Ati shows 9700 with ddr2 on techtv?

The segment would have probably been a lot more informative if the poor guy from ATI could have gotten a word in without Leo Laporte interrupting! :)
 
Yeah, Leo's always concerned that the viewing masses might not understand such high tech terms like "bigger funnel" or "faster clock." :LOL:

He always has to cut in and 'clear things up' by using descriptive statements like "so, you're saying that this part over here now talks to this thingy faster than before?"

:LOL:

Interesting to know they have a working sample though. I wonder what the memory clock was?
 
That's very intresting!
It will be very intresting to see whether ATI would offer a DDRII variant of R9700pro when NV30 launches to further reduce the possible advantages NV30 could have over it... ATI are in a really good position right now, they're pretty much setup in all the segments in the market and the possibilities for reducing prices are pretty large and could hurt nVidia when they launch NV30 based cards...
 
Sabastian said:
[shivers]Man... [/shivers] dats gotta be one fast card. :eek:

No doubt the difficulty of owning one will be acquiring a cpu and ram config that can keep up...fortunately dual channel DDR is on it's way to a motherboard nearby...

Mize
 
Personally, I wouldn't expect the DDR-II on that engineering sample board to be running any faster than the DDR on the current consumer boards.

Aren't DDR-II manufacturers having a difficult time producing samples at high clock rates anyway? Why would they complicate their testing by using the most cutting edge (highest clocked) DDR-II they can get their hands on?

The ATI dude stated that it was fresh back from the lab (couple of weeks was his words I believe). I doubt that this is a validation sample, but more likely a first run engineering sample to check for memory controller compatibility and performance issues using DDR-II. They'll probably tack on some high speed stuff when it is a bit easier come by, and when they're ready to do final validation before production ramp.
 
I finally got a chance to watch the show. Taped it last night. I was cringing the whole time as leo was rubbing his greasy little hands all over the board the whole time he had it in his hands.
 
I dropped by ATI last night and quitely stole one. ;) lol. naw but what Bigus Dickus said was correct. The sample board didn't have high speed DDR II.

Aren't DDR-II manufacturers having a difficult time producing samples at high clock rates anyway? Why would they complicate their testing by using the most cutting edge (highest clocked) DDR-II they can get their hands on?
 
Well apparently according to the rumored specs of the NV30 it will only have a 128bit bus coupled with some fast DDRII.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=47749&highlight=#47749

'Inqwell's Fuad"

As we previously said, the NV 30 will have only 128-Bit interface which is half the speed of the one used on the fastest gaming card around, ATi's Radeon 9700 PRO.

The fastest NV 30 will work on the nice round number of 1000MHz, bringing graphics memory to a 1GHz speed for the first time in history.

The Radeon 9700 has 256bit bus and by the looks of this showing on TechTV it will also use DDRII. If this is the case then surely ATI will have an NV30 "Buster" in wait. What else could it be that nvidia has done to possibly outdo the Radeon 9700 with DDRII? I am anxious to see just how this card from ATi will compare to the NV30. I am surprised there arn't more rumors floating around about ATIs NV30 "Buster".

'Inqwell's Fuad"

One of the key questions is, who has this kind of memory? And if you search the net for a while you will find that Samsung promised volume production of this DDR II memory capable of up to 1GHz speeds in Q1 2003.

This means that some volumes will exist for December, when this card should appear on the shelves. Nvidia's CEO, Jen Hsun, never said that there will be loads of cards but there will be some cards shipping and on the shelves for that time.

The simple fact of the matter here is that nvidia does not own any special rights to this memory and ATI should be able to utilize the memory in conjunction with the Radeon 9700...... Further ATi should be able to put more of the cards on the market as they are already shipping and manufacturing, in volume, the Radeon 9700. So does nvidia have a leg to stand on? What could there be on the NV30 that would help it to outperform a 256bit bus coupled with DDRII memory that the Radeon 9700 will be endowed with?
 
You guys should trust The Inquirer more. The best source for news on the net :rolleyes:

Sabastian: Your assumptions are pretty much useless till NV30 specs are officially released.
 
If I were assigned to do the layout for a PCB having a 256-bit memory interface running at 1GHz, I would probably break into tears. :eek:
 
Actually, I just realized that ATI is in one hell of a bind regarding their product model naming. Specifically, if they don't move on from the Radeon name, what's the numbering for the next iteration?

10900? Ick.

Model numbers of almost all products are hundreds or thousands. Rarely does anyone go up into the ten-thousands or down into the tens or ones.

So, I wonder if they'll be forced into a name change of some sort to get out of the model number bind. I'm sure marketing is already mulling this one over.
 
Radeon X series.

Sort of like Mac OS...the awareness there will make the barrier for acceptance weaker. Oh, and "X" sounds sexy too. ;)

Radeon X 100 ... a whole new lease on life.

Of course, a new name would work too, but I think the Radeon commonality up and down the product line is too important to them at this juncture.
 
V3 said:
Is 9700 bandwidth limited ?

Well, Mr. ATI on The Screen Savers made a comment about the R300 VPU "gobbling up" all the memory bandwidth they could give it... his suggestion was clearly that it was waiting on memory in the current state. I find that hard to believe, but I suppose as far as AA is concerned it's possible.
 
Humus said:
From what I've heard the 9700 is mostly limited by the core rather than memory.

If that's true then maybe things aren't so bad for Nvidia after all. Instead we'll basically see both of the major graphics card companies taking a different approach: ATi will use slower DDR memory with a 256 bit bus, while Nvidia will use faster DDR-II with a 128 bit bus.

On the other hand since some of ATi's products will feature a 128 bit bus, it seems pretty obvious that they can easily change to that + DDR-II if that proves more cost effective. So, for that reason, I'd say ATi might still be in better shape as far as memory goes.
 
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