[Dave Baumann]

ATI held an analyst conference call last week to go over their latest quarterly results. In light of the fact that their financial situation has markedly changed over the past quarter, to the point where they posted a slight loss (although, due to Canadian financial reporting rules they have to expense employee stock options, something that US companies are not required to do just yet) and their gross margins significantly sank (to which ATI mainly attribute to the success of their integrated platform products which only carry margins of 5%) some hard questions were being asked of ATI, not least over the status of their next generation R520 desktop part and other 90nm derivatives of the architecture.

Although obviously keen not to give too much in the way of definitive answers, in the main body of the call ATI’s CEO, Dave Orton, acknowledged that there had been some issues with their R520 product but went on to say that they are now “back on track� and although they had penned in an “early summer� launch they were now looking for a “late summer� launch. Officially summer ends in late September, but making significant launches a little before then, could be difficult largely because great swathes of Europe are on holiday in August, which could mean that September will be a likely release date candidate. The timescales talked about appear to be consistent with needing at least an extra revision of the chip from which they planned, and they also noted that R&D expenses had increased due to “a jump in prototyping cost related to the development of future products on 90nm process technology�. Curiously, though, they still appear to be happy with the state of TSMC’s 90nm process, citing the readiness, capacity and yield as good.

However, should R520 now be moving back further into the year, this potentially starts shunting it up against other products derived from the same architectural basis. Indeed, Orton made reference to this stating that they do plan to ring a full family of 90nm products ready for the “back to school� cycle. Given that “back to school� also occurs in September this could give indications that when ATI are ready announce R520 they may be simultaneously in a position to bring a fuller product line at the same time – indeed, they have previously made references to other products from the line being back in the labs. Despite this, they are expecting to slot in various elements of the new product in conjunction with the current X800, X700 and X550 (faster X300) lines.

[phenix]

Do you think this full family of products includes AGP versions too? Or we have to wait for another 2 months?

[Acert93]

2-3 months of an availability gap is pretty big. If NV begins rolling out a quality 7600 part (12 pipe, 600MHz, 700MHz 128bit GDDR3 interface?) ATI will be hurting.

NV is doing well this time on the features front. They are on their second generation SM3.0 part, they have HDR working well at high resolutions on modern games, the video encorder/decoder works this time, transparent AA, SLI capability out of the box to further extend the performance crown, excellent IQ with SSAA with respectible performance with SLI, and the same power requirements as the previous generation. And with a significant leap in performance--ESPECIALLY for a refresh--NV is sitting pretty.

The only negative from a features perspective for NV is no HDR & AA at the same time.

On the other hand NV seems to be playing it fiscially safe. $600 for a GPU is really on the extreme. Obviously this preserves the price structure of the 6800 and 6600 series to a degree and allows retailers to offload their stocks at reasonable prices, on the other hand a $600 GPU is not necessarily competing with $300 and $400 GPUs. The $300 price range is very hot right now (6800GT & X800XL) because of the bang-to-buck ratio.

So while the 7800GTX will dent the top end sales, those are pretty minor. What it is doing, though, is helping NV win mindshare. The NV30 mess is beginning to fade as NV has launched 2 solid series in the last 16 months.

The only thing stopping them from really denting ATI at this time is the high 7800 price and no 7600/7200 series. I am interested to see if NV goes the safe route or if they begin releasing their other 7x00 series products and begin dropping prices significantly on their older lines. My guess is that wont happen until late summer + NV having an "Ultra" version in the wings.

[Mindriot]

Interesting.....

Both Driverhaven and the INq, have bits on this today. They concluded that the 520 would be introduced earlier than Sept.

Although I would hope to see the 520 sooner...Dave tends to be on top of these things

[Geo]

A little quibble, Dave --where did you get the 5% number on IGP? The CFO said "high single digits", which gave me visions of at least 7%.

It sounded like at a macro level, there is just no pricing power in IGP, even when you have the performance to justify a higher price than the competition. That's a real pity in my book for the whole market, as it says unhappy things about the continuing growing gap between low and high-end performance that developers can't be happy about.

I had forgotten about the "whole of western Europe takes August off" phenomenon tho (even tho I'm about to re-experience it).

[dizietsma]

If it is mid September that is quite a long time in the future. I suppose, in the old days that it would be good to have a paperlaunch before then if the r520 does whup the 7800, but of course nvidia's last release with cards available on the day mean that is not going to look good. Possibly Ati could get around this by showing a trechnology demonstrator card to various websites that not only shows their new features but drops in the odd framerate as well. This might hold people over until September.

