Hrm I was thinking that this will be the only DX9 mainstream card available for some time according to this article. The claim is that the NV30 will be Nvidias only offering in terms of a DX9 card. I found this conclusion surprising because up untill now I would have thought that it could be made to work at lower clock speeds. Now I am unsure of this according to this statement found at the bottom of the article. "NV30 as a performance leader will hardly help NVIDIA as it will be unable to offer the same kind of features for reasonable price on the mainstream market this year". Is this true or is it pure speculation on behalf of the writer of the article?
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1033004236
"RADEON 9500 Series: The Specifications. And DirectX 9.0 For All…
Posted 9/25/02 at 9:37 pm by Anton
While NVIDIA continues to feed the industry with the graphics chips like the GeForce4 MX440 with AGP 8x and GeForce4 Ti4200 with AGP 8x (see this news-story) that can provide DirectX 8 or even DirectX 7 support , its main rival ATI Technologies plans to be fast to the market with a broad range of their DirectX 9 supporting solutions.
This Fall the Canadian graphics processor developer will launch a number of simplified versions of its RADEON 9700 chip to meet the requirements of all the market sectors. In the near future ATI will announce its RADEON 9700 graphics cards that will be clocked lower compared to the RADEON 9700 PRO. I am still not sure about the actual speeds, since some sources indicate 300/600MHz for core/memory, meanwhile other say that the clock-speeds will reach only 275/550MHz. The other features like 256-bit memory bus, AGP 8x and 128MB of DDR SDRAM onboard will remain unchanged
As we reported earlier, the RADEON 9500 will be announced in mid-October and there will be two versions of this VPU. We have hinted you the main difference between the RADEON 9500 and 9500 PRO in our issue published on Sunday (see this news-story), now this web-site revealed the whole bunch of the information for our reading pleasure.
Both RADEON 9500 and 9500 PRO are derivatives from the RADEON 9700 VPU. Both support AGP 8x, DirectX 9.0, provide four geometry engines, dual 400MHz RAMDACs, HyperZ-III, TrueForm 2.0 and so on. In order to lower the costs of their mainstream solutions, ATI decided to use 128-bit memory bus for the RADEON 9500 / 9500 PRO based graphics cards. All the RADEON 9500 powered products will be clocked at 275/550MHz for core/memory. The difference between the PRO and “non PRO†versions is the number of rendering pipelines: eight for the former and four for the latter.
Remember that the RADEON 9500 PRO based graphics cards will cost approximately $219, while the RADEON 9500 – about $179. Manufacturers are free to decide about the graphics memory size: either to install 64 or 128MB of DDR SDRAM.
Basically, the RADEON 9500 and the RADEON 9700 utilise the same graphics core that allows to shut down half of the rendering pipelines. It should be pointed out that ATI RADEON 9500 will not be packaged in the same FCBGA chip like the more powerful VPU, because it does not utilise 256-bit memory bus. The efficiency of ATI’s approach is great as it allows them to offer a broad range of solutions, powered by only one graphics core. This should allow ATI to spend less money on R&D and manufacturing.
As is known, NVIDIA will launch its NV30 later this year. The VPU is likely to beat RADEON 9700 PRO in performance, but with no doubts it will not be able to compete with lower-end models in terms of pricing. Since companies earn most of their revenues and profits selling mainstream products, NV30 as a performance leader will hardly help NVIDIA as it will be unable to offer the same kind of features for reasonable price on the mainstream market this year."
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1033004236
"RADEON 9500 Series: The Specifications. And DirectX 9.0 For All…
Posted 9/25/02 at 9:37 pm by Anton
While NVIDIA continues to feed the industry with the graphics chips like the GeForce4 MX440 with AGP 8x and GeForce4 Ti4200 with AGP 8x (see this news-story) that can provide DirectX 8 or even DirectX 7 support , its main rival ATI Technologies plans to be fast to the market with a broad range of their DirectX 9 supporting solutions.
This Fall the Canadian graphics processor developer will launch a number of simplified versions of its RADEON 9700 chip to meet the requirements of all the market sectors. In the near future ATI will announce its RADEON 9700 graphics cards that will be clocked lower compared to the RADEON 9700 PRO. I am still not sure about the actual speeds, since some sources indicate 300/600MHz for core/memory, meanwhile other say that the clock-speeds will reach only 275/550MHz. The other features like 256-bit memory bus, AGP 8x and 128MB of DDR SDRAM onboard will remain unchanged
As we reported earlier, the RADEON 9500 will be announced in mid-October and there will be two versions of this VPU. We have hinted you the main difference between the RADEON 9500 and 9500 PRO in our issue published on Sunday (see this news-story), now this web-site revealed the whole bunch of the information for our reading pleasure.
Both RADEON 9500 and 9500 PRO are derivatives from the RADEON 9700 VPU. Both support AGP 8x, DirectX 9.0, provide four geometry engines, dual 400MHz RAMDACs, HyperZ-III, TrueForm 2.0 and so on. In order to lower the costs of their mainstream solutions, ATI decided to use 128-bit memory bus for the RADEON 9500 / 9500 PRO based graphics cards. All the RADEON 9500 powered products will be clocked at 275/550MHz for core/memory. The difference between the PRO and “non PRO†versions is the number of rendering pipelines: eight for the former and four for the latter.
Remember that the RADEON 9500 PRO based graphics cards will cost approximately $219, while the RADEON 9500 – about $179. Manufacturers are free to decide about the graphics memory size: either to install 64 or 128MB of DDR SDRAM.
Basically, the RADEON 9500 and the RADEON 9700 utilise the same graphics core that allows to shut down half of the rendering pipelines. It should be pointed out that ATI RADEON 9500 will not be packaged in the same FCBGA chip like the more powerful VPU, because it does not utilise 256-bit memory bus. The efficiency of ATI’s approach is great as it allows them to offer a broad range of solutions, powered by only one graphics core. This should allow ATI to spend less money on R&D and manufacturing.
As is known, NVIDIA will launch its NV30 later this year. The VPU is likely to beat RADEON 9700 PRO in performance, but with no doubts it will not be able to compete with lower-end models in terms of pricing. Since companies earn most of their revenues and profits selling mainstream products, NV30 as a performance leader will hardly help NVIDIA as it will be unable to offer the same kind of features for reasonable price on the mainstream market this year."
