Radeon 9800 "XT" Clues

[Dave Baumann]

I mentioned in the other thread that ATI will have another product available in a few months or so, and there are some clues as to what that product is.

Evidently the DDR-II RAM on the 256MB 9800 PRO, which is currently running at 350MHz, is actually rated for 450MHz operation. When ATI went out to find some RAM for this product they couldn't get much in the way of DDR-II rated at 350MHz, but strangely Samsung had a fair amount of 400MHz+ DDR-II stockpiled but, now, unused so they sold it to ATI at a very attractive rate. Radeon 9800 PRO 256MB's may have a reasonable memory overclock because of this, but by the looks out the layout and the length of some of the traces I'll wager that this will not get up to these levels.

The new product that will come out is probably likely still to be a Radeon 9800 classed product, but with a newer suffix - "XT" was one name that was mentioned to me, but that is early. The speed of the RAM available to ATI could give some clues as to what they are aiming for, but some fairly major board revisions will be required for this.

 

[Evildeus]

Any information on the clock rate of the chip? And on the heat of the memory chips (like on the NV30)?

Thx for the information.

 

[Sage]

gee thats funny, I seem to remember predicting this very thing a few months ago...... maybe they read that thread

 

[LeStoffer]

When ATI went out to find some RAM for this product they couldn't get much in the way of DDR-II rated at 350MHz, but strangely Samsung had a fair amount of 400MHz+ DDR-II stockpiled but, now, unused so they sold it to ATI at a very attractive rate.

Strangely? What's so strangely about a certain other IHV not going to use them for a certain mass product after all?

 

[tt_22]

So we can more or less expect the R360 to be the 400/460 card that has been rumoured ??

 

[jerry_enCater]

You mean
Overclocked R9800PRO is the same performance as R9800TX ,dont you?
And what about R360?
R360=R9800TX????

 

[Joe DeFuria]

but strangely Samsung had a fair amount of 400MHz+ DDR-II stockpiled but, now unused...

Lol...

 

[Dave Baumann]

IMO, 'R360' is a falacy. It will probably be A13 revision silicon of R350 - I'd be highly skeptical that there is actually a chip called 'R360', but whether we see something branded that way, I don't know. Same with RV360 - if they feel they need to do something with that then I'd doubt they will even go with spin, but just start to speed bin them (which they are not at the moment).

As for clocks, no I don't know. they actually asked me what my suggestion for clocks was and I said 460/450 if they can manage it, but I suspect the release core speed will be much lower than that.

Presently 9800 PRO 256MB is drawing about 63Watts, off the top of my head, and NV35 I believe is in the high 70's. ATI designed 9800 to stick very much within OEM requirements, but "XT"'s speeds will depend on how much ATI are willing to say "hang it" and just aim it for more for retail and high end rigs, like NV35 Ultra, and give it more power.

 

[Sage]

yup, i believe I mention that that would happen a long time ago.... I'm one for irony and i LOVE this- nVidia has to go back to DDR while ATi gets to use nVidia's DDR-II supply for CHEAP(-er than DDR-I? )

 

[Fuz]

As for clocks, no I don't know. they actually asked me what my suggestion for clocks was and I said 460/450 if they can manage it, but I suspect the release core speed will be much lower than that.

They asked you! Why didn't they ask me???..... jeez, can ATI stoop any
lower!

 

[Pete]

Speaking of power requirements, any thoughts on whether this XT will be 256MB-only? I would think a card this fast would probably need that much mem simply b/c ppl will be able to run quite a few games at 16x12 4xAA.

 

[tt_22]

I can't figure out why it has taken ATI this long to get this release out.
ATI has actually given away their 6 month head start on NVIDIA, IMHO.

If the R360 just is a clockimproved version of R350 I think they still will have a hard time challenging the NV35. Now NVIDIA have a big head start on the 0.13 process and is ready to launch NV40 in the fall.

 

[Calavaro]

As for clocks, no I don't know. they actually asked me what my suggestion for clocks was and I said 460/450 if they can manage it, but I suspect the release core speed will be much lower than that.

ATI must be very confident in their r3xx if they are asking for suggested speeds.
460 core would be nice. Might prompt me to upgrade from this 1st gen r9700pro.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Presently 9800 PRO 256MB is drawing about 63Watts, off the top of my head, and NV35 I believe is in the high 70's. ATI designed 9800 to stick very much within OEM requirements, but "XT"'s speeds will depend on how much ATI are willing to say "hang it" and just aim it for more for retail and high end rigs, like NV35 Ultra, and give it more power.

