But they are not bringing out that part. R600 is 80 nm and dropped into a lower price segment. It's different from the R650 at a higher price and performance point. A new part would have been out in six months anyway, so if R600 is late and R650 is early/on time...

Why not say they had R600 planned for November? That was the original rumour.

Also, it's not out of character for graphics chip companies to alternate two different types of "new" product. The first is a whole new "architecture", while the second is a "speed-bump" release, which is architecturally similar but with performance tweaks. So, for example, GeForce 6xxx to GeForce 78xx was a significant architectural change. 78xx to 79xx was a "speed-bump" change.

Given that R650 would be a "speed-bump" release, architecturally similar to R600 but on a smaller process so as to get a better clockspeed and lower power consumption, I don't think it's at all unreasonable to suppose that the gap between the two might be only six months, with the next major architectural revision (R700) planned to follow 12 months after R600. It would also seem plausible that R650 would follow on fairly close behind RV6xx - again, it wouldn't be out of character for a company to produce a high-end part, followed by mid-range ones on a smaller process, followed closely by a die-shrink of the high performance part as soon as the experience of the mid-range chips has ironed out all the bugs inherent in the new process.

I wouldn't be surprised if R650 hits in September. Conceivably even late August (3 months after R600 XT). Though I think people who are expecting it in June are going to be dissappointed!

Of course that's oversimplying things as you are also comparing the busiest quarter (Q4) against the one of the slowest quarters (Q1 and Q2).

Also, considering the ATI brand had no response to Nvidia's G80, makes it all the more impressive.

Or it could just mean the loss of the high end market had virtually no impact on sales of ATI branded midrange/low end chips, where approximately 90% of revenue is made.

Without being able to compare it to ATI's Q4 2005 results and Q1 2006 results, it's hard to say how well or not well they did.

As regards R600/R650 compared to R520/R570. It's only really similar in the fact that both of the first parts are delayed. R650 doesn't appear to be as much of a major design change as R570 was in comparison to the parent chip.

I'd imagine that unless there were some major additions (IE - the increased shaders in R570 vs R520) I'd imagine that R650 will face a much easier shrink.

Regards,
SB

SB, I think your 8 is broken...

You like ATi, don`t you?

Over simplyfing? Hmm look at nV's quarters the same time, and you can see where ATi dropped the ball a few times, the entire year or year and half they have been fumbling all over. Its like a high school football team pitted against a seasoned NFL championship team. ATi's/AMD's price drops are just to slow the bleading we have seen this tactic used many times with many different companies. Its nothing new, make sure you don't lose marketshare in bad times, its very hard to gain back, you have to rebuild consumer confidence once that confidence is gone, its hard to convinice consumers we are back on top again.

I don't dispute that, ATI's execution has been rather dismal. You'll even see I posted that same view a few pages back.

However, that doesn't negate the fact that with AMD losing buckets of money by having to cut margins to maintain marketshare against Intel, their ATI division isn't suffering the same fate...yet.

I'm neither a fan of Nvidia nor a fan of ATI. I currently have a preference for ATI as their hardware is currently working better with Vista vs. Nvidia's hardware. My friends with Nvidia motherboards and 8800 GTX's are having an rather amazing amount of stability problems. However, as I've said before if Nvidia's Vista 64 drivers were stable, I'd be using an 8800 GTX right now rather than waiting to see what ATI is coming out with.

I'm a fan of one thing and one thing only, hardware that does what I need it to do. And until the 8800 GTX came out, ATI just had flat out better IQ. Unfortunately, even though Nvidia has both better speed AND IQ right now, it's completely and totally useless to me.

So...IF HD 2900 XT is at least as fast as the 8800 GTX...and IF it's actually launching at 400 USD...and IF the Vista 64 drivers for it are as stable as current Catalyst drivers for my X1800XT...then yes, I will be "fan" of it. Just like I was a fan of the GF4 4600-TI. Like I was a fan of the V5 5500. A fan of the Tseng ET-4000.

Just because I think (IE - my opinion) Nvidia's managerial performance right now is much worse than it has been in the past, doesn't mean I like ATI better. After all, it's only because ATI's management has been unable to execute consistently that Nvidia's management continues to look good.

The only people I see as obvious fans here are ones that just automatically discount everything as false if it doesn't promote their company as being better. And considering I only signed up at B3D because I felt it was one of the more impartial boards around, that should say something about how many fans I think are actually here. :)

Regards,
SB

Stability.....the new IQ! :smile:

Obviously of no interest to someone who parks their PC on the desk with the side left off...

Jawed

I've actually neglected my desktop for some time now.....probably misses me something awful. Though I'm not sure what an open case has to do with stability in the first place or how my comment implied that I don't value stability :???:

http://www.beyond3d.com/content/news/195

"AMD today reported a net loss of $611M, primarily due to an operating loss of more than $320M in the Computing Solutions (AMD CPUs and ATI chipsets) group while former-ATI operations (GPUs and consumer DTV, consoles, etc) also incurred losses of about $40M."

"GPU revenue in Q1 is down by 20-25%."


So much for any R600 units being shipped or sold to OEMs in Q1...it simply did NOT happen. I highlight this financial information to rebutt the notion that R600 has shipped to OEMs...not to get OT.

EDIT* I added the (stuff in parenthesis) to highlight the different business units AMD now reports.

Enthusiasts are an epitome of out of the box thinking, hard disks run perfectly fine outside your box, so do external cooling apparatus, volt meters and other overclocking tools. people that value that extra fps in general don't care about a lock-up more or less in their quest for the edges of durability of a component..

I mean.. haven't we all?

As said, they had lots of time to tinker around with stuff and try different approaches while ATI had to struggle getting stuff done. That's just a logical conclusion, I may as well be totally wrong.

Are you fighting ghosts? who ever said ATI shipped R600 to OEMs?

Hopefully not...I should have said R6xx or RV6xx parts. It was only 1 or 2 posters who were on this line of thinking and they have likely changed their minds already on this topic. I'll drop it as fighting ghosts is not my speciality.

Now please show me one single company which wouldn't do the same... :lol:

If you can make more money, you will. They'd be stupid to do otherwise.

He meant HDR+AA I guess.

Nvidia hasn't held onto the $550 GTX price. The market has. No competition = increased demand = higher price.

LMAO, pitty I can't rep you for the "laugh of the week"! :lol:

Well obviously if you take one side off the case it makes the case unbalanced and more likely to tip over. :yes:

Is there one example where refresh followed a new flagship less than 9 months later? (R580 doesn't obviously doesn't count.)

I don't remember there is, but I didn't look for it... But didn't ATI say some time ago they are working towards longer cycles?

r350

Nv35.

pretty much the same chip wasn't it?

According to B3D's chip tables, it had the same stuff, same process, everything. Just different clocks.
http://www.beyond3d.com/resources/chip/14
http://www.beyond3d.com/resources/chip/15