Interesting Info from COO of ATI

[Joe DeFuria]

Dave Orton at CSFB...

http://event.on24.com/eventRegistra...C88D77F231454CC304E28&sourcepage=register

Need to "register" (just make stuff up as per usual), but here's some hightlights:


* DX9 notebook part in Spring. (This would coincide with M10/RV350 rumors)

* Attitude is "Capture the Flag" (technology leadership) and hold on to it. No "one shot wonders." Continue to drive that technology into lower cost segments.

* I believe he said something like money wise (Profit? Revenue? Not sure...) the "high-end" 1/3 of the market is actually about the same as each of the other segments. Volume is certainly less. (I'll have to listen to this part again...)

* Based on what they saw at Comdex (NV30). ATI feels very good about their lineup through the spring when they'll introduce some new products, up to the R-400 in the Summer (post July).

* ATI is trying to continue its "revolutionary" tech / product introduction on a 12 month cycle, with a "kicker" in between (at about the 6 month point.)

* When asked if ATI might unleash the R350 to pre-empt the NV30 given NV30 expected availability in Feb, Orton said something like R350 will be ready for "spring"...but said he was keeping "exactly when in spring" close to his vest...and it likely depended somewhat on exactly what the competition produces and when.

*Sounds like R400 is expected to be introduced sometime "after July".

*Integrated chipset solution strategy: target notebook market first, then migrate to PC market. Claims ATI's integrated solutions captured 18% of notebook market in 8 weeks...about 50/50 AMD/Intel platforms. Expect ATI to start to really push desktop integrated solutions next summer. (Will still concentrate on notebooks for now.)

* ATI did not want to be held hostage by memory tech for its bandwidth, and was the reason to go to 256 bit bus. Feels that they have a lot of overhead against the competition for the "spring performance benchmarks"...given they have both 256 bit bus and DDR-II to draw from.

 

[Geeforcer]

Now the $64K question: what is the R350?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Indeed! Though it is starting to sound like a bit more basis for believing it will be a 256 bit, DDR-II product at least...

 

[Geeforcer]

LOL, quick editing Joe.

BTW, how does ATi designate its chips? Would a higher clocked R300 still be referred to as R300 or would it get a new name?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

ATI has not yet to date simply clocked a chip higher and given it a new name. Of course, there could be a first time for everything.

However, we've been told that R350 had "taped out", so I don't really expect just a speed binned R-300. I don't expect any "major" changes however...possibly a few tweaks and fine tuning here and there, mostly for clock rate.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is analogous to the difference between a Geforce3 Ti and a GeForce4 Ti.

 

[Fuz]

Well I as at the 3December Sydney event last night, hosted by Alias wavefront, Intel, HP and ATI. I thought it would be a good chance to speak to some ATI reps and get some inside info. Wow, I could not have been more wrong.

They let us in at about 8, and served free beer all night while we sat on these really cool air bags. The show started at about 9:45..... by then every one in the place was completely drunk. No one payed attention to the show being presented. No joke. Great night though

* Attitude is "Capture the Flag" (technology leadership) and hold on to it. No "one shot wonders." Continue to drive that technology into lower cost segments.

* ATI is trying to continue its "revolutionary" tech / product introduction on a 12 month cycle, with a "kicker" in between (at about the 6 month point.)

If ATI can pull this of, and maintain its lead for the next year or so, we might have to start calling Nvidia the underdogs

 

[Entropy]

* I believe he said something like money wise (Profit? Revenue? Not sure...) the "high-end" 1/3 of the market is actually about the same as each of the other segments. Volume is certainly less. (I'll have to listen to this part again...)

I listened to this again, and as far as I could hear, he said that money wise "ASPs times Volume" the high-end is as large as the mainstream/value market, and actually larger than the middle end (which I took to mean the 9000 GF4200 9500 segment).

If that was correct, I wonder how much the high end contribute to profits. I'd imagine margins are higher for the high-end products.

Entropy

 

[KimB]

I wouldn't be surprised if it is analogous to the difference between a Geforce3 Ti and a GeForce4 Ti.

I would be. This will be ATI's first real refresh part.

nVidia's first three refresh parts just had a few performance optimizations (RIVA 128ZX, TNT2, and GeForce2 GTS, though the GTS did have more core changes, the only visible changes were in performance). This is what I really expect to see in the R350, but we'll find out when it is released.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I'd guess at R400 being a DX9.1 PS/VS3.0 part given those timescales.

