Did ATI hold back on R520 to make room for R580?

Ah well, less fun than I was hoping for.

Jawed

 

So what's thread about? Stay away from R520 and the upcoming 512 MB GTX? Sorry, too lazy to read.

 

As much as I agree with your line of thinking, can ATI reduce R520's price keeping in mind its relative costs?

 

The thing is, ATI could have charged out the full-cost + margin of R520 back in May/June when it should have been launched. The XL and XT would have held close to their MSRP over the summer and the AIBs woulda been happy.

If you follow that timeline, then the "right" price for XL/XT, now (in the face of the originally scheduled refresh, R580), should be notably lower. Just the same as both GTX and GT are significantly cheaper now than they were at launch (with the refresh of G70 about to appear).

Isn't the fact that there's no X1800Pro or vanilla (SE) sorta telling? It indicates that there's no 12 or 8 pipe variants - perhaps because yields are good. Or perhaps because X1800XT is due for a price-crash about a month after it hits market.

In the end, ATI can't expect AIBs to take a hit on margins because of its own engineering problems. That'll just scare them off. They'll be looking to NVidia. Some already have, apparently.

So ATI has to take the hit. In theory the hit won't be massive because it's X1300 and X1600 where the margins really lie - and those SKUs are only 1-2 months late.

Jawed

 

So what's the X1600 for?

Isn't it the other way around? The X1300 and X1600 are lower margin, higher volume, higher revenue parts.

 

Why is the MSRP of X1600XT $200 lower than the MSRP for X1800XL. You'd have thunk that there'd be X1800Pro/SE SKUs to fill that gap, wouldn't ya? Or that the X1800s are wildly over-priced?

The high-end counts for about 10% of all sales volume (in the desktop product set).

Jawed

 

Although there can be other factors, reduced pipe-count boards are often a function of wafer defects, of which there are always some (well, often lots); its probably inconcievable that there aren't reasonable numbers of chips that function at a reduced pipe count. The fact that there is no such SKU announced or apparantly on the horizon is quite telling.

 

WTF? Now those ATI lovers begin to believe the R580 will be a beast and will crush any prodcut from a certain company, doesn't those guys said the same thing about R520 just a few weeks ago? So basically now R580=the new R520 for ATI die-hard supporters.

Even people in driverheaven or rage3d are more realistic about ATI's situation and their "upcoming" R580.

 

Call me the cynic of the party, but I think it's completely possible. I'm glad the OP brought it up, for I was curious about it also.

Look at the voltage used on the XL compared to XT cards for core and memory, and what they can do, even with the stock hsf, after they're boosted in voltage to the point of voltage/cooling stability threshhold. I'm sure you've seen the results over @ XS with XL's doing ~600+/1.4+ and XT's doing on stock air...water-cooling making them up to ~800core and 1.6 (xl) and 1800(xt). Sampsa even showed an XL doing 705/705...with stock memory voltage and xt gpu voltage...if it used the XT hsf.

There's something interesting in the fact the XL's are so darn tamed. I mean, come on...with a decent air cooler it can run 200mhz faster on core and 200+ (400ddr) on mem...If it has the voltage. The XT has some room of it's own as well. To me this screams that the next products (16-1-3-1) will most likely follow the same route. Perhaps with better memory such as DDR4 or better DDR3 (or maybe both options if the pcb + flip chip becomes reality)...but most likely using higher voltages and/or better hsfs for better clocks...causing them to fall exactly where ATi wants you to believe they perform...whereas the older XL and XT might not be shabby performance-wise in comparison all voltages and cooling being equal.

Sure, the extra pixel power will help on R580, but it won't be super extraordinary. Just look at RV530 (X1600) compared to RV515 (x1300). It'll be the same type deal with r580 to R520. 3pp per rop. Yes, it helps a but...but so does clockspeed...and they'll use it as much as they have to. I'm banking on ATi using stock voltages/clocks to place the products where they want the average consumer to think they should fall according to features and price, not necessarily where they do performance-capable wise.

I

 

You must be coming into the conversation late --the natives here have been casting covetous glances at R580 since last March.

 

Yeah but you were referring to margins earlier - not sales or revenue. The margins in the high end are much higher than the higher volume parts.

 

Man, over at Rage they're already talking about R600 destroying G80. I've spent a while there now and I must say, the Rage crowd is a lot more religious than the Nvnews clique. Can't blame them much though - ATi has been asking for a lot of faith recently.

 

If you prefer, the high-end cards will contribute relatively little overall profit - and so a reduction in profits on them due to lower prices to AIBs will not be a big hit, overall.

Jawed

 

Revenge.

 

Given the proximity of of the %12MB GTX, it's unlikely ATI will be able to drop the price on the 512MB XT in time. that would effectively mean dropping the price on it as soon as it goes on sale (which, from what I can see, hasnt genuinely happened yet).

 

Well, for what it's worth, ATI's broad performance rating for R580 vs R520 is 1.5x.

 

These guys are delusional. They think the 580 is going to launch end of November..

 

What makes you say this?

It would seem very strange and childish to go for revenge right now. Nvidia took a financial hit in the NV30 era and has made a strong recovery, but I don't think they are in any position to put ATI out of business, so why would they vaporize revenues in the name of revenge?

Are you saying Jen is just wired and crazy like dat?