Rumour mill (Inq): R600 delayed, needs respin

K404

New member
A respin pushes it back 3 months so IF a respin is on the cards....April/May launch :(

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36673

it's looking more like Nvidia is going to be to the market first with an 80 nanometre version of the G80 graphics chip, rather than ATI's 720 million transistor monster. The last revision of the prototype chip - upon which a certain "pre-review" is based - also suffers from problems which are serious enough to get another re-spin, sources tell me. This re-spin puts a hold on the launch for another couple of weeks, and now R600 is looking like an early March launch, probably the week before SnowBIT in Hangover. However, AMD/ATI is making severe changes to the whole line up and we can say that this launch, when it happens, will be very, very shocking for the 3D industry.
 
That does it for me,for the 1st time in years i am actually considering an nvidia product.One too many delayed ati launch for me.
 
There is that but also consider how old this news was before it was leaked - I thought it ws always going to be a February release? April/May probably is more March/April though.

That being said, if problems are identified on an 80nm die for their monster, after a pre-review sample had been released - it should be a concern to everyone that this chip is running through re-spin so late in its development.

Mav
 
Hrm interesting news!

The R600 is slated as a monster, so if the respin allows ATI to sort a few bugs/increase performance or whatever then surely it must be worth waiting for.

Either way, while NV maybe the first on 80nm, ATI will probably have the quicker card at the end of it. Might allow GDDR4 tech to sort itself out a bit too, maybe we'll see all the ATI cards DDR4 shod perhaps?
 
Sadly it gives time for nvidia to get really into the G80 refresh, die shrink nd higher clockspeeds..I think it`ll work out about the same now, but nvidia will have the advantage of lower prices
 
When will we be getting some dx10 benchmarking software (I guess 3dmark will turn to dx10?)

it would be nice to see an 8800gtx running Vista.

I dont care who I buy my grpahics cards from; I always get the ones with the best reviews.
 
Im not a fan of either company, totally cant see the point of just going for the best card at the time of purchase, where on earth does brand loyalty get you in the world of GPUs?

I want to see the cooler of the R600 given its crazy thermal envelope, both the 8800 and the R600 as too long, hot and expensive for me, given i wont be switching to Vista for quite a while DX10 hardware isnt of great appeal to me, and it would be massively limited by my CPU.

Respin aint good for DAAMIT, i wonder if this applies to all the cards? Given the limited appeal of the topline boards, if it didnt apply to more lowly boards then it might not make so much of a difference (unless they all get delayed for a group launch). I hope for a hard launch for this gen of cards, as i do for all hardware tbh, Nvidia have done very well with their releases recently being hard.

G
 
I'm going to wait for the next models to come out; I got a 7800gtx 256mb and within a month or 2 later models (including the 512mb version and 7900) were released. Anyway, looking at the size of the dx10 cards, I dont know how they ould fit in my case.
 
name='Master_G' said:
Im not a fan of either company, totally cant see the point of just going for the best card at the time of purchase, where on earth does brand loyalty get you in the world of GPUs?

I want to see the cooler of the R600 given its crazy thermal envelope, both the 8800 and the R600 as too long, hot and expensive for me, given i wont be switching to Vista for quite a while DX10 hardware isnt of great appeal to me, and it would be massively limited by my CPU.

Respin aint good for DAAMIT, i wonder if this applies to all the cards? Given the limited appeal of the topline boards, if it didnt apply to more lowly boards then it might not make so much of a difference (unless they all get delayed for a group launch). I hope for a hard launch for this gen of cards, as i do for all hardware tbh, Nvidia have done very well with their releases recently being hard.

G

Wise words indeed Master G - I dont disagree with any of it.

Until vista and more importantly DX10 becomes more mainstream - how important is this new generation of cards - sure u can break some records but how does that reflect in the gaming experience?

People with 30" LCD monitors feel free to add anything here.

Also - When Vista is out there I am more interested to see how DX9 or lower games react in this environment.

The size of the cards certainly is an issue, especially for SFF or even some midi towers will struggle to house.

One things for sure - by the time we all want Vista and DX10 - this generation will be long gone.
 
name='maverik-sg1' said:
...by the time we all want Vista and DX10 - this generation will be long gone.

I agree. If you think back to how long ago the 64bit processors were released and how they were being sold as futureproof... 8)
 
name='maverik-sg1' said:
People with 30" LCD monitors feel free to add anything here.

Interesting about large monitors, i would guess that they have probably been the biggest driver behind high end sales recently. The huge price drops recently (30" Dell now around for about £1000, down by over £500 from last year, and the corresponding effect on lesser models) means that the average resolution we want to run increases, and so we need more GPU power. I wonder how long that can continue? Is 30" a rough limit on a computer monitor (until computing changes so that we dont sit at the computer but rather sit further back like a TV)?

On the subject of Vista, DX9L performance will be very interesting, just to see how much performance Vista burns by just sitting in the background. I dont expect good numbers, but hopefully tweaks and better (or any!) drivers may help.

On the subject of 64bit, with Vista being available in 64bit right from the start, im guessing we can expect much better support in terms of drivers (given time obviously), but how much support can we expect from games and other apps? Given that the uptake of Vista is expected to be slow (especially given the current driver situation, and of course the obvious cost), games will be cutting out a large part of the market if they go just 64 bit, and is the cost worth doing both 32 and 64bit versions? As i look at Vista at the moment, it has a tough time ahead of it trying to reconcile these problems.

On the subject of the thread (at last :p) my personal hope for the generation to come after the 8800 and the R600 is a GPU version of Conroe - back to below 100W TDP, reasonable power draw, great performance with great overclockability. And a reasonable length card if possible.

We can all dream i guess!

G
 
Well,you can get 1680*1050 monitors for 150-250 quid, which is what 19" monitors were about 1 to 2 years ago. People need more gpu power for larger monitors. However, companies like DELL dont seem to get that intel integrated graphics just cant take it. ..

This post has been edited by the mod team - reason - this forum supports a PC component shop advertsising for other competitor shops is not allowed, unless specifically pre-agreed with EPUK.
 
I agree with the G man here - 30" is deffo a desktop limit - heck I am more that satisfied with my 24", although multiscreen for desktop view would be of interest to me if i did not run the works laptop alongside my gaming machine.

Pesonally I would like to see 64bit apps (especially games) being 32bit with 64bit extensions, in a similar veing to 3dnow and DirectX - I certainly hope that switching to a vista 64bit OS would still allow (with slight performance hit) 32bit games to be played else I will be exceptionally disappointed (read that as will resist with every fibre the switch to the new OS).

All in all though 64 bit has promised much and delivered little thus far.

Back to the proper topic - I think both NV and ATI recognise the need to return to lower heat/ppower units. Directx10 in itself will give stability to the format and will allow these guys to engineer efficiency in future releases - they should follow public opinion and embrace that.

name='Master_G' said:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36757

12 inch boards, how does that compare with the 8800GTX?

G

Well it compares to the original Nvidia 7900GX2 which is as long as the multiGPU Voodoo5 Graphics card - this board will not be an easy fit inside a PC60 or similar dimensioned midi tower case.
 
I agree with all thats being said here and I certainly won't be upgrading soonish. In regard to 30" surely being the limit in PC monitor size/res I was under the impression Apple were trying for a 40" with an equally impressive resolution (in greater proportion to the 30").

I'll probably move to Vista when I next do a complete upgrade, hopefully by this time Vista SP1 will be out. While I'm on the subject of Vista am I right in thinking even when just idling along it uses pretty much all the available memory due to its cache like nature and 'guesses' what apps you might need and therefore keeps them in memory.
 
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