R400/R500 guessing game

Well, this was sort of a confirmation of some of the things people have been speculated about but also some new info.

-Neutrality-

 

Well part of the post definately wasn't something most people knew, and there are quite a few people over at rage 3d who still believe the R400 is coming out this year. And even if it was well known, maybe it's because someone asked him to, or he decided to take it down because the person who gave him the info got mad, etc.

 

This wasn't the only site where the info was posted. I won't post a link, cos it might be removed if I did, but it isn't very hard to figure out where else it could be.......

 

maybe it was taken down because it had inaccurate information...

 

So anyway... this is now the R500 speculation thread.

Your thoughts? They must be shooting for full DX10-compliancy (or near as dammit) now, huh?

MuFu.

 

Mmm, this is getting out of handImaginatory dellirium in progress, send thought police in order to bring speculation to a stop Guys, R500 already?I`m starting to feel like a mammoth among u people

 

So if R390/420/blah won't have ps/vs 3.0, and if R500 is shooting for DX10 level stuff, would that mean they're gonna skip ps/vs 3.0? I realize R500 would have support for it, but i mean a card that is designed for it.

 

PS/VS3.0 is part of dx9.0.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...ce/Shaders/VertexShader3_0/VertexTextures.asp

 

I know that, but no card supports it. I was asking if ATI is gonna skip right over PS/VS 3.0 and go to DX10 level

 

Assuming there will be a R4xx part, why wouldn't it have PS/VS3.0?

Excuse the minor confusion here, but I obviously must have missed a few aspects of the rumour mill.

 

In a thread that has been removed, someone stated that R390 is the same thing as R420 and that the feature set will be largely unchanged from R350.

 

And that they will go straight from R390 to R500. There's gotta be something in between though, imo. They must be aiming R500 for DX10 (unless they have changed that as well?), but DX10 isn't coming out until Longhorn, which is expected in 2005. So what are ATI going to have for at least a year to refresh their lineup?

 

9 month product cycle, right?

R350 + 9 months = winter 2003-2004 - R390(420)?
R390 + 9 months = autumn 2004 - winter 2004-2005

Longhorn (and DX10) is expected in the end of 2004 or in early 2005. So, it makes sense...

Though there is some troubles. First i don't think that there is any DX10 specs that are close to final. How are you going to design chip for that?

Second there is NVIDIA... Which will release hi-end chips in a different manner:

NV35 in May 2003
NV40 (w/shaders 3.0) in winter 2003-2004 (so it will compete w/R390?..)
NV45 in summer 2004, i think (what's ATI's gonna do with it?..)
NV50 around spring 2005...

It looks to me like ATI wants to make R400(500) the development platform for DX10 (again) and release it to market before NV50 (again), like it did with R300 vs NV30...

 

Maybe, but if nVidia gets lucky, they might have a good 2004 year if the NV4x is a good architecture.
Let's hope it is


Uttar

 

Well I assume in a year and a half it might be somewhat more than that.

MuFu.

 

Didn't the EETimes article mention a 2005 launch?


Uttar