R520 = Dissapointment

[caboosemoose]

Well, from my brief experience with the card, it's not a disappointment any more than the GTX was - neither deliver a massive boost in hte context of the perf leap achieved last time round. It doesnt trash the 7800 GTX, but it does deliver lots of useful extra performance in many of the latest and toughest games.

But I agree, the XL is very unattractive - it's the new X800 Pro. It's doubly unattractive when you consider that it uses the buggy version of R520.

 

[Hubert]

Buggy version ? Elaborate, please ! I read they stopped the production and they are reusing waffers, because the bug wasn't in the silicon but in the metal layer. They will be totally healty chips.

 

[Arun]

For this generation, I bet Crossfire will not be hacky. The resolution issue will be gone.

Yeah it seems to be, but separate Crossfire cards remains a bummer in my book.Although it'd definitively gain a few points in my book if SuperAA became worthwhile options...

2 x Dual DVI link is a minor advantage you missed.

Good point.

Uttar

 

[chavvdarrr]

X1xxx line is where it was expected ?!
Let me see...

-paper launch - 1800XT won't be available for 1 more month
-paper launch - 1600 won't be available 2 more months ( till 30.XI)
- 1800XL launched - beaten or on par by/with 7800GT. More expensive and 4 months later.
Available ... in 1 week hopefully.
- 1300 launched, with MSRP on 6600/6600GT lvls, yet it fails to beat them clearly.
Availability?

-Drivers. These are supposed to be already well-optimised (working silicon 1 year ago, etc). Yet NV is the one that added good boost in dual-core scenario. I don'y think thats a plus.

If that is not a failure, I have no idea what IS.
Put off your pink glasses please.

 

[caboosemoose]

OK, what I mean is I understand that the chips on the XLs are a different spin from the XTs that are coming and hence certainly do not clock as high. In other words, dont buy an XL expecting to get close to XT speeds for the core, because you won't.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I'm not disapointed. The R520 looks like it will do what ATi needs it to do, and lets face it it's so late to market that it's pretty much a stop-gap card anyways.

 

[Thelacky]

The most interesting thing was the possibility of a GPGPU API.

 

[Tim]

It's just late. Need to see OC benchies.

But for what, $150 more is the marginal increase of x1800 worth it? Maybe in some newer games we'll see more of a difference as someone else suggested.

Stop comparing MSRP with street prices! the x1800xt is not $150 more expensive than the GTX in fact the MSRP similar - you can not say anything about how the street prices compare before the x1800xt is actually availeble.

 

[Mordecaii]

Well to be honest Tim, going by that logic we may as well say the X1800 XT doesn't even exist since it has no retail listing! And street prices will most likely be determined by availability so if ATI can't manufacture enough cards to keep up with demand then I guarantee they will be at or above MSRP.

 

[chavvdarrr]

also
no FP16 filtering
vertex texturing - using "hacks" "opengl way"
I bet all developers should say one BIG "thank you, ATi"

 

[weeds]

Most of the reviews I've been seeing are of the X1800 XT against a 7800 GTX with the original stock speeds, but recent boards have been pushing stock clock speeds on the 7800 GTX's to 450/1250 and even higher. I'm curious to see what a 7800 GTX at that speed versus the X1800 XT would look like, and I'd also like to see what a 512MB 7800 GTX card would do at the higher resolutions with AA/AF enabled since many reviewers commented that the 256MB of the GTX was probably holding it back in some benchmarks.

Heres one useing retail boards.
XFX 7800 GTX (450/1.25)
XFX 7800 GT (450/1.05)

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=172&type=expert&pid=1

 

[Geo]

OK, what I mean is I understand that the chips on the XLs are a different spin from the XTs that are coming and hence certainly do not clock as high. In other words, dont buy an XL expecting to get close to XT speeds for the core, because you won't.

Did you see Wavey's text on that? I found it very confusing. It sounded like they fixed it on the chips mid-production. . .only I can't believe they did or they'd have made them XTs instead.

 

[Mordecaii]

Ok cool, I had read that review but failed to notice the fact that the card was running at 450/1.25. It definately seems like the 7800 GTX and X1800 XT are quite close to each other!

