[russo121]

I think this is nothing new to what was speculated but.... there it is: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Cebit2005/Day4/5 :P

PS: I want this baby!!

[wireframe]

Who wouldn't want "this baby"? Heh. Can't wait to get my paws on one. I really like the bit about 10-bit per channel. Basics like these can go a long way. The sooner they launch it the better.

[Geo]

Yowza, $600-700? I imagine that is a combination of 512mb and SLI's proof of the market that is willing to spend in that range (and higher).

I'll be very interested to see how next gen compares to this gen-SLI'ed, and what if anything that does to the SLI market going forward. Tho this gen of SLI got a bit of a late start compared to the cards that are running it.

I guess what I'm saying is that at least some loud mouths will finally have the cold water dashed in their face of having a $5-600 card kick their ass all over the lot with better compatibility when they paid $1k or more for their SLI setup just a couple months before. That's not entirely fair to SLI for a few reasons, including the timing issue of SLI coming in much later than original release of the cards. I'm just saying those folks will be out there squawking and it will be interesting to see if they affect the market or not going forward. I think 'not', or 'not much for not long', but we'll see.

[wireframe]

Originally Posted by geo

Yowza, $600-700? I imagine that is a combination of 512mb and SLI's proof of the market that is willing to spend in that range (and higher).

Doesn't sound that bad at all as long as that is the actual street price and not $700 + 30%. People paid that for the current top cards and I was very close to that for mine.

[IbaneZ]

So this time we'll get the EXTREME pipes then.
24x1.3=oh baby!

I dunno folks, i think it sounds a little too good to be true. But i'm gonna be the first in line to buy one anyway. I'll be happy if it's faster than a 600/595 MHz X800 XT PE.

[loekf2]

Originally Posted by IbaneZ

So this time we'll get the EXTREME pipes then.
24x1.3=oh baby!

I dunno folks, i think it sounds a little too good to be true. But i'm gonna be the first in line to buy one anyway. I'll be happy if it's faster than a 600/595 MHz X800 XT PE.

Yikes..... and:

"The most important architectural change is support for WGF 1.0 (Windows Graphics Foundation). This is the successor to DirectX9, often called DirectX Next. WGF will be included as standard in Microsoft Longhorn.
WGF offers new exciting features for game developers like "unlimited" shader length, Geometry Shaders, Much lower overhead than DirectX9 and many more."

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that WGF 1.0 = unified shader models, or is Microsoft saving this for Longhorn 2.0... released in let's say 2025.

I thought we all agreed here that R520 is yet another spin of the R3xx (m)architecture.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by loekf2

I thought we all agreed here that R520 is yet another spin of the R3xx (m)architecture.

Yup, but that doesn't mean that we were all correct.

[martrox]

I find this hard to believe.... but, if true....... May need to take out home equity loan......

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by martrox

I find this hard to believe.... but, if true....... May need to take out home equity loan......

It definately would be incentive for me to build meself a PCIe system at least! :?

[Kombatant]

Originally Posted by loekf2

I thought we all agreed here that R520 is yet another spin of the R3xx (m)architecture.

Since when does one invalidate the other?

[Xmas]

Originally Posted by loekf2

Yikes..... and:

"The most important architectural change is support for WGF 1.0 (Windows Graphics Foundation). This is the successor to DirectX9, often called DirectX Next. WGF will be included as standard in Microsoft Longhorn.
WGF offers new exciting features for game developers like "unlimited" shader length, Geometry Shaders, Much lower overhead than DirectX9 and many more."

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that WGF 1.0 = unified shader models, or is Microsoft saving this for Longhorn 2.0... released in let's say 2025.

I thought we all agreed here that R520 is yet another spin of the R3xx (m)architecture.

WGF 1.0 = DirectX Graphics 9 for Longhorn basically, WGF 2.0 is the new stuff. So R520 won't be beyond DirectX9.0c.

[Goragoth]

According to the article the ATi SLI won't be limited to 2 cards. I just have to wonder if there will be some crazy Alienware box with 4 of these babies in it. Now that would be certifiably insane
Just one of these would be quite nice though... no I think it would be very nice actually I guess we'll see how things shape up pretty soon but I know a lot of people here have been saying that there is no way we'll see a 2x speed jump in this next generation. It would be nice to see them proven wrong (I doubt they'll mind ).

