The ATI R600 Rumours & Speculation Centrum

I think they both have their "spies" this way or the other, even if it's just the board manufacturers. Cash does wonders usually.

 

They must have. I think the 512-bit bus was one of the first (and most persistant) rumours that came around even before there was any chip, so there must have been some leaks somewhere. Infact no one still seems to know anything about it except -> 80nm, 720M, 512-bit

 

Or insider friendships.
I was wondering if Stuart Oberman still keeps a "best friends" list at AMD...

 

No single doubt; but looking at the 5*64 / 6 clusters 8800GTS, I don't think it would be too complicated to go to something like 8*64 / 10 clusters (purely speculative) anytime in the future if such a setup makes any sense that is.

Bares the question if ATI's ring thingy is as flexible to reduce buswidth if needed in lower than ultra high end GPUs.

 

Yeah, Sireric's comment about "dedicated clients" if one were to look at 384-bit certainly looks pretty good right now, doesn't it? It does appear to be very modular that way. Since 320-bit is out there on GTS, I can see no reasonable reason why 448 couldn't be on a future high-end sku --tho then presumably you need those extra clients to go with; its a package deal. Right?

 

If we'd be talking about 10 "full" G8x clusters (meaning no "ROP-skipping" for instance) I'd say it would be high time for a 512bit bus.

I was actually asking about the flexibility of the ring thingy on ATI's architectures, since if it shouldn't be as flexible it would explain the higher jump for ATI from 256 to 512bit.

 

look at these pics from hexus, mmh.

 

i kinda doubt hexus would leak screenshots of an X2800. Report on leaked screenshots? Yes. Leak them? no. I'd go with one of those dual GPU concoctions that one of the AIBs was working on.

 

Hexus didn't say they were R600.

 

no but you did (or you at least questioned it). Or did you just post them here for the hell of it?

 

It´s a PowerColor X 1950 Pro with Heatpiepe

 

Umm. I think the members would be annoyed by a "let's link random funky looking shots of cards that aren't R600" threadlet. So let's not, please.

 

No way. Not with a 512bit bus. That would be a waste.


I'm leaning towards 32 ROP's, 96 vec4 ALU's, 32 TMU's all clocked at 800+mhz.

 

Hey all i have to say is that if R600 is slower than G80, ATI is going to have some issues on their hands.

 

Nonsense. The only inportant thing how easy/cheap it will turn out to be for ATI to downscale their DX10 technology for the mass market.

Ultra High End is a niche market and it's reputation will only noted by those that take an interest in video cards anyway and as such will know where to find the info for the best bang for their bucks.

 

That's pretty banal, don't you think? Won't NV have some issues on their hands if G80 is slower than R600? And just how much slower is "slower", anyway for it to create "issues"? And how do features match up, and pricing? What if G80 wins 130fps to 120fps in most scenarios, and R600 wins 150fps to 100fps in other bw-limited scenarios that skew towards high-end gamers? Would anybody other than pathological fast twitch types care about either result?

 

So nVIDIA nowadays overestimate its competition while ATi is underestimating?

I mean if even the most intelligent (no offence to some ) on this forum didnt expect a USA from nVIDIA along with a whole truck loads of stuff, then im sure ATi didnt also expect it.

Id say they expected a fixed function architecture as david kirk seemed to indicate. Possibly a DX10 chip similiar to G7x, with 48 pixel pipelines as most rumours seem to have been reporting pre-G80. If the estimated target performance of ATi's R600 was indeed abit low due to this, then they could be in big trouble.

David Kirk is a genius... i mean really.

 

You're really underestimating how incestuous the industry is. All it takes if for one engineer to move to the other company, for people to talk at a show, for one card partner who makes both Nvidia and ATI cards to spill the beans, to read between the lines of an OEM or supply tender document, listen to what the other side is asking for at the latest standards meeting for DX at Microsoft, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if the people who know most about what's coming outside of Nvidia is ATI, and vica versa. Knowing what your competition is up to is pretty important to any big player in any market.

I think there were quite a few people on the forum who knew in advance what G80 was, just as there are those that know right now exactly what R600 is. Those people can't/won't talk, and so we're left with the rest of us speculating from rumours and tidbits of info.

 

You'd be pretty naive to assume that ATI would be basing their predictions on a David Kirk comment, both IHVs have corporate/partner spies.

 

Was ATI duped or not then? When did ATI get the realization that the GF8800 was USA?