R520 for notebooks: M58 when and what?

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Karma Police

Regular
Now that the R520 has been released in the desktop space, how long will it be until it reaches the notebook arena? ATi received PC-sig approval for the M58 several months ago so it's been on their minds for a while. nVidia releasing the 7800Go GTX in it's full 24 pipe goodness is going to be a major blow to ATi when it hits the streets in a couple weeks, so I'd figure ATi would release it sooner than later.

Besides release/avilability, having a chip on 90nm low-k would seem to help alot for keeping down the TDP. However the desktop X1800XT requires a dual-slot cooler (voltage, high core, whatever). What would ATi have to do to keep the TDP of the M58 in the same envelope as the Mobility X800XT (~60W)? Do you think the X1800XL would be the fastest ATi could go in a notebook chassis?

Thoughts are welcome....
 
Karma Police said:
Now that the R520 has been released in the desktop space, how long will it be until it reaches the notebook arena? ATi received PC-sig approval for the M58 several months ago so it's been on their minds for a while. nVidia releasing the 7800Go GTX in it's full 24 pipe goodness is going to be a major blow to ATi when it hits the streets in a couple weeks, so I'd figure ATi would release it sooner than later.

Besides release/avilability, having a chip on 90nm low-k would seem to help alot for keeping down the TDP. However the desktop X1800XT requires a dual-slot cooler (voltage, high core, whatever). What would ATi have to do to keep the TDP of the M58 in the same envelope as the Mobility X800XT (~60W)? Do you think the X1800XL would be the fastest ATi could go in a notebook chassis?

Thoughts are welcome....
Click to expand...

R520 will not be going into notebooks, Orton made that clear in the conference call.
 
AlphaWolf said:
R520 will not be going into notebooks, Orton made that clear in the conference call.
Click to expand...

So what does the M58 map to? I wouldn't expect it to be RV530, nor a full R580.
 
Wow. So they have nothing at all to compete with the 7800Go GTX? That is really too bad, considering the growing notebook market and ATi's former dominance there, too.
 
Roadmaps I saw in Q2 talked about an M58 for Q1 06 with 3 versions : 8, 12 and 16 pixel pipes.
 
I don't think it's that simple. Even if it was the R580, that means ATi would have no high-end chip for notebooks until next year. That is very very very bad. If that's what happens then ATi really is failing as a company. To not release a product when their competitor releases TWO successive chips in a row, each better than what ATi has released (6800Ultra Go & 7800Go GTX vs. MRX800Pro).

Even the R520 was a competitor to the 7800. If Ati has no notebook competitor to nvidia at all.........then I don't know what to think.
 
Just a few days ago Dave was also saying that R520 would have no mobile counterpart, and I don't remember him answering when I asked him what M58 was supposed to represent. For whatever reason, ATI is losing the performance/power consumption edge they used to have, and they're fortunate that Mobility X700 got as much OEM business as it did. But they're being shut out of the ultra high-end DTR market quite soundly, and it'll only get worse if there's no R5XX mobile part to compete over the holiday season.
 
*sigh* Delayed chips I can understand. Slow partners I can understand. But to have nothing at all even planned? It wasn't until right now that I thought that ATi is having real problems as a GPU making company.
 
Karma Police said:
*sigh* Delayed chips I can understand. Slow partners I can understand. But to have nothing at all even planned? It wasn't until right now that I thought that ATi is having real problems as a GPU making company.
Click to expand...

Who says they have nothing planned? There are 4 chips clearly to be released for the mobile market sometime in the near future. Just because you don't know what they are, it doesn't mean they aren't coming.
 
AlphaWolf said:
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24342

The quote is Geo paraphrasing the conference call, but I trust him. ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks. :LOL: It occurred to me to wonder, in listening to that answer, if the same point couldn't be made re RV530 --since it reportedly had the same issue. So I'm unsure where that leaves us. It makes no sense to me that ATI would abandon the top end of the notebook market, as that is where the gravy (margins) is.

The logical conclusion to come to --in a Sherlock Holmes "once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the answer" sense, is one I hestitate to put forward, because I've seen no hint of it anywhere. What is it? It would be a high-end notebook chip not based on R520. Whatever that means.

