[Bill]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27805

If it's pipes, seems they would have no problem "taking back the performance crown from Nvidia" as INQ says. So why phrase it like that?

If it's ALU's, we get a good idea of X360 performance early. Which most excites me.

Though it may be clocked 700 mhz.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/d...111144411.html

Also Xbit refers to them as "pixel processors" rather than pipes, which is odd.

And another oddity, 8 vertex processors wouldn't seem to be able to support 48 pipes, but 48 ALU's maybe.

[SynapticSignal]

I think 48 Alu
so 12 Shader core

[SynapticSignal]

to be clear, 12 of this?

http://www.tgmonline.it/tgmfiles/bov...oto/engin3.jpg

[trinibwoy]

48 shader cores, 2 ALU's each, one full, one mini ?

[Tim]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

48 shader cores, 2 ALU's each, one full, one mini ?

Yes and each ALU is to coissue 1 scalar and 1 Vec3 instruction.

[SynapticSignal]

Originally Posted by Tim

Yes and each ALU is to coissue 1 scalar and 1 Vec3 instruction.

mmh appear to be different as ATI named the alu (alu 1 and alu 2)

seems as scalar ALU 1 + scalar ALU 2 + vector ALU 1 + vector ALU 2 = 4 ALU

[Megadrive1988]

Originally Posted by Bill

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27805

If it's pipes, seems they would have no problem "taking back the performance crown from Nvidia" as INQ says. So why phrase it like that?

If it's ALU's, we get a good idea of X360 performance early. Which most excites me.

Though it may be clocked 700 mhz.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/d...111144411.html

Also Xbit refers to them as "pixel processors" rather than pipes, which is odd.

And another oddity, 8 vertex processors wouldn't seem to be able to support 48 pipes, but 48 ALU's maybe.

it seems R580 will be 16 pixel pipes, like R520 (both have 16 ROPs) but R580 will have 3 shader ALUs (or fragement shaders) per pipe, so that's where the 48 comes from.

that's the explanation from me, a non-techie

[Jawed]

R520 has four quads. Each quad has:

• four texture pipes,
• four shader pipes and
• four ROP pipes.

R580 also has four quads. Each quad has:

• four texture pipes,
• 12 shader pipes and
• four ROP pipes.

The shader pipes in both R520 and R580 consist of a primary ALU that can execute all maths instructions and a secondary ALU with minimal functionality.

R580's 12 shader pipes in each quad take it in turns to use the texture and ROP pipes in the quad - four pipes at a time.

Jawed

[Sunday]

I don’t get it how some people on this forum failed to see from Dave article and the explanation of RV530 architecture what R580 will look alike. To totally simplify, R580 will be 4 times RV530, just like R520 is 4 time RV515!

Word “Quad” in this context comes from grouping of four PS pipes, so you can’t really have “quads” with twelve pipes?! But what you can have is “twelve quad engines” – 12 sets of four PS pipes.

[tEd]

Originally Posted by Sunday

To totally simplify, R580 will be 4 times RV530, just like R520 is 4 time RV515!

Not quite. rv530 has 8 z units per quad. r580 has 4

[Pete]

48 fragments shader units, each of which consist of one full and one mini ALU (arranged in four quads with 12 shader units per quad). So, multiple fragment ALUs per shader unit.

AFAIK, Xenos also has 48 shaders (not specifically fragment), but they're differently arranged (three shader "pipes" with 16 shaders per pipe) and don't include the mini ALU. So, one ALU per shader unit, but the ALU isn't equivalent to something on R5x0.

You'd be doing yourself a favor by not using The Inq--OK, Fuad specifically--for technical details of GPUs.

[DOGMA1138]

Originally Posted by Megadrive1988

it seems R580 will be 16 pixel pipes, like R520 (both have 16 ROPs) but R580 will have 3 shader ALUs (or fragement shaders) per pipe, so that's where the 48 comes from.

that's the explanation from me, a non-techie

isnt the 520 texture and fillrate limited with alot of "extra" shader power?
so whats the point of "gimping" the R580 in the same way?

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by DOGMA1138

isnt the 520 texture and fillrate limited with alot of "extra" shader power?
so whats the point of "gimping" the R580 in the same way?

Depends on the titles. The idea is that as time goes by the games become more shader limited.