R520 - talk, rumours, speculation; the lot!

Well, I'll go ahead and drop it as it's true, I only check into this thread every now and then.

I can't possibly read through all 60+ pages tonight so I'll go with the assumption that the guarantees I'm asking for are addressed.

I'm willing to toss all the 24, 32 pipe talk aside based on that alone - but I *hope* that there are no 24 or 32 pipe versions in the cards, because I just don't feel comfortable with ever ruling possibilities out before the fact.

 

Anyway on a slightly related but more light-hearted note, so do you already have the date in mind you plan to release your overview on the R520 (and derivatives) architecture Dave?

 

Simple sanity check on the VR-Zone stuff. Remember R480? X850 XTPE? Clocked at 540Mhz, with 4 quads at .13u? Do you really, really think that there's any chance of having a card on .09u with SM3.0 and a new memory bus that somehow has 6 quads at 650Mhz? It would have almost DOUBLE the fillrate. THAT'S TOTALLY INSANE. If you think that's possible, you have more faith in TSMC and ATI than I do in any conceivable deity.

 

There's a whole damn lot of steam coming from someone that tells me to calm down or that I have an attitude problem

 

As to the question of dave's "credibility" I find it a pretty moot issue. If he was doing it for quick hits to his site on the front page. Then I'd probably see there was a valid reason for concern. But dave has pretty much been consistent for the past 10 months on what we should expect from ATIS next generation chip. With little to no variation.

 

Hey, I can get worked up y'know - especially if I feel I'm being attacked and ganged up on simply for supporting the plausibility of an alternate scenario.

 

You weren't being attacked at all; I might have worded it a bit too aggressively (because I have an obvious allergy to sensationalism from some sites) but I've nothing against any user here. I don't even know you for christ's sake LOL

 

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if we never see a 24-pipe R5x0 (regardless of how many ROPs it has).

 

Alright alright, it's all good.

The Internet is of course notoriously poor for conveying 'tone' in speech, so I probably just took your post the wrong way to begin with Ailuros.

I assure you, no hard feelings.

@ChrisRay: Believe me I was never questioning Dave's credibility - far from it. In fact I'm the first to recognize and point to his obvious close relationship to ATI. Ruling out possibilities before the fact just intrinsicly isn't in my nature; but I'll admit I didn't read this entire thread before posting today, and I'm assured that within it's depths lie the answers I seek.

Maybe I'll start reading from page 30 or something tonight.

EDIT: If you go back to my original post today, seriously it was just to post that HKEPC preview - I wasn't trying to cause any drama.

 

Well both R520 and followup high end "refresh" R580 seem to be 4-quad designs.

There were some leaked numbers describing either/or, whereby:

R520: 16/1/1/1
R580: 16/1/3/1

First number seems to be the amount of ROPs and all the others a relation of OPs compared to the ROPs. My guess is that the "3" in the latter case signifies a healthy increase in arithmetic OPs/clock compared to R520, probably in a similar way like we saw in G70 compared to NV40.

HKPEK site or whatever it's called claimed a 8600 score from a 650MHz R520 with supposed 6 quads. Considering I get on a 6 quad G70 at merely 500MHz slightly over 8700 points in 3dmark05, I wouldn't say that 8600 points are impossible for a R520 (as I said already); the minor difference being that it can only be 4 quads.

 

Actually I just remember also the recent Anandtech mini-report stating that ATI's marketing materials for the R520 claim an "ultra-threaded quad-core 3D architecture," so obviously the implication being four quads/16 pipes.

Dont worry about me, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Otherwise I would have considered what I just posted here when I was talking the 24-pipe stuff.

 

Considering you're paying at least $375-420+ for a x850xtpe, and you can get a gtx for $450. The GTX is the better deal now. And if the r520 doesnt outperform the GTX signifigantly, the GTX is still the better buy, because the r520 isnt just gonna sink into the x850's($400) spot pricewise at launch, and the GTX will be ~450, with roughly the same performance. Unless of course you're suggesting they are just gonna give the x850s away for ~$300.

That is assuming of course the 3DMark numbers are correct, and of course if the r520 isnt somehow taking much less of a hit with AA/HDR. r520 was due when the gtx came on the scene, they are like, a whole cycle behind it appears. But that's just my average non techie pipeline/rop spitting view.

 

xbd, I posted a rough summary near the top of page 39, in response to silence's request. You can take it as a summary of both this thread and the many other (huge) R520 threads before it.

 

Awesome - thanks Pete, I will do so.

 

Errrm, where does one sign-up for the "I believe Wavey" list, to avoid that whole frying pan thing?

 

Why go here when vrzone provides more accurate info
Dave I believe is quite famous for giving crptic hints, I actually enjoy

 

I figure I'll address one more of these before I go to bed.

Anyway no, I didn't say VR-Zone is more accurate - and yes I *love* B3D. But I don't agree with the policies of my country all the time, and I can certainly choose to argue on the side of another viewpoint from the 'B3D majority' should I choose to do so as well.

But I've already admitted defeat in this so what's the use of kicking me around further?

As for the cryptic hints, well I'm actually not too big a fan, but I will say it wouldnt be B3D without them.

 

But wasn't RV530 titled 4-1-3-1 (or was it 4-1-3-2?) and it's 12 pipe/3 quad design?
Based on that, R580 "couldn't" be 4 quad design?

 

The R580 is not the high end refresh per say, its quite problably going to be launched as a stand alone card next spring. I think people are really disregaurding the role it may play. I would be totally surprised to see it play the role that the 9800XT, X850 did or the 5900U in the recent past. I think ATI has much more important plans for this chip. Hell, do they even need it yet? I dont see it. I also dont know where you got the pipe number from as we're clueless still?