ATI Releases More "R600" Details

http://www.dailytech.com/ATI+Releases+More+R600+Details/article6903c.htm

320-stream processors, named ATI Radeon HD 2900

AMD has named the rest of its upcoming ATI Radeon DirectX 10 product lineup. The new DirectX 10 product family received the ATI Radeon HD 2000-series moniker. For the new product generation, AMD has tagged HD to the product name to designate the entire lineup’s Avivo HD technology. AMD has also removed the X-prefix on its product models.

At the top of the DirectX 10 chain, is the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT. The AMD ATI Radeon HD 2900-series features 320 stream processors, over twice as many as NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800 GTX. AMD couples the 320 stream processors with a 512-bit memory interface with eight channels. CrossFire support is now natively supported by the AMD ATI Radeon HD 2900-series; the external CrossFire dongle is a thing of the past.

The R600-based ATI Radeon HD 2900-series products also support 128-bit HDR rendering. AMD has also upped the ante on anti-aliasing support. The ATI Radeon HD 2900-series supports up to 24x anti-aliasing. NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800-series only supports up to 16x anti-aliasing. AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 2900-series also possesses physics processing.

New to the ATI Radeon HD 2900-series are integrated HDMI output capabilities with 5.1 surround sound. However, early images of AMD’s OEM R600 reveal dual dual-link DVI outputs, rendering the audio functions useless.

AMD’s RV630-based products will carry the ATI Radeon HD 2600 moniker with Pro and XT models. The value-targeted RV610-based products will carry the ATI Radeon HD 2400 name with Pro and XT models as well.

The entire AMD ATI Radeon HD 2000-family features the latest Avivo HD technology. AMD’s upgraded Avivo with a new Universal Video Decoder, also known as UVD, and the new Advanced Video Processor, or AVP. UVD previously made its debut in the OEM-exclusive RV550 GPU core. UVD provides hardware acceleration of H.264 and VC-1 high definition video formats used by Blu-ray and HD DVD. The AVP allows the GPU to apply hardware acceleration and video processing functions while keeping power consumption low.

Expect AMD to launch the ATI Radeon HD 2000-family in the upcoming weeks, if AMD doesn’t push back the launch dates further.

 

320 stream processors?
WOW.....

what if this thing crushes the G80's............

 

I'm not quite sure about this... but I think that's the general idea.

 

just waiting for the high-end G80's (like geforce 8900gtx 8950gtx etc)

 

nVidia's next graphics processors will most likely just be die shrinks of the current architecture. This is practically just what happened with the previous generation. Namely, nVidia releases a new architecture, and a whole new range, with a flagship card. Then, ATI shows up to the party about 5 months late, and performs better than the nVidia cards. nVidia then counters with another release of cards, with a slightly updated architecture.

But, these new ATI cards look promising, because of their peformance, and if ATI can get them to good price, they will be highly liked. nVidia will most likely think of something to do, like reduce prices, and the competition is going to fierce. We will just have to wait and see how these cards really perform against nVidia.

 

Look forwards to ATI releasing the new cards. Why? Price wars are good for the consumer

 

If these cards truly perform I don't think price will be a factor. Early results (although I don't believe most of them) show that this card will be better than the 8800gtx just nobody knows by how much until retail versions/drivers come out.

320-stream processors wow, if they are all fully utilized (not all were utilized in the 8800 