ati answer to 7800gtx?

[Gormeroth]

you probably don't have much info on it seeing is how it is not posted on your main site. but does anyone know when the next gen ati card will be coming out or as to when we'll get info on it?

[Mike]

Yeah that's the big question right now. Nobody knows for sure, but several different tidbits of information point to the end of this month. However ATi has had a lot of trouble with their next chip (R520) and if it were delayed into the fall, i would not be surprised.

[Jason]

... but when it comes down to it who really cares? ATI <<< NVidia.

;) :p

-Jason

[Mike]

ATi earned themselves a lot of loyal fans over the last few years. A lot of people are really looking forward to their next architecture. However you feel about it, competition is a very good thing. The sooner ATi releases a new card, the sooner nVidia releases one, and drops prices on current ones to compete.

Personally, I'm really anxious to see what both companies have up their sleeves for this fall.

[Jason]

I was only joking as represented by the smilies. Yes - competition is a good thing for the consumer.

-Jason

[Steve]

I think that Cross Fire is a superior multi GPU technology.
I will proabably invest in two R520's when they come out.
As long as Cross Fire works like it should and the R520 don't totally suck @$$.

[phranq]

The Crossfire benchies at Anandtech were impressive, but I guess we're stuck waiting around until us normal consumers can get our hands on it. As for the r520, ATI hasn't really mentioned a release date, so anything you hear is purely speculations and/or rumors.

[Mike]

CrossFire looked way better than SLi a few months ago...but nVidia has pretty much leveled the table since then...adding SLI-AA modes, better overclocking support, support for different bios revisions...and reportedly soon they'll be able to do different brands as well...

It all depends on how R520 turns out, CrossFire can keep up with SLi, but only if R520 can keep up with the 7800GTX...

[Skrying]

R520 is still a version of R300, just tweaked to the extreme. I personally think its smart for ATi to ride this out till they need a totally new change (R400, AKA R600, AKA C1 AKA Unified Shaders). Dont let that get your hopes down though, the R300 base chip is still rather powerful, and with the correct tweaks (think slightly more than say Nv40 to Nv47 err G70 I mean) it can easily match that of the Nv47/G70 core.

I'm expecting a 16 pipeline card, but the pipelines will certainlly be much more powerful than that of a R300 or R420, such as the nice pipeline boost with Nv40 to G70. I also wouldnt be surprised if they really to deliever some insanely high stock clock speeds, and I wouldnt be surprised if we see some 1000Mhz+ core speeds through OCing.

Also, I dont think pipelines are going to be the big story with R520. I'm looking at the memory having a lot to do with it. Because lets be honest, memory bandwidth is really holding back todays GPUs, and it'd be interesting to see a creative way to help this problem. No, we wont be seeing 512bit wide buses anytime soon, since this would be way to expensive, hard to manufacturer and the chip would have to be huge to allow that many pin connections.

I cant wait to see what R520 ends up being, but I really cant wait to see if Nvidia counters. Also, from what I here, we may actually be able to judge R580 performance from ATi's upcoming mid range card, the R530. I've seen several people say that R515 is the baby of R520, and R530 is the baby of R580, and that R580 simply wont be a speed bump of R520. Interesting, very interesting.....

[Mike]

Well I doubt anyone will consider R520 yet another R300 derivative...but I think you're right about it having 16 "extreme" pipelines...and I definitely think the manufacturer that gets the next big memory upgrade will win...

XDR @ 1.6Ghz anyone?

[Skrying]

I highly doubt that the R520 is going to have XDR. It could possibly have GDDR4, but that's doubtful due to cost of it. I'm seeing highly clocked GDDR3, with support in the core for GDDR4 which could come out later on say the R580.

[phranq]

whatever it is...ATI should probably think about hurrying up ;)

[Skrying]

Going by the Anandtech article. It seems Nvidia better get that mid range out soon, because Rv530 is looking to be one hell of a mid range card.

Its also looking like R580 could be much more powerful than typical for a refresh.

[phranq]

RV530

* 600MHz Core Clock
* 1400MHz Memory Clock
* 512MB Maximum Memory for "XT"
* 256MB Maximum Memory for "Pro"
* 128-bit Memory
* 12 Pipelines
* Maximum 16x32MB 1.4ns GDDR3


Just seems like 128bit memory is possibly a bit of a bottleneck?

[Skrying]

You'd think that, but read the Anandtech article again, see the mention of a new memory controller? Also, 1400Mhz on a mid range card, that's insanely fast and would make up for the 128bit bus width. Also, remember, a chip has to be large enough to use a 256bit bus.

[phranq]

no specs on the big boy card...