CrossFire Slipping?
- Thread starter Geo
- Start date
Inq did suggest August, today.
But previews suggested reviewers would get hardware in late June. . .and then subsequent reports started looking like July.
Ati said that XFire Masters for the X850 would be available in July, and the other two in August.
Orton kinda hedged a touch in the conference call, suggesting that they'd start shipping in July. . .but that they "don't control when it will show up in retail" (OWTTE) at least as regards the motherboards. As apparently only they are selling the masters, you darn well think they would control that end of "retail", at least at www.ati.com store.
Thing is, if it was July for reviews I would expect that at least *a few* of the usual Signs and Portents would have shown up by now.
Rys smirking, Wavey dropping cryptic remarks. Y'know, the usual.
But previews suggested reviewers would get hardware in late June. . .and then subsequent reports started looking like July.
Ati said that XFire Masters for the X850 would be available in July, and the other two in August.
Orton kinda hedged a touch in the conference call, suggesting that they'd start shipping in July. . .but that they "don't control when it will show up in retail" (OWTTE) at least as regards the motherboards. As apparently only they are selling the masters, you darn well think they would control that end of "retail", at least at www.ati.com store.
Thing is, if it was July for reviews I would expect that at least *a few* of the usual Signs and Portents would have shown up by now.
Rys smirking, Wavey dropping cryptic remarks. Y'know, the usual.
Agreed. The usual indicators haven't materialised yet and as it stands, one gets the feeling that August is the soonest one can expect official reviews.geo said:...Thing is, if it was July for reviews I would expect that at least *a few* of the usual Signs and Portents would have shown up by now.
Rys smirking, Wavey dropping cryptic remarks. Y'know, the usual.
What's happening on July 26th, 2005? The date was brought up a few months back as a launch date for R520, but as we all know that's out the window. Perhaps it's now the date for the Crossfire reviews, although that seems unlikely as well, unless the reviewers are off to an ATI Editor's Day within the next week or are in the process of currently receiving Crossfire systems.
Interestingly IIRC, Orton seemed to alternate between referring to "launching" Crossfire and "annoucing" Crossfire at Computex, when discussing the Computex unveiling in the Conference Call, but as geo said above, he was essentially shifting the availability onus on to the motherboard manufacturers, whereas it would appear that a critical component is the master card variants, of which ATI is the sole supplier. Perhaps the motherboard manufacturers are dragging their feet, although I can't see why they would -- weren't pics of a reference Crossfire motherboard up in one of the threads at Xtremesystems.org at the time of the X850 XTPE 512MB Tech demo in Feb?
Perhaps ATI are thinking what the hell, let's just go for a September blowout -- Crossfire for R4xx & R5xx, R520, RV5xx, R5xx Mobility + dog in one, all you can eat gorgefest, although it would probably tip any reviewer with an ounce of sanity left, right over the edge.
Cheers,
BrynS
It is curious --as you say, we saw pics of reference mobos in February. One assumes if nothing else, ATI could supply reference mobos for reviewers. Obviously we saw some master cards too in May, and just how many X850 master cards do they think they need to launch with given the market and that they are sole supplier? Several hundred would probably do it, I'd think.
No, it sniffs like they've hit a problem of some sorts, probably on the driver side. Whether it be compatibility or performance, who knows.
Fudo did hint at one point at them scrapping X8xx CrossFire altogether, in favor of a more refined R520 variant, but I'm not ready to go there yet. For one thing, the X800XL variant probably really would be welcome in the market, and I doubt they are going to have an R520-equivalent of that immediately.
No, it sniffs like they've hit a problem of some sorts, probably on the driver side. Whether it be compatibility or performance, who knows.
Fudo did hint at one point at them scrapping X8xx CrossFire altogether, in favor of a more refined R520 variant, but I'm not ready to go there yet. For one thing, the X800XL variant probably really would be welcome in the market, and I doubt they are going to have an R520-equivalent of that immediately.
Well, gee, someone gets to see CrossFire in July!
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merc...&Store_Code=M&Category_Code=taxfree05
[Props to ShaiderHaran over at R3D for pointing this out]
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merc...&Store_Code=M&Category_Code=taxfree05
[Props to ShaiderHaran over at R3D for pointing this out]
Well at least we have a good idea of "when" now.geo said:
digitalwanderer said:Well at least we have a good idea of "when" now.
Gad, I hope that's what it means (i.e. reviews by July 28th). Certainly that would be a traditional read of this kind of thing.
But I'm feeling a little cynical still and not quite willing to go with the traditional read without at least one more Sign or Portent. 8)
I'm not thinking that will happen the same day for some reason, I'm thinking the 28th will be the very first day anyone really gets their hands on some crossfire lubbing.geo said:
I think it'll be about a week after the event before we get reviews and such.
digitalwanderer said:
That'd be fine with me. Dark Geo is worried that this is just a "show the flag" exercise for a little free pub, to pique interest a bit, and do a solid for a valuable retailer (who seems to be consistently rising in the community's mind these days). And that it doesn't mean anything at all about reviews/availability. But then, I don't particularly like Dark Geo and try to keep him in his cage as much as possible.
Don't embrace your darkside, but I wouldn't dismiss it yet either....you pretty much laid out my worst case scenerio/fear for this launch. :?geo said:Dark Geo is worried that this is just a "show the flag" exercise for a little free pub, to pique interest a bit, and do a solid for a valuable retailer (who seems to be consistently rising in the community's mind these days). And that it doesn't mean anything at all about reviews/availability. But then, I don't particularly like Dark Geo and try to keep him in his cage as much as possible.
We'll see.
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