ATI to scrap X700XT in favour of X800?

kemosabe

Veteran
So say the Chinese.

If they can afford to build them at that price, it would seem like a far more effective way of waging battle with the 6600GT. Can't see what place will remain for the X700 Pro, however.
 
390Mhz-core/700Mhz-mem -12pipes - 256bit memory - for $229? Sounds like a killer upgrade for most 9700/9800 owners when they get that AGP bridge chip ready.
 
would server r3xx onwers to wait for the paper launch of the r520. see if its a worthwhile release performance wise. if it isnt you know a new chip is a long ways off and you could probly get a x800 for cheap by then. if it is a worthwhile release then you have the best. or at least it will force prices on older cards down.
 
A X800SE with its 8 pipes will out do a 6600GT. The X800SE keeps up with a 6800 non ultra with 12 pipes. X800 with 12 pipes will blow away a 6600gt and the 6800 non ultra. The bad thing is the lowest price on a X800se is $320. :(
 
{Sniping}Waste said:
A X800SE with its 8 pipes will out do a 6600GT. The X800SE keeps up with a 6800 non ultra with 12 pipes. X800 with 12 pipes will blow away a 6600gt and the 6800 non ultra. The bad thing is the lowest price on a X800se is $320. :(

Yeah and that is the problem. I mean its easy to say " they should use this or that product to battle the 6600GT".
The problem is manufacturing costs.
The 6600GT is great and @the moment the best product available.
ATI seems to have a lot more problems with its mainstream parts than Nvidia this round.
Further on they still have the problem of not having an AGP bridge available. I do smell market share losses on ATIs side.
It might be easier for them to sell a kind of crippled X800 instead of their paper X700XT but that would not keep Nvidia away from doing the same - in that case selling a 6800SE or something like that based on NV41
to counter that and in the meantime lowering prices on NV43.
 
as we wrote at HEXUS this morning, ATi RADEON X700XT is being dropped in favour of a new part - RADEON X800XL - see ATi plots to drop X700XT – replaces with cheaper, faster 12-pipe X800

relative to most everything it could produce between NV25 Ultra and NV40, NVIDIA really seem to have come back on the boil, and at its target price point, 6600GT sure seems compelling...

but in the mid-range - with this X800XL - i'd say the probability is that it's now going to be down to real world availability, price and the financial incentives with which each company will be willing (or able) to pad the pockets of the higher tier SI's and retailers...
 
X700 XT was a board vendor SKU. Parts were coming out that could potentially be XT's or PRO's, but evidently ATI can't bin to that level of granuality at the chip level so it was left to the board vendors build the boards and bin them themselves - board vendors are saying that this is more hassle and cost than its worth at the moment. I'd be surprised if ATI say to board vendors "don't do that any more" but I wouldn't expect too many XT's in the market anyway. There was supposed to be another Rev of RV410 but maybe ATI just aren't bothering with it.

Paul, X800 XL is R430 with 16 pipes at 400/500 for $350, X800 (vanilla) is R420 with 12 pipes ~400/350 for $250.
 
DaveBaumann said:
Paul, X800 XL is R430 with 16 pipes at 400/500 for $350, X800 (vanilla) is R420 with 12 pipes ~400/350 for $250.
thx Dave - appreciated - i'll update the HEXUS News Post and link* you up, and this thread.

you know me Wavey - i just tell it like i done get it... :)




*not 'link up' as in like a chained up 'gimp' in a box - a situation i suspect you narrowly escaped yesterday lunchtime? :mrgreen:
 
So, Dave, given everything that has happened since nV40 and R420 launched, would you care to revisit our discussion from a while back on Low-K, yields and how it would probably affect Ati? :devilish:
 
And what does low-k yields have to this, being that we are discussing 110nm parts that don't have low-k?
 
PD said:
DaveBaumann said:
Paul, X800 XL is R430 with 16 pipes at 400/500 for $350, X800 (vanilla) is R420 with 12 pipes ~400/350 for $250.
thx Dave - appreciated - i'll update the HEXUS News Post and link* you up, and this thread.

you know me Wavey - i just tell it like i done get it... :)

Sorry, that should read: "X800 (vanilla) is R430 with 12 pipes ~400/350 for $250."

*not 'link up' as in like a chained up 'gimp' in a box - a situation i suspect you narrowly escaped yesterday lunchtime? :mrgreen:

I though it was AB that likes that particular role, and I know he only takes it from you.
 
Like I said above, I'm looking at the overall picture since R420.

I guess X700 shows that a gpu designed with Low-K in mind (R42x family derivation)won't translate as easily to non Low-K as you might hope.

This is hardly a suprise given nV3x's history.
 
DaveBaumann said:
Paul, X800 XL is R430 with 16 pipes at 400/500 for $350, X800 (vanilla) is R420 with 12 pipes ~400/350 for $250.

Isn't the XL memory clocked at 700MHz (effective)? And I thought the vanilla X800 was based on R430 also, not R420. :?

Edit: Ok, saw your correction.
 
DaveBaumann said:
I though it was AB that likes that particular role,
ah... just the authoritative confirmation so many of us have been waiting for... :p

DaveBaumann said:
...and I know he only takes it from you.
here, you are most definitely mistaken... please don't mistake me for Mr. H's 'sweet toy', Mr. Sassen... :mrgreen:
 
I guess X700 shows that a gpu designed with Low-K in mind (R42x family derivation)won't translate as easily to non Low-K as you might hope.

It wasn't "designed with low-k" in mind, thats an option that can be used. Remember, all this stems from 9600 which was 130nm FSG.

Low-k itself hasn't been of any particular issue, remember they have been delivering lots of RV360's, M11's and RV380's to OEM's in quantity. Part of R420's problem is actually from the fact that they yielded slightly better in terms of defects and they ended up giving out lots of R420/3 cores with only 8 pipes as they promised them to OEM's, but that wasn't a particulatly efficient use of the core, but they had to sell something in the price range gap between RV380 and R420/3; R430 is exactly designed to plug this gap, which should leave more room higher end R480 parts to actually be used in the higher end configurations.

The main issues with R420 appears to be that they overextended their reach with the 520MHz PE and that there were other issues throughout the production line, including board level yeild issues (which is why they have now switched board suppliers for both R480 and R430).
 
The story here is actually probably related to memory.

X700 XT is specced to use 1.6ns GGDR3 memory, which is probably still fairly expensive, however X800 is using 350MHz RAM which is probably quite a fair bit cheaper which will help offsetting the core and board (256-bit bus) costs. Dependant on availability of RAM there may be more room to manoeuvre with X800 prices.

Although PC Partner will be producing the mainstay of the default boards, I'm also told that AIB's will be free to produce their own board variants for X800 and X800 XL as well.
 
DaveBaumann said:
The story here is actually probably related to memory.

X700 XT is specced to use 1.6ns GGDR3 memory, which is probably still fairly expensive, however X800 is using 350MHz RAM which is probably quite a fair bit cheaper which will help offsetting the core and board (256-bit bus) costs. Dependant on availability of RAM there may be more room to manoeuvre with X800 prices.

The 6600 GT doesn't seem to have any availability problems, doesn't it use the same type of RAM as the X700 XT ?
 
I'm saying the reason board vendors aren't really concerned about trying to bin is because its a fair bit off effort for not a lot of gain given the memory pricings.

6600 GT also uses 2ns (500MHz) GDDR3, X700 XT was specified with 1.6ns 600MHz RAM (runnings a 525MHz).
 
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