R420, NV40 launch info at Anand's

[gunblade]

It seems to me that the R420 is kind of behind in features in term of a next gen product. They certainly is ahead in R3x0. Even tho it probably would not be matter to gamers but likely would be for developers.

First gen video card is always a develper's baby, since they can try out new stuff to evaluate whether to include in the new game. As a result, SM3.0 feature may be good to have and I hope Ati can have it up this year.
If it wasn't R420(all but officially confirmed), then NV40 will have a bigger show among developers. And certain feature like floating point blending is seemingly very useful, even though Nvidia is only exposing the 16bit blending.

Will ati have an full 32 bit float blending part or SM3.0 up this year?
According to anandtech's report, the refresh part 800XT will be up a month after the x800 pro. So, it seems unlikely to have the new feature in the refresh part.

Then, what would be the SM3.0 part from Ati that is hinted at the GDC's presentation? I certainly see Ati have it up at least by end of this year.

Again, I know these feature are not particular useful for gamers since not everyone codes or has the need to. But introducing new feature can push the technology and let the developer have the new feature to play with and then incorporate them into the next gen game sooner.

 

[Tim Murray]

I'm hearing FP32 rumors. Can't say whether or not they're true; they're older rumors from the eight "extreme" pipe era. I also think it's more likely than most that R420 has insane memory bandwidth.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Well they could improve compression and increase effective bandwidth that way.

True, of course. Though since it's "anticipated" that R420 isn't "that much" of a departure from R300, that makes it a bit less likely for significantly new bandwidth savings techniques, IMO.

 

[vb]

RV360 has better Z-compresion than R360 (8x vs 6x)

 

[Dave Baumann]

Yes, quite. (<---And it feels AWFULLY damned good to finally know something Dave don't and to be able to be annoyingly cryptic about it! Best birthday present ever. )

When I say "recent" I mean as of about 3 months ago. However, I've heard 3 different time periods so far, and I can see at least two of them making sense. I suspect the dates you are hearing may not necessarily be for a retail release - remember, for R500 there are more important things than a quick retail release.

 

[Quitch]

I thought the R400 was dumped because it would be too slow :?

I thought the R400 was changed to the R500 because it was overly ambitious for their timeframe and they didn't think they'd need quite that much to match nVidia or that the new features wouldn't be used/needed yet and they made the R420 based around the R3xx design but highly modified/tweak/turbo-charged-with-bells-and-whistles. (The R420 is sort of like 4 R360s or RV360s on one die with 3 of them enabled is how I remember it being described to me)

As I recall, both those rumours were touted, chip was too slow and was scrapped with R500 becoming R400, while the other was they saw the nv40, laughed, and made the R400 the R500...

If the R500 really is coming out that early, that would suggest the second is more likely, or that they want to quickly move away from the low margins we're expecting them to have on the R4xx chips, to a higher profit range.

 

[Lezmaka]

As I recall, both those rumours were touted, chip was too slow and was scrapped with R500 becoming R400, while the other was they saw the nv40, laughed, and made the R400 the R500...

The way I understood it was that R400 was overly-ambitious for the time frame, so they moved R400 ideas to R500 and started on R420.

 

[Quitch]

The move of the R400 to the R500 might also explain why the R420 looks very much like a juiced up RV360, and doesn't venture into the world of PS3.0 support, so long as it really was started as late as the above rumours (if true) would suggest.

La la la la la...

 

[digitalwanderer]

If the R500 really is coming out that early, that would suggest the second is more likely, or that they want to quickly move away from the low margins we're expecting them to have on the R4xx chips, to a higher profit range.

I think that's going to play a bigger part of it than anything else.

When I say "recent" I mean as of about 3 months ago. However, I've heard 3 different time periods so far, and I can see at least two of them making sense. I suspect the dates you are hearing may not necessarily be for a retail release - remember, for R500 there are more important things than a quick retail release.

