ATI's Xbox2 chipset : Designed at same office as R500....

[DeadmeatGA]

http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20030815S0012

So it is certain that Xbox2 chipset is indeed a R500 derivative. The question is, did MS ask ATI to double vertex shaders as it did to nVIDIA??? How many are we looking at here??? 16??? At 500 Mhz, is it enough to claim 2 billion polys/s peak figure???

Will MS switch the CPU supplier to AMD as well???

 

[PC-Engine]

How many polys can the R400 pump out? We can use the R400 as reference.

 

[zurich]

How many polys can the R400 pump out? We can use the R400 as reference.

I thought the R420 was rolled into the R500?

edit: wait, isn't the Marlborough office the same team that did the R8500? Shitty :?

 

[PC-Engine]

How many polys can the R400 pump out? We can use the R400 as reference.

I thought the R420 was rolled into the R500?

edit: wait, isn't the Marlborough office the same team that did the R8500? Shitty :?

No, the R400 is coming out later this year or early next year. R500 is due late 04 or early 05.

 

[Paul]

From what I know about the R500(Radeon 2), this is "it" basically. Based on tech not seen by anyone yet.

The plan is for 2Ghz core and memory speeds hence the Radeon "2". We'll see what happens...

 

[Vince]

No, the R400 is coming out later this year or early next year. R500 is due late 04 or early 05.

From what I've picked up around Beyond3D, R400 is basically dead as it was origionally known. If this was intention (say Microsoft pushed DX10 artificially back to meet XBox and as Z said well, "ATI rolled R400 into R500"), or if they just F-ed up we don't know. Me thinks current speculation points to something called R420/Loki being released which is an extention of the R3x0 architecture in the interim.

Pehaps Dave Baumann can... better enlighten us as to the current speculation. If I'm mistaken or wrong, please correct me.

 

[akira888]

Isn't the Marlborough office the same team that did the R8500? Shitty :?

Have to disagree with you there, it really was a competitive card when it was released for a reasonable price. The only major oversight is a lack of multisampling support. I got mine Christmas Eve of 2001 IIRC and still use it as my primary gaming card. Problems with driver support, certainly, but that was due to ATI's traditional cost-skimping (which is thankfully a thing of the past) and not engineering failures per se. It is also ATI's third best card family (still), after the R3XX and the RV350, and a much better value than the 9000/9200.

 

[Megadrive1988]

The neat thing is, no matter where XGPU-2 is being designed, it should have *some* Lockheed Martin Real3D technology in it.

what I didnt realize though, is, according to that EETimes article, the R400
(or R420?) is being designed at the ATI-west/california, which is pretty much the ArtX team. maybe they got it wrong. even EETimes isnt perfect.

 

[Dave Baumann]

From what I've picked up around Beyond3D, R400 is basically dead as it was origionally known. If this was intention (say Microsoft pushed DX10 artificially back to meet XBox and as Z said well, "ATI rolled R400 into R500"), or if they just F-ed up we don't know. Me thinks current speculation points to something called R420/Loki being released which is an extention of the R3x0 architecture in the interim.

R100 - Markham (no longer a 3D development center), clean sheet design
R200 - Marlborough, clean sheet design
R300 - Santa Clara, clean sheet design
R420 - Santa Clara, continuation development (in a similar fashion to NV3x being a development of NV2x) of R300 probably with some design concepts and elements of the original R400
R500 - Marlborough, beefed up R400 (which was a clean sheet design initially)

A couple of things - though. DX10 hasn't been pushed back, they are moving to a longer cycle time, and they have been for a long time. This makes sense as cycle times with silicon processes are getting longer so there are unlikely to be as largescale leaps in 3D technology as there has been over the past 5 years in such short periods. DX10 is more than likely timed with Longhorn rather than anything else.

The original R400 has been moved back to late 2004 / 2005 to make way for R420 early 2003. the originalk R400 was probably targetted at DX10 and so there would be litte need for it at the period it was initially timed at. Its also recently been stated that ATI were hiring staff in anticipation of the XBox contract since March '03, which coinincides with when talk of the original R400 dried up. It seems increasinly likely that R400 wa moved back to R500 to meet the later demands of both DX10 and because they were already targetting it for the XBox.

[edit] Perhaps I'm being blind, but I can't see where it explicitly states that the XBox design is with the Marlborough team.

 

[Vince]

[edit] Perhaps I'm being blind, but I can't see where it explicitly states that the XBox design is with the Marlborough team.

