R9900 & R9900 pro

[tt_22]

Even more rumours about the R350.

This is taken from xbit-labs. Enjoy.

As we were told by our source, there will be two RADEON 9900 branded graphics cards available later this year. Obviously, the parts will be called as the RADEON 9900 and the RADEON 9900 PRO. Both products should be based on the famous R300 architecture with certain changes in the hardware of chips. Moreover, a source indicated that there may be two different chips for the RADEON 9900 family.

ATI RADEON 9900 VPU will be manufactured using advanced 0.15 micron copper fabrication process that should allow the graphics chip to be clocked at 375MHz for core and memory. It was already noted by a couple of journalists at The Inquirer that the superior 256-bit memory bus by ATI will remain untouched, but I cannot tell you for sure which type of memory will be used on the RADEON 9900 powered graphics cards. Take into account the fact that besides copper interconnections in the chip, certain optimisations may be made in order to boost the performance; nevertheless, architecture in general should not be changed much from the RADEON 9700: the same 8 rendering pipes with 1 TMU per each. This one will be unveiled at CeBIT and will be available almost immediately after the trade-show head-shooting the arch-rival GeForce FX 5800 Ultra.

ATI RADEON 9900 PRO will be made using 0.13 micron technology and will be hugely more powerful than the brethren. It was said that the part will contain 8 rendering pipelines with 2 TMUs per each in addition to more efficient architecture of the VPU itself compared to the original RADEON 9700. The RADEON 9900 PRO may be announced at CeBIT, but do not anticipate ATI to start selling the babe just after the launch as it is not easy to develop a 0.13 micron graphics processor. With more TMUs and higher core and memory clocks ATI wants the RADEON 9900 PRO to compete against the NV35 due this Summer, but since ATI is ahead of NVIDIA in general, they are also likely to be faster than them in particular and start offering the RADEON 9900 PRO this Spring.

ATI have not yet specified the prices on their forthcoming products. Keep in mind that almost all news-stories that reflect the information from inside the company are fully preliminary and may eventually become obsolete as companies usually adjust their roadmap and family of products based on the market situation.

 

[McElvis]

But if the 9900 Pro is only to be available after spring, where does this leave the R400??

 

[RussSchultz]

Perhaps that is the R400...

Though quite honestly, (beyond the fact that ATI likes to give non-sensical numbers to their parts and this rumor would fit right into that), I think the whole thing is BS.

 

[demalion]

Unreserved Agreement With Russ In Every Particular.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

OK...usually in every rumor there is some truth, so I'll speculate and try to find it.

* There will be Radeon 9900 and Radeon 9900 Pros. However, both will be what we would expect them to be: R350s, 0.15 micron, 8x1 architectures. Essentially, "faster versions" of the current R-300 products. One might be 375/350 the other 425/400. These two products will be announced at CeBit. One or both shipping shortly thereafter.

* There is another product (or products) coming in late spring, early summer. These are based on the RV-350. These are built on 0.13 micron, and are 4x2 designs. RV-350 products will probably not be announced at CeBit.

 

[Doomtrooper]

Interesting

 

[demalion]

OK...usually in every rumor there is some truth, so I'll speculate and try to find it.

* There will be Radeon 9900 and Radeon 9900 Pros. However, both will be what we would expect them to be: R350s, 0.15 micron, 8x1 architectures. Essentially, "faster versions" of the current R-300 products. One might be 375/350 the other 425/400. These two products will be announced at CeBit. One or both shipping shortly thereafter.

But this isn't new.

* There is another product (or products) coming in late spring, early summer. These are based on the RV-350. These are built on 0.13 micron, and are 4x2 designs. RV-350 products will probably not be announced at CeBit.

While this reasonable middleground between 4x1 and 8x1 has occurred to me as well, this has nothing to do with anything new stated by this particular item. The 2 TMU per pipe idea has been floating around for quite a while.

The individual ideas of the item aren't total BS, but the mishmash as a whole still strikes me as such.

 

[Hellbinder]

Rubbish...

 

[THe_KELRaTH]

hehehe! Short and to the point.....

 

[Luminescent]

In reference to what, Hellbinder?

 

[THe_KELRaTH]

I would have thought that one area ATI would want to move forward on quickly is from 96bit to 128bit if nothing more than to have equal footing in primary features.

 

[KimB]

As far as "OEM checkbox features" are concerned, ATI doesn't really need to worry. They can still claim 128-bit support, since the 9700 Pro does support those data types. It just doesn't do the internal calculation at that level.

 

[THe_KELRaTH]

Wasn't using 96bit precision purely a bandwidth saver?
I agree it's just a checkbox figure and I certainly wouldn't notice any difference but from a marketing direction many potential customers who just look at and compare box numbers it could be seen as "not as good as Nvidia".
I would also expect new AA/AF modes and not necessarily higher quality. ie possibly a performance AF to compete with the aggressive mode.

 

[Dave Baumann]

It just doesn't do the internal calculation at that level.

They might, if they wished to code it in such a fasion, be able to achieve it by bit stack over two clocks.

Wasn't using 96bit precision purely a bandwidth saver?

This is internal precision we’re talking about here, not external – internal bandwidth isn’t an issue.

 

[PeterT]

AFAIK, doing the internal calculations at 24 bit (per component) only saves transistors, not bandwidth (you would only need more bandwith if you used textures/buffers with higher colordepth).

[Edit] Dave beat me to it [/Edit]

 

[THe_KELRaTH]

Heh PeterT.. I'll let you have the next one!

........

So with regards 96 / 128bit, it would seem that this will only change with the next card that uses .13 then. (excluding the RV350).

 

[Guest]

ATI said there will be NO 0.13 micron Chip untill the R400..........

And since the R350 and Rv350 are based on you guessed it the R300 ...they both will be on 0.15 micron

 

[ClyssaN]

Rv350 will be a 0.13 micron chip.

 

[Guest]

yes they seemed to have changed it..... but it's a bit weird that the Rv350(less powerfull and to be released a short time b4 the R350) will be a 0.13 micron while the R350 stays 0.15 micron.......

This recently released spec makes more sense

ATI RADEON 9900 PRO will be made using 0.13 micron technology the part will contain 8 rendering pipelines with 2 TMUs well that makes more sense and the 9900 stays like the 9700 based on 0.15 micron

 

[ClyssaN]

From reading this foruns, the rv350 only appears after the r350, 8 pipelines x 2 TMUs will never happen