Bigus Dickus
Regular
I was really surprised at CMKRNL's information about a recent tapeout of R350 on .15u.
My previous guess was that there was no core improvement for the R300 scheduled before the R400. I thought we would see a .13u RV350 launch aside the R400 (which looks confirmed) as a lower cost replacement in keeping with past ATi trends. I also thought we might see a clock bumped DDR-II equipped R300 do battle with the NV30 in the first half of next year.
I had figured R350 was a myth, as I didn't think there was much room for improvement on .15u, and I didn't think ATi would produce a .13u replacement so quickly.
It looks now like I was incorrect, and that there is a true core enhanced R350 chip that has recently taped out on .15u. The question then, is what could they possibly do to increase core performance?
They might try to match the NV30's more flexible shaders, but that is really only to compete with PR, as it wouldn't offer a significant boost in performance IMO. With the R300 being such a large die on .15u already, there doesn't appear to be much room for more vertex shaders or the like. I highly doubt a second TMU could be added, and would probably not be that great of a benefit even if it were.
Could it just be retooled for higher clockspeed? Improvements in the DDR-II memory controller? More powerful pixel shaders (operations per cycle)? I'm really scratching my head on this one.
My previous guess was that there was no core improvement for the R300 scheduled before the R400. I thought we would see a .13u RV350 launch aside the R400 (which looks confirmed) as a lower cost replacement in keeping with past ATi trends. I also thought we might see a clock bumped DDR-II equipped R300 do battle with the NV30 in the first half of next year.
I had figured R350 was a myth, as I didn't think there was much room for improvement on .15u, and I didn't think ATi would produce a .13u replacement so quickly.
It looks now like I was incorrect, and that there is a true core enhanced R350 chip that has recently taped out on .15u. The question then, is what could they possibly do to increase core performance?
They might try to match the NV30's more flexible shaders, but that is really only to compete with PR, as it wouldn't offer a significant boost in performance IMO. With the R300 being such a large die on .15u already, there doesn't appear to be much room for more vertex shaders or the like. I highly doubt a second TMU could be added, and would probably not be that great of a benefit even if it were.
Could it just be retooled for higher clockspeed? Improvements in the DDR-II memory controller? More powerful pixel shaders (operations per cycle)? I'm really scratching my head on this one.
