Does Dave have ATI SM 3.0 Hardware?

[nelg]

Check out his sig.

 

[jvd]

No , but ati does . Which is what his sig says . I'm assuming that the final tape out of the r520 has been completed and they are happy with the way the cores are functuning and will be launching this revision

 

[Geo]

I'm trying to reconcile this with his "feeling" that NV was closer to next gen release than ATI, and the fact that most folks are talking 3Q for NV's next gen. . .

 

[digitalwanderer]

I'm trying to reconcile this with his "feeling" that NV was closer to next gen release than ATI, and the fact that most folks are talking 3Q for NV's next gen. . .

Feelings sometimes are wrong.

 

[egore]

You will not see next gen from NV until WG 2.0 or what ever Microsoft calls the next DirectX. NV will milk the current design for all it's worth to recoup there R&D costs just like ATI did with the r300.

 

[sexualrug]

You will not see next gen from NV until WG 2.0 or what ever Microsoft calls the next DirectX. NV will milk the current design for all it's worth to recoup there R&D costs just like ATI did with the r300.

Apparently ATI will still milk a bit more out of the r300.

I dont know how much money ATI spent on the r300 r&d, but I think it is safe to say it was a great investment. I wonder what the ratio of returns vs. costs will end up being.

Only a few months away. Meanwhile, I can justify postponing my upgrade and continuing to play UT2004 at 640x480 with sound off. :?

 

[Geo]

It is, shall we say, innnnnteresting that Dave's sig would change at the same time as GDC was kicking off. . .

 

[madshi]

I'm trying to reconcile this with his "feeling" that NV was closer to next gen release than ATI, and the fact that most folks are talking 3Q for NV's next gen. . .

Did he mean R520 or R6xx with "next gen"? R520 ist not really next gen IMHO. I think he probably was talking about SM4.0 capable stuff.

 

[oddfellow]

I'm more than sure that Dave wouldn't have actual hardware to test at this point, but of course he will have knowledge of what's happening at ATI and what isn't.

I take his sig as an indication that ATI's SM3.0 part is done and dusted.

 

[Jawed]

Yeah, the R500.

Jawed

 

[mjtdevries]

did it occur to anyone that it might refer to the gpu in the Xbox2 and not to the PC part?....

 

[CMAN]

did it occur to anyone that it might refer to the gpu in the Xbox2 and not to the PC part?....

He could be refferring to either, but since he the link was to a post about the XBOX 2 article at Gamespot that said the chip had SM 3.0, I wouldn't specifically count on his signature changing due to the R520. But I wouldn't count it out...

 

[Redeemer]

I'm trying to reconcile this with his "feeling" that NV was closer to next gen release than ATI, and the fact that most folks are talking 3Q for NV's next gen. . .

Did he mean R520 or R6xx with "next gen"? R520 ist not really next gen IMHO. I think he probably was talking about SM4.0 capable stuff.

Why isn't the R520 a next gen, it is different in everyway possible. More shader engines, pipelines, smaller core size, PS 3.0. It expected have 3x the power of X800XT. How can you keep the architecture the same if they are switching to 90nm.

 

[Sinistar]

Dave's sig changes, and Cebit start tomorrow. could this be just a coincidence?

 

[egore]

R520 is coming out before Xbox 2 so I assume Dave is hinting at the R520.

 

[tEd]

It's a joke

 

[ninelven]

erased

 

[ANova]

I'm trying to reconcile this with his "feeling" that NV was closer to next gen release than ATI, and the fact that most folks are talking 3Q for NV's next gen. . .

Did he mean R520 or R6xx with "next gen"? R520 ist not really next gen IMHO. I think he probably was talking about SM4.0 capable stuff.

Why isn't the R520 a next gen, it is different in everyway possible. More shader engines, pipelines, smaller core size, PS 3.0. It expected have 3x the power of X800XT. How can you keep the architecture the same if they are switching to 90nm.

How exactly is it different? It's built on the same architecture as the R420, which in turn is built on the R300. The only difference is in the fact that it will support SM3 and above and offer a modest core clock increase. I doubt it will feature more then 16 pipelines and it will definitely not be three times faster, more like 20-50%.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

How exactly is it different? It's built on the same architecture as the R420, which in turn is built on the R300. The only difference is in the fact that it will support SM3 and above and offer a modest core clock increase. I doubt it will feature more then 16 pipelines and it will definitely not be three times faster, more like 20-50%.

If the hints and rumors turn out to be true, then there will be certain circumstances where the 520 architecture is a significant improvement over anything else on the market today. The branching capability in the NV4x architecture, for example, while functional, isn't particularly robust / fast. ATI's been dropping hints that they will have a better solution for it.

We'll just have to wait and see.

I could see, at most a 2x increase in "general throughput" though, with 50% being more realistic.

 

[trinibwoy]

I'm stumped. Why does everyone think that ATI will move to SM3.0/FP32 and bring significant performance gains with R520 while Nvidia is saying that their refresh will be a modest improvement at best.