Sounds very much like how I've been predicting it. I wonder if the "XT" will be available as an ATI brand only. Personally, I think that may be the smartest way to go for products the "OEM's don't want" (like the NV30 Ultra and presumably the Radeon 9800 XT). By the chip IHV selling these products directly, the IHV:

1) Doesn't have to deal with allocation issues, which can be very difficult to manage with such low volume products and keep all OEMs happy

2) OEMs don't have to deal with trying to sell a product they "don't wan't" (very high power requirements.)

3) OEMs still benefit from the mind-share of having the same "brand" as a market leading product.

The key disadvantages are:

1) ATI has to directly support the end user, and having to have that infrastructure for such a small volume of product can be costly.

2) Each of the individual OEMs would probably prefer that IT was the "only" supplier of the super-enthusiast part.

 

[DegustatoR]

So what stops NV from bringing somewhat an overclocked NV35 to market? They already have it all - 500MHz Core, 500MHz DDR2, 256bit Memory Bus. It won't be that easy for ATI to regain perfomance leadership i suppose...

 

[Tagrineth]

Anyone remember the rumours of the Radeon 8500XT? 8)

 

[Joe DeFuria]

So what stops NV from bringing somewhat an overclocked NV35 to market?

Nothing. Though just like with the NV30, it might require a leaf blower. NV35 in its present form also alreay (apparently) consumes significantly more power than the R350, and it has "two tier coolling" etc.

In other words, the NV35 is already "overclocked", relative to the R350. So as you start "overclocking" them, the returns will diminish faster for the NV35 than they will for the R350.

 

[Hellbinder]

I have sent a few emails off to Ati people i know in the last month or so. Basically Freaking out about the Clock speeds and WTH they are thinking around there.

Anyway.. I would expect that if the R360 is a myth, that It will be a redesigned PCB, beefer cooling system, and knowing ATi... my guess would be 435 core and something between 425-460MHz ram.

A nice realistic ballpark figure for me would be 435/450

 

[WaltC]

As for clocks, no I don't know. they actually asked me what my suggestion for clocks was and I said 460/450 if they can manage it, but I suspect the release core speed will be much lower than that.

ATI must be very confident in their r3xx if they are asking for suggested speeds.
460 core would be nice. Might prompt me to upgrade from this 1st gen r9700pro.

I've been playing around with the clocks on my stock 9800P and think that ATi has good reason to be confident.

My first experiment was 438/371, but after a few different applications I did start seeing some artifacts, so I tried something different--I pushed the core to 445.x and dropped back to 365.x on the ram--and bingo--it's running like a champ. No artifacts or lockups after rigorous testing. I suppose I will try an even 450 on the core soon and wouldn't be surprised to get there without incident. But I do these things very slowly....

With my former stock 9700P after much experimentation I found that 350/333 was the best I could with no artifacts, lockups or other problems.

*ahem, choke* My 3DMark 03 score *gasp* is 5860 @445/365 (Athlon 2000 + thoroughbred--Chaintech 7njs nf2 mobo) , which jumped 100 pts or so from the 57xx I was getting at 438/371. I wasn't so much interested in the 3DMark scores as I was in using it to stress the vpu after my various overclock settings. As I see a slight performance increase after slightly raising the core clock from 438 to 445 and slightly lowering the ram clock from 371.x to 365.x, it would appear as if the 9800P has plenty of bandwidth room at the stock clock of 380MHz (maybe, as I tested at 1024x768.)

 

[Seiko]

425/425 and even then that would be the maximum.

]I have sent a few emails off to Ati people i know in the last month or so. Basically Freaking out about the Clock speeds and WTH they are thinking around there.

Anyway.. I would expect that if the R360 is a myth, that It will be a redesigned PCB, beefer cooling system, and knowing ATi... my guess would be 435 core and something between 425-460MHz ram.

A nice realistic ballpark figure for me would be 435/450

Yes I'd agree in fact I'd aire towards the slower more cautious speed to 425/425 and wouldn't be too surprised to see a 400 core clock speed. ATI always seem to lean on the cautious side. I've said it before that I think we've seen the last of the major speed bumps with the R3xx. Why else would ATI need the R360, if the R350 was originally capable of a stable 400+/400+ wouldn't they have simply opted to use those clockspeeds and destroy NV35 before it's launch?
Alas nope, I still stand by the idea we'll not be seing anything stella with the so called R360. Sure it may muddy the water a little as to who is the king of the hill and may even have better profit margins but I don't think we'll be seeing any enormous improvements. R350 set the tone and it wasn't very impressive. Of course you could certainly argue a clockepeed of 380 of .15 isn't anything to be sneezed at but falling shy of 400 really helped me decide that the R3xx on .15 won't be reaching 450 any time soon! i.e. never! please note, I'm not dissing the R3xx core at all as I think it's a stella chip and will certainly go down in the history notes as being one hell of a performer!