Radeon XPress 200 (RX480) chipset preview

[mboeller]

I'm rather surprised about the "SidePort" Memory.

IMHO this feature seems rather half thought out, cause an 32bit DDR memory @350MHz has only around 2800 MB/sec bandwidth. Why don't they support an 64bit bus? With an bandwidth of up to 5600MB/sec the performance of the integrated graphics-chip whould be a lot higher, or?

They do support a 64bit bus (acording to techreport) - but Ati suspect that most motherboards only will use a 32bit connection like the reference board.

Yeah...I have just read the Techreport-Preview. Hopefully this information is accurate.

 

[Tim]

Yeah...I have just read the Techreport-Preview. Hopefully this information is accurate.

It is confirmed by Ati:

http://www.ati.com/products/radeonxpress200/specs.html

But I really don't care a 300MHz 2 pipe GPU are not going to offer good performance anyway.

 

[Richard]

I thought that SLI effectively means a x16 PCIe slot with 16 lanes is split into two x8 lanes, however still featuring the original x16 connector.

Yes.

According to Anand ATI is planning the same. So the only proprietary thing is the flat cable / PCB kludge between the cards + the drivers to divide up the work. As Anand also states in his interview... then it should be possible to run two nVidia GPUs in SLI configuration in a ATI-based motherboard ;-)

That's my point. If nVidia's discrete SLI connector (which is apparently just a PCI-e 1-lane connector) will only be available from SLI-capable mobos (and not bundled with the cards themselves, like the Voodoo2) and then ATi's doesn't let their mobos come with that nVidia connector you'll be out of luck.

I'm not saying that if (for whatever reason) you already have that nVidia connector you won't be able to use nVidia's SLI on ATi mobos.

 

[mboeller]

Only two pipelines in the IGP is a bit of a downer though.

Its not really going to be much of a concern to anyone that actually know what they are buying though - I don't think you'll find that many here running the graphics!! However, wait until you see what it does to a 9200 SE!

So when will we see Your review? Will You use an board with 32bit/16MB Sideport-Memory or with 64bit/32MB Sideport-Memory?

 

[Dave Baumann]

So when will we see Your review?

<sigh> :?

 

[micron]

So when will we see Your review?

Dave's review is right here.

 

[jvd]

so no agp version ?

 

[Bjorn]

so no agp version ?

Is there really a need for that ?

 

[nobody]

so no agp version ?

Is there really a need for that ?

I think as long as you can still buy new motherboards with AGP there is a need for that.

 

[Basic]

I think as long as you can still buy new motherboards with AGP there is a need for that.

Do you know what kind of product this actually is?

 

[John Reynolds]

I've seen Loyd Case of Ziff-Davis, CGW, and Extremetech.com fame assert that it's possible both NV and ATI will dump AGP support entirely for their next generation.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I've seen Loyd Case of Ziff-Davis, CGW, and Extremetech.com fame assert that it's possible both NV and ATI will dump AGP support entirely for their next generation.

I could see that, by the time the next gen is out most of the higher end mobos will probably be PCIe and anyone getting a top-o-the-line viddy card next generation will need a top-end CPU to utilize it.

Good time for the switch, I'm just glad they didn't do it this generation.

 

[Bjorn]

I could see that, by the time the next gen is out most of the higher end mobos will probably be PCIe and anyone getting a top-o-the-line viddy card next generation will need a top-end CPU to utilize it.

Considering the next gen consoles, you might actually need two or three (cores at least) of them

 

[mboeller]

So when will we see Your review?

<sigh> :?

Upps...

Maybe I should check the frontpage from time to time. I only checked the news-forum for an discussion about the review like always, but I found no thread about the Review so I just assumed there is no review at all.

 

[Dave Baumann]

There's now a "Beyond3D Articles" forum in the news section.