As nvidia have already released their card they could even just have an "unofficial leak" with all the juicy bits and then cry foul whilst secretly being delighted at peoples reactions. That might flush nvidia's 7800U out anyhow.

Even at the proper launch I guess there needs to be enough top end cards to go around for it to not be seen as just a card released to beat 7800 at the last minute, you know how people tittle tattle.


Is there any massive games out between now and Sept that might make people buy the 7800 without waiting to see how r520 looks ? Doom3 / HL2 sort of thing. I don;t think so, that really there is not a reason not to wait, part from itchy mouse button finger or being a fan of one company or another.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by dizietsma

Is there any massive games out between now and Sept that might make people buy the 7800 without waiting to see how r520 looks ?

BF2 is currently killing my 6800GT. I can't imagine what people with FX's and R3xx are going through.

[Acert93]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

BF2 is currently killing my 6800GT. I can't imagine what people with FX's and R3xx are going through.

Off Topic: From reading arround it really looks like a lot of BF2 issues are related to main system memory, or the lack there of. With Dynamic Shadows and Textures on HIGH it really saturates the main system memory if you have 1GB. 2GB does much better with less hitching (which can be indicitive of trying to fetch a lot of textures). I set the textures and dynamic shadows to MEDIUM and for the most part it is extremely smooth now. To compensate I put 4xAA on at 1280x1024. Shadows stink either way, but medium texture quality still looks ok. I would be curious to know how 256MB and 512MB versions of next gen cards perform with 1GB of system memory.

[Geo]

OT or not, pardon me while I at a game requiring 2GB to get good performance! Jaysus, that puts us uncomfortably in range of the 4GB limitation of 32-bit.

[digitalwanderer]

I'm actually a bit miffed on this one and am having a disagreement with some ATi personel.

September is NOT "summer", September is "fall"....release it in August if you want to say it is a "summer" release.

[Jima13]

Originally Posted by digitalwanderer

I'm actually a bit miffed on this one and am having a disagreement with some ATi personel.

September is NOT "summer", September is "fall"....release it in August if you want to say it is a "summer" release.

summer ends around Sept. 22nd...

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Jima13

summer ends around Sept. 22nd...

If school is in session, it ain't summer no more!!

[Geo]

Originally Posted by digitalwanderer

I'm actually a bit miffed on this one and am having a disagreement with some ATi personel.

Well, that pretty well seals it actually. So September it is.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by geo

Well, that pretty well seals it actually. So September it is.

In that case I guess I should forget about waiting till the end of July to decide whether to go ahead with my PCIe build and just get a GTX now? But oh how I would regret it if we do see R520 at the end of July in the "late summer".

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

In that case I guess I should forget about waiting till the end of July to decide whether to go ahead with my PCIe build and just get a GTX now? But oh how I would regret it if we do see R520 at the end of July in the "late summer".

Hey Geo I said I "am" arguing with someone about it, it really doesn't mean "September" yet....I'll keep ya posted.

And Trini? Don't wait if your system isn't doing what you need it to do, but if you can I think that nVidia will be coming out with something new too when ATi does so either prices will drop on current or else there will be something better for a bit more.

But it's your call. Personally I'm trying to give up being an early adopter, I'm still running a Barton and am trying to hold off on jumping to an A64 for as long as possible.

[Geo]

Personally, I'd never buy in the first month anyway. . .let the early adopters throw themselves on the stakes of price premiums and driver issues is my motto. I'll thank them as I daintily cross on their carcasses.

The traditional thing to do in such circumstances, assuming you really do have confidence in your part, is start leaking to freeze the market.

[Geo]

Originally Posted by digitalwanderer

Hey Geo I said I "am" arguing with someone about it, it really doesn't mean "September" yet....I'll keep ya posted.

'kay. I suppose it is possible you've run into someone who enjoys pointless philosophical debates with no applicability to current events --certainly we have a few of those around here. :P

[what? who, me? ]

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by geo

'kay. I suppose it is possible you've run into someone who enjoys pointless philosophical debates with no applicability to current events --certainly we have a few of those around here. :P

No, more like they told me "late summer" and I've told them "September ≠ late summer, September = fall; are you going to release late summer or fall?" and haven't heard back from them yet.

Ooops, I spoke too soon...I just got a message from 'em and it's not looking good. They told me to check my calender when summer ends. I told them that if they have to get "official" about it they're going to screw themselves over and that in the public's mind "September = Fall".

It does, doesn't it? I've always thought of August as the last month of summer and September as the beginning of fall, screw the official dates. :?

[Geo]

I absolutely agree that's the general usage and what man-on-the-street would understand you to have said when you say "Summer" to him/her. If you add a "late" in there he might start to wonder if you are leaking into the "technical" definition.