 

[caboosemoose]

Did you see Wavey's text on that? I found it very confusing. It sounded like they fixed it on the chips mid-production. . .only I can't believe they did or they'd have made them XTs instead.

Could you quote the bit from Wavey's review if you get a chance, i don't have the strength to wade through and find it.

 

[wireframe]

Stop comparing MSRP with street prices! the x1800xt is not $150 more expensive than the GTX in fact the MSRP similar - you can not say anything about how the street prices compare before the x1800xt is actually availeble.

This is true, but I think many people are worried about ATI being able to meet demand and therefore it may be unrealistic to expect prices that are competitive with Nvidia's parts unless ATi forces the prices down to meet the GTX. For example, last round the street prices for ATi products were often higher than the MSRP, in some cases much higher.

 

[Geo]

Could you quote the bit from Wavey's review if you get a chance, i don't have the strength to wade through and find it.

Here's what he said:

Some may question why the X1800 XL's are being introduced immediately, but the XT's coming a month later. Silicon for all the parts are in production, but the final configuration of the silicon and metal layers was resolved fairly late, and with the production times taking up to three months for chip orders to final products the XT's are coming a little later, once those chips appear. ATI can make XL's available fairly shortly because they had placed large silicon orders earlier, but stopped the production once they realised there were still issues, meaning there were many cut wafers but without metal layers – as the issues could be resolved with a change to the contacts and metal layers ATI could utilise the silicon that had already been cut and apply new metal layers and all of these are going towards the initial XL products.

If the issues are really "resolved", then why aren't they XTs, is my question.

 

[wireframe]

Heres one useing retail boards.
XFX 7800 GTX (450/1.25)
XFX 7800 GT (450/1.05)

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=172&type=expert&pid=1

This is the first review I read with power usage numbers. If these numbers are accurate it does not bode well for a mobile R520 part. That thing eats powerlines. Usually I am not one to worry too much about power consumption, as long as the cooling solution doesn't drive you nuts, but it doesn't look good for ATi in the power management area compared to Nvidia. Comparing the values when idle is almost shocking.

 

[caboosemoose]

Yes, it's a good question. I have been told slightly different versions of the story of what went wrong by ATI as we approached launch. The latest variant was that the problem was in the ringbus controller, which leaked badly beyond a certain frequency (appraently some third party IP was used, the technical schematics (or whatever) of which proved to be faultly in some regard).

My understanding is that the tweaked bus is in a later spin and the certainloy the first XLs don't get it. Quite how this squares with Wavey's info, I'm not sure.

Basically, i don't know what the truth is, and I'm not convinced it's all out in the open. But unfortunately, I don't think I can OC my XL sample to see how it performs as the usual tools apparently don't work (havent tried yet, am mega busy, will prolly try to have a go tomorrow).

If it turns out that the XL samples will only clock up by a very small amount, that will be some indication of the situation.

 

[Mariner]

- 1300 launched, with MSRP on 6600/6600GT lvls, yet it fails to beat them clearly.

Aaaargh!!!

I still can't believe so many people still do the MSRP/street price comparison! It simply doesn't make sense to do a comparison such as that because we know that the street price of a newly released product will drop rapidly if it has good competition.

See what prices are in a couple of months and then feel free to criticise if the price difference is similar - that is the only sensible comparison. The only reason street prices should be of interest at this point in time is if you intend to buy during the next week or so. The only price of any product that counts is the one which you actually pay, not the price it was in the past.

 

[wireframe]

If the issues are really "resolved", then why aren't they XTs, is my question.

I think it is quite straight forward: ATi observed a problem in clocking the R520 cores. They did some respins and metal layer changes to try to fix the problem before they discovered that one of their layout tools was defective. This helped but did not fully resolve the problem. The improved, but not "perfect" cores will be used for XLs while the latest respin with the core problem resolved will be used for the XTs.

This is not good and I am not sure how ATi will be punished for this information leaking out. The XL or GT (from Nvidia) class products are often popularized by their ability to be overclocked to XT or GTX/Ultra levels. Even if not everyone succeeds in doing this with their board, the hope is there and it makes it sweeten the deal. It looks like no such chance exists with the XLs that ATI will bring to market for release. Presumably later batches will not have this problem as they are based on the "perfect" core revision. This may hurt sales as people wait instead of buy, giving Nvidia more time to plan their response.