I think it stems from this article. The talk of Marlorough also emerged around the time of this article, so it's the best bet.

http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20030815S0012[/url]]ATI (Markham, Ontario) announced the deal Thursday (Aug. 14), which has been in negotiations for more than a year. The company will design a semicustom graphics chip, primarily in its Marlborough, Mass., design center for the video game console and charge Microsoft for upfront engineering and per-unit royalties, said Rick Bergman, vice president of marketing for ATI.

Thanks for the post Dave, excellent as usual.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Ahh, good, thank you - I think the jigsaw has fallen into place now.

Interesting that they say the development will "primarily" be done at Marlborough. My guess is that there will be some elements from the consumer division from Markham in there as well.

 

[Megadrive1988]

If the R500 is now going to be a beefed up version of the original R400, then what about the original R500? I guess the obvious answer would be the original R500 spec will show up in the more distant R600, but I dont know.

or.... perhaps the original plans/ideas for R500 will show up in XGPU 2, since XGPU-2 should be a beefed up R500.

what do you say?

 

[Cyborg]

Its the first time i hear that its artX team that is handling the R420, I thought the talk was that R400 moved to R420? In that scenario i dont think a small team like artX could of handled R350 and early R400 that closely.

If santa clara's division is handling NES 5, possibly a next gameboy, R350 recently, plus R420 for 2004, i have to ask the question, what the hell is the marlboro team doing? Their last card, the R200 and their next one being R500 and xbox2 gpu, there's something wrong here.. Incompetence maybe?

 

[V3]

Their last card, the R200 and their next one being R500 and xbox2 gpu, there's something wrong here.. Incompetence maybe?

Perhaps, but like Dave said, no DX10 yet, there is no need for R400, so they're moving to R500 instead. This sort of things happend.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Its the first time i hear that its artX team that is handling the R420, I thought the talk was that R400 moved to R420? In that scenario i dont think a small team like artX could of handled R350 and early R400 that closely.

If santa clara's division is handling NES 5, possibly a next gameboy, R350 recently, plus R420 for 2004, i have to ask the question, what the hell is the marlboro team doing? Their last card, the R200 and their next one being R500 and xbox2 gpu, there's something wrong here.. Incompetence maybe?

I believe that the ArtX team is doing the N5 GPU and probably the new Gameboy GPU as well, and no more than that.

All other ATI chips are getting designed by the Marlboro team(s) or other ATI design centers.

But I also think that many of the things that the ArtX team does, gets shared throughout the rest of ATI, and the same with the Marlboro or any other team. If one team designs some really impressive element for a GPU, it gets shared, and all of ATI benefits from it.

I think there is a commen technology base were anything inovative made by one team is spead around to all the others.

 

[jvd]

THey most likely merged the r400 and r500 and that is what the new r500 is . The r420 is supposed to be an improved r350 . It should go against the nv40 pretty well . I remember back when the r300 launching the head of ati said something like wait till you see the r400 that is amazing . Meanwhile the 9700pro was destroying everything in it path.

 

[Tagrineth]

Its the first time i hear that its artX team that is handling the R420, I thought the talk was that R400 moved to R420? In that scenario i dont think a small team like artX could of handled R350 and early R400 that closely.

If santa clara's division is handling NES 5, possibly a next gameboy, R350 recently, plus R420 for 2004, i have to ask the question, what the hell is the marlboro team doing? Their last card, the R200 and their next one being R500 and xbox2 gpu, there's something wrong here.. Incompetence maybe?

I believe it was... Marlborough's R400 turned out to be a dud, so what was to be Santa Clara/ArtX's R500 is being converted to R420, and Marlborough is rebuilding R400 to be... not a dud... and go into the now-vacant R500 slot.

 

[cybamerc]

Wasn't the R400 turned into R500 and handed over to the Marlborough team? I dunno, it's all very confusing Everyone seems to have their own spin on it.

 

[Megadrive1988]

The last thing I read was that R400 was totally scrapped, the R420 is a heavily upgraded R3xx, and the current in-development R500 is the original R500. if that makes sense.

of course it was just what someone on some forum said, no idea if its true

 

[AzBat]

Re: ATI's Xbox2 chipset : Designed at same office as R500...

Will MS switch the CPU supplier to AMD as well???

That's a rumor I've heard, but I think at this point anything could happen. I think the choice depends on few things. 1) Where Microsoft goes to get the GPU designed and fabricated at 2) Who they select for the southbridge. I suspect there has been some very heated discussions and contract bidding going on with probably all the PC players. Who knows when we will find out.

Tommy McClain