Unreal2, Doom3, Morrowind) where textures and pollys are really high :)

[Myrmecophagavir]

Originally posted by Hellbinder
a coupple spiffy new features..Care to drop some hints about this?

What do you know about performance on low-end CPUs, will an Athlon 1400 be enough of a bottleneck for the performance increase between 9700 Pro and R350 to become negligible?

[Smokey]

Originally posted by volt
You will definetly see it in new games (UT2003, Unreal2, Doom3, Morrowind) where textures and pollys are really high :)

I was going to ask about those extra super high res textures in UT2003 and U2, as I cant use them on my ole trusty 64mb gf3 :(

[GlowStick]

More reliable sources are saying the 99000pro will be .15. and just be a faster R300.

About your 'game developers, only cater to Nvidia drivers' that is blaently untrue. ATI's drivers dont work as they are saposto. If you read any of the .Plans John Carmack puts out they all say.

Well, ATI documents this function to work like this, but it dosent. Then he contacts ATI and they eventualy Fix it.

Nvidia drivers work as they are documented to. Thats why developers like them better.

also for the 9600's being made with .13 makes sence, they can make them cheeper. And thats what matters for your value series.

[Spotch]

Originally posted by GlowStick
More reliable sources are saying the 99000pro will be .15. and just be a faster R300.

About your 'game developers, only cater to Nvidia drivers' that is blaently untrue. ATI's drivers dont work as they are saposto. If you read any of the .Plans John Carmack puts out they all say.

Well, ATI documents this function to work like this, but it dosent. Then he contacts ATI and they eventualy Fix it.

Nvidia drivers work as they are documented to. Thats why developers like them better.

also for the 9600's being made with .13 makes sence, they can make them cheeper. And thats what matters for your value series.

Of course not each and every dev ONLY caters to NV hardware but many do their dev and much of the testing with NV hardware and drivers. John carmack and ID is an industry leader. They have begun to use ATI hardware as a target along with NV cards. As you may know ATI has aggressively pushed to improve relations with devs in the last couple years. Now ATI's product line is too good for the devs to practically ignore them as they have in the past.

If you honestly think that NV has not had the advantage for years because of specific dev optimisation and testing with their cards you are simply mistaken.