Edit: http://apps.ati.com/ir/EventDetails.asp?compid=105421&eventID=1127267&WebCastId=475636&StreamId=588673&WebcastType=Enhanced%20Audio Starting at roughly 1:43:00. Includes "The real delay was with the X1800 [which sort of contradicts an earlier answer that RV530 was impacted as well]. The notebook market in general would not uptake [?] the X1800. They'd be looking more at the X1600 and X1300. And those products have pretty much stayed on target since the spring. A little bit of delay on the X1600, but. . .so I would say the OEM customers have been working with us well thru the spring and summer and there was no real impact because of the delay of the R520 or X1800 to create a market share loss in notebooks."
 
Last edited by a moderator:
AlphaWolf said:
Who says they have nothing planned? There are 4 chips clearly to be released for the mobile market sometime in the near future. Just because you don't know what they are, it doesn't mean they aren't coming.
Click to expand...

Sorry. I was a little flabergasted earlier. I know there are plans, I really meant plans for now, to compete with nVidia.

geo said that they aren't afraid of losing market share loss due to OEM customers working well with ATI. That's good. I'm glad ATi isn't (apparently) losing any money. But if they end up releasing the new high end GPU in the 1Q-2Q of 06, the end result for the performance segment of notebooks will be almost the same as what happened in the desktop arena: nvidia holds the high end, with ATi following several months later.

Listening to the call, Orton says that the OEM notebook market would come from the 1300 & the 1600, not the 1800, so there isn't much of a loss from the delay for the 1800. He doesn't say there won't be a notebook 1800, only that the delay of the 1800 won't effect their market share. Anyone else understand it that way?
 
Karma Police said:
I don't think it's that simple. Even if it was the R580, that means ATi would have no high-end chip for notebooks until next year. That is very very very bad. If that's what happens then ATi really is failing as a company. To not release a product when their competitor releases TWO successive chips in a row, each better than what ATi has released (6800Ultra Go & 7800Go GTX vs. MRX800Pro).

Even the R520 was a competitor to the 7800. If Ati has no notebook competitor to nvidia at all.........then I don't know what to think.
Click to expand...

not having a high-end notebook chip is not a big thing; those monster DTR gaming laptops are a very small market. Having good mobile version of the mainstream chip is much more important

there was no high-end notebook version(at the same time as the original chip) of
* 1st gen radeon(radeon mobility was half of basic radeon)
* radeon 8500 ( notebook part was 7500 which was basic radeon + dual DAC's and more clock speed)
* radeon 9700 (they had 9000/9200 )
* radeon 9800 ( they had 9600 and mobility 9700 which were half of 9800 )

the ONLY radeon-branded chip ati has had high-end DTR mobile version is X800.

AFAIK nvidia has only had high-end mobile versions of GF6, GF7 and GF4.
and the GF4 was nowhere to be found, all notebook manufacturers were using radeon 9000 as it was much more battery-friendly chip though it was not so powerful.
 
While I understand that, the notebook market is replacing the desktop market. That means that while there used to be (& still is, for the most part) an emphasis on pure mobility to generate revenue for the chip companies, the growing DTR notebook share in the overall notebook market (really starting over a year ago with the MR X800 & 6800Go) has both nVidia & ATi using notebooks are a forum to demonstrate their technological "lead" over their competitor.

Even though in the desktop market almost all the money is also made in the mid & low-end side, imagine what would happen if ATi never released the R520 & only the R530 & R515? It would stop being a technological leader. I remember when ATi used to be that way (back in the Rage Fury days), and ATi worked very very hard to get where it is now. Honestly though that's not what is happening here, anyway. ATi is releasing a high-end notebook chip sometime (hopefully before the end of the year) to compete with the 7800Go GTX.

Re-listening to Orton talk about the notebook market he just says the delay of the 1800 would not affect their revenue, so I'm seeing ATi releasing the MR1800, just sometime after the desktop 1800XT. At this point in time (after the R520 launch) I just thought there would be more info on the M58, whatever it is.
 
IMO they are now going skip DTR/Notebook R520 and go with a R580 when its available. The main system of any significance in terms of volume is likely to be the Dell system and they probably won't refresh until the new year, so they would look to that. R580 will have most of the advantages as R520 will, but considerably more shader horse power, so they will be able to clock this one down more and still get a decent range ofer performance.
 
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