As I pointed out on the other thread, the other problem is that if he'd said "Fall", there'd been no lack of folks who'd immediately gone the other way --worst possible definition, Dec 20ish.

So all things considered, if they are aiming at first 1/2 Sept I'd rather have them calling it "Late Summer" than "Fall", as I get to get pissed earlier if it doesn't show up by Sep 21.

Tho having said *all of that*, the folks who earlier this year were walking around with smug "It'll be a Fall part" explanations are feeling pretty superior about now, whether they got there by the right analysis or blind luck aside. . .

[phenix]

Autumn (fall in North America) is one of the four temperate seasons, the transition between summer and winter.

In the temperate zones, autumn is the season during which most crops are harvested, and deciduous trees lose their leaves. Astronomically, it begins with the autumnal equinox (around 23 September in the Northern hemisphere, and 21 March in the southern hemisphere), and ends with the winter solstice (around 21 December in the Northern hemisphere and 21 June in the Southern hemisphere).

It is settled then, R520 will be released around 21st of March, 2006. (Beginning of autmn in southern hemisphere)

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by digitalwanderer

And Trini? Don't wait if your system isn't doing what you need it to do, but if you can I think that nVidia will be coming out with something new too when ATi does so either prices will drop on current or else there will be something better for a bit more.

But it's your call. Personally I'm trying to give up being an early adopter, I'm still running a Barton and am trying to hold off on jumping to an A64 for as long as possible.

Well honestly, it's running just fine. But I have been itching to play with an A64 setup for the longest while and there has always been something just on the horizon to wait for - dual-channel / native SATA / 90nm / PCIe / Venice / GTX and now R520 (and maybe G70 Ultra). It's getting ridiculous!! But my rig is holding up ok. Maybe I'll just settle for another gig of RAM to tide me over and let me bump up the texture resolution in BF2.

[Geo]

Well, forget about "seasons" and talk about fiscal quarters --he was very explicit that their 4q guidance (which very clearly and unequivacably ends at the end of Aug) included *no* R520 revenues. Originally, when I was hoping for August, I was hanging my hat on the fact that he called this "conservative" at one point --which I took to mean "yeah, we'll probably have some, but given we just f'ed you guys with negative surprises twice in a couple weeks we're going to be sure not to do it again. . .any surprises will be positive ones." However, Occam's Razor would take that at face value and say no revenue in that quarter for R520 because. . .there's no revenue.

[Acert93]

Originally Posted by digitalwanderer

No, more like they told me "late summer" and I've told them "September ≠ late summer, September = fall; are you going to release late summer or fall?" and haven't heard back from them yet.

Ooops, I spoke too soon...I just got a message from 'em and it's not looking good. They told me to check my calender when summer ends. I told them that if they have to get "official" about it they're going to screw themselves over and that in the public's mind "September = Fall".

It does, doesn't it? I've always thought of August as the last month of summer and September as the beginning of fall, screw the official dates. :?

That is really silly.

- A season is ~90 days.

- There are 20 days in September that are classified "Summer" -- 22% of the days of Summer are in September.

- 2/3 of September fall in Summer, just as all of November (a typically cold month where I am from) is 100% Fall, March (very "spring" like weather here) is 2/3 Winter, and June (hot hot hot month) 2/3 Spring. Interestingly, a lot of schools end at the end of May or beginning of June--still well in spring and before summer.

It is not like ATI found some majic loophole to call an early September release "Summer".

There is no need for a fuss over ATI (or anyone) correctly referencing the standard calander. Late Summer / "Beginning of the School year" infact do overlap. Primary and Secondard schools do not start until mid-Sept where I am from and most colleges Fall classes either at the very end of September or first week of October.

If releasing in the 20 days of September before the official beginning of Fall on 21 Sept does not constitute Summer, well, I think we should just drop the entire Season/Calander system now!

Just be happy you do not have to interpolate a calander like the Jewish calander. e.g. days start at sunset, months begin at the new moon, year begins at the new moon at the Spring equanox, 12 of 19 years have 12 months, the other 7 years have 13 months.

So I don't want to hear about any complaining about the Gregorian Calander we learn in preschool!

[trinibwoy]

Well if we go by the NY calendar it's like this :

Spring May - June
Summer July - August
Fall September - October
Winter December - January - February - March - April

[Jawed]

The British year goes something like:

Winter: December, January, February, March, April and May

Spring: 1 week in March/April and another week in the middle of May, invariably missing the five separate days of public holidays that occur in those months

Summer: any two weeks (generally not consecutive) in the period June to September

Autumn: September, October, November

Indian Summer: That nice week in early October every 2 or 3 years

Jawed