I expect ATi to stay true to their very short period from official announcement to release, even with the R500. 8)

 

[digitalwanderer]

The move of the R400 to the R500 might also explain why the R420 looks very much like a juiced up RV360, and doesn't venture into the world of PS3.0 support, so long as it really was started as late as the above rumours (if true) would suggest.

La la la la la...

I still want to know why it was renamed "R420", I still think it was a personal joke specifically for me somehow.

 

[MrGaribaldi]

I still want to know why it was renamed "R420", I still think it was a personal joke specifically for me somehow.

Isn't it obvious? It is the answer to The Ultimate Question * 10

 

[Megadrive1988]

now let me get this straight

the original R500 which was first mentioned by Dave Orton (or some top level ATI exec) in April or May of 2002, well before the R300 launch (summer 2002?) and release (fall 2002) was going to be a generation beyond R400 and two generations beyond R300.

when R400 was scrapped, the advancements were rolled partly into R420, but mostly into the R500. so now the R500 is really a souped up R400.

what happened to the original original R500? it was rolled into the R600, right?

I guess the new R500, which is really a very souped up R400, might get released as early as spring 2005. (late this year is VERY doubtful) or summer 2005. or even fall 2005.

then R600 will likely be the DirectX Next / DX10 part with VS/PS 4.0
(with R500 having VS/PS 3.0 or 3.0+)

??

does this sound about right? correct me if I'm wrong on things (likely I am)

Xbox 2 therefore would probably fall inbetween the new R500 (R400++)
and R600, which is the old R500 plus probably more.

 

[Natoma]

Almost. I think it was that the original R400 was scheduled to be released in this time frame. That changed, my guess is due to the impending XB2 deal, and the R400 became the R500. They then decided to take the R3x0 and soup it up, which became the R420.

 

[tazdevl]

I think one thing folks are forgetting is business fundamentals. ATI is going to maximize it's return on each core and won't push another one out early unless it's getting spanked in the market. I don't think there will be a huge performance delta between the R420 and NV40, so it's something of a non-issue. PS3.0 support... well it's a point of differentiation from a marketing perspective, but since we won't be seeing anything on the market for a while, it isn't a huge selling point.

 

[Paul]

The original R500 was supposed to be the "next big thing" using tech that didn't exist yet.

The plan was for a 2ghz clock and memory speeds, memory at 2Ghz was to be achieved using quad pumped DDR2(if memory doesn't fail me it was DDR2)

Release was fall 2005.

I now know that the original R500 got pushed back into what I think is the R600, again I don't follow PC GPU's much anymore so...

 

[Megadrive1988]

interesting stuff, Paul.

so basicly the old, original R500 is probably indeed the R600, now.

 

[StealthHawk]

I don't understand, what is the point of a 512 meg card? We're barely using all of what 128 can do, UT2K4 at highest settings barely takes 170 megs of ram, Call of duty with the extra settings takes about 150.. Is there an actual game thats going to need 256? hl2 nvidia wise is completely shader crippled, bandwidth means jack shit. On the ATi side its all CPU bound from physics and AI (check shader day if you need confirmation on this one..)

It just seems stupid to me.

256MB boards already have their advantages over 128MB boards. Granted, those advantages are limited to a slim number of circumstances, namely resolutions like 1600X1200 coupled with 6x FSAA. I can believe that 512MB boards will show some performance benefits in new games coming out at ultra high resolution and when using 8x FSAA.

 

[hoom]

The plan was for a 2ghz clock and memory speeds, memory at 2Ghz was to be achieved using quad pumped DDR2(if memory doesn't fail me it was DDR2)

Tick, tick, whirrr
Anyone else notice frequent usage of '2ghz' in the whole 'ATI licences fast14' publicity

They're a long long way away from 2ghz at the moment though.

 

[Toasty]

what happened to the original original R500? it was rolled into the R600, right?

I remember reading some press release indicating that ATI West would be working on upcoming graphics technology for Nintendo. Therefore I would guess that there is no R600 per se, there is only the R500/XBox2 chip and the upcoming Nintendo chip and they are being developed more or less concurrently right now.