[Dave Baumann]

On the face of things there are going to be some disappointments.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by Goragoth

I just have to wonder if there will be some crazy Alienware box with 4 of these babies in it. Now that would be certifiably insane

And can ya imagine the pricetag on that sucker and how nice a monitor you would need to utilize even a fraction of that power?!?!?

[Ostsol]

Originally Posted by DaveBaumann

On the face of things there are going to be some disappointments.

Regarding the R520 or ATI's multiple video-card solution?

(I'd rather not use SLI as the all-encompassing term.)

[russo121]

Imagine that 1 r520 will be faster than nvidia sli setup and (I hope) less expensive than 2 nvidia cards. Now imagine the same thing in an AMR setup.... it will blow any biggest score in the planet. 8)

Originally Posted by DaveBaumann

On the face of things there are going to be some disappointments.

Disappointments to people that bought sli nvidia cards, or, people speculating too much here?

[Ostsol]

Originally Posted by russo121

Imagine that 1 r520 will be faster than nvidia sli setup and (I hope) less expensive than 2 nvidia cards. Now imagine the same thing in an AMR setup.... it will blow any biggest score in the planet. 8)

Now imagine NVidia's inevitable reply.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by russo121

Disappointments to people that bought sli nvidia cards, or, people speculating too much here?

From my years of Davespeak study I'd have to say he was implying that we were all getting our hopes up just a wee bit much and that if we continued to do so we would be disapointed in the final product.

Also, whenever I hear the term "extrememe pipelines" now or any variation on that theme I just have this humongoid bullshit alarm that goes off....

[MuFu]

Originally Posted by russo121

I think this is nothing new to what was speculated...

Indeed. Wrongly speculated at that.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Xmas

WGF offers new exciting features for game developers like "unlimited" shader length, Geometry Shaders, Much lower overhead than DirectX9 and many more."

Couple questions:

1. Does anybody know what changes were made to reduce the DirectX overhead?

2. Why is ATI's tiling approach more efficient than the straight screen split method Nvidia is using?

Would be nice to see what two X900XL do in AMR,MVP or whatever.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Why is ATI's tiling approach more efficient than the straight screen split method Nvidia is using?

I'm not sure about ATi's specific implementation, but I thought tiling in general was more efficient than the SS method nVidia is using.

Splitting the screen top/bottom's biggest drawback can be found in scenes with skyboxes, the top-halves load is generally a hella lot lighter than the bottom-halves load.

Tiling tends to mix it up with an evener split, I thought.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by digitalwanderer

I'm not sure about ATi's specific implementation, but I thought tiling in general was more efficient than the SS method nVidia is using.

Splitting the screen top/bottom's biggest drawback can be found in scenes with skyboxes, the top-halves load is generally a hella lot lighter than the bottom-halves load.

Tiling tends to mix it up with an evener split, I thought.

That makes sense for a fixed 50/50 split but with the adaptive load-balancing algorithm Nvidia has in place it should be distributing the load pretty evenly. My guess is that tiling does not require this extra load balancing logic in the driver which may reduce overhead somewhat. Guess we'll know when we know.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Guess we'll know when we know.

Yup, until then it is all just speculation/silly season.

[ANova]

I still think the most of this is being overblown. I doubt 2x the performance.

[Xmas]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Couple questions:

1. Does anybody know what changes were made to reduce the DirectX overhead?

Please don't attribute that quote to me... too much marketing speak for my taste

For the driver model changes, see this Powerpoint presentation:
http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...WINHEC2004.ppt

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

That makes sense for a fixed 50/50 split but with the adaptive load-balancing algorithm Nvidia has in place it should be distributing the load pretty evenly. My guess is that tiling does not require this extra load balancing logic in the driver which may reduce overhead somewhat. Guess we'll know when we know.

Not much guessing involved here, actually. The advantage is the load balancing, and it comes at the price of very slightly less spatial coherence. And since the frame buffer requirements are constant, it's possible to save some memory on each card.