It'll be interesting to see if NV35 will turn up at around the same time or not.

 

[PSarge]

I wouldn't be surprised if R350 was a die shrink (0.15 -> 0.13) for speed/cost reasons, maybe adding a few optimisations along the way. Then just slot it in as a "Pro-Pro" card. After all they haven't got to do much (if anything) to beat NV30 when it finally ships.

R400 - That is the question.

 

[demonic]

Would be great, if someone could interview Dave Orton again. To see if he is *still* excited about the R400.

I mean, now knowing what the NV30 is, and speculating what a refresh part it could be in July-Sept time.

What are his thoughts are on the R400.

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I'd guess at R400 being a DX9.1 PS/VS3.0 part given those timescales.

It'll be interesting to see if NV35 will turn up at around the same time or not.

It will be more than that ...

 

[Username]

Anything about returning to profitability?

 

[Sabastian]

* I believe he said something like money wise (Profit? Revenue? Not sure...) the "high-end" 1/3 of the market is actually about the same as each of the other segments. Volume is certainly less. (I'll have to listen to this part again...)

I listened to this again, and as far as I could hear, he said that money wise "ASPs times Volume" the high-end is as large as the mainstream/value market, and actually larger than the middle end (which I took to mean the 9000 GF4200 9500 segment).

If that was correct, I wonder how much the high end contribute to profits. I'd imagine margins are higher for the high-end products.

Entropy

Hrm.... the only way this makes sense is that their mid range (9000pro,9500, 9500pro) are not yet making much in terms of inroads on the mid range market or it could be that their margins are very low on their mid-range products but very high margins on their high end.(9700) It is likely that their mid-range is simply not doing the volume as of yet because the 9500 + 9500pro have just recently been added to that market, thus making the 9000pro their only real mid-range product. Personally I don't see this card as a real performer and really it shouldn't qualify as a mid-range product but that is where the pricing was granted it was on the low-end mid-range price point. In reality mid-range price points are between $150-$200 USD if so ATi had no real mid-range to speak of in the first place. At any rate this ought to be changing real soon now that ATi has the 9500 + 9500 pro to fill the gap.

 

[Nagorak]

9000 Pro is available for sub-$100.

 

[alexsok]

9000 Pro is available for sub-$100.

Right, reports of 85-90$ R9000Pro based boards have also been noticed, which is great, considering how better these cards really are from the GF4MX series of cards (well, if I'm not mistaken, mx440 8x with it's increased core & memory clockspeeds got a slight edge over the R9000Pro in terms of perfomance, but definetly not in terms of support for more modern features, etc... - it's still a DX7 based card).

Despite my general preference to NVIDIA products, ATI got all areas covered right now and NVIDIA have some major gaps to fill...

 

[Sabastian]

9000 Pro is available for sub-$100.

It is now but when the card was released initially it was over $120+ USD. I know that the card isn't a mid-range product now but I think ATi ment for it to be a plausible filler for an intern period.

 

[Hellbinder]

I posted the A similar post LAST NIGHT, and provided a link.. and not one person replied..

So its news today... but not yesterday eh?

Again, I will say that I have said for a while now that R350 is a real prouct and will get introduced in Q1. You can bank on it getting previewed in Feb, and start trickling out in march. (unless something kinks up the plan of course, but i doubt it).

 

[Bjorn]

It is likely that their mid-range is simply not doing the volume as of yet because the 9500 + 9500pro have just recently been added to that market, thus making the 9000pro their only real mid-range product.

The R9500 Pro was available for preorder a couple of weeks ago but now it's removed. The R9500 is available for preorder, preliminary available on the 16'th according to the store.

This is in Sweden though, dunno about the situation in other countries.

Anyway, it's easy to understand that they're not making any money on products that people can't buy (at this moment at least).

 

[Sabastian]

Yeah I really think that the R350 launch time frame will be dependent on when the gffx hits the market. That said I would wager that ATI already has the R400 in the works. Its likely also that the R350 design is complete as well. I am guessing the R350 will likely be the R300 core speed bumped coupled with DDR2... I still think as well that ATi is holding back on the driver front as well these components ought to be enough for ATi to remain very competitive with nvidia until the R400 core is ready for the market. On that note anyone dare to make any insights as to what the R400 will have in store for specs? I am of the mind that some seemingly outrageous specs are in order. (re: I remember just last year that the suggestion of a 256bit bus was a bit much. So just what would be a bit much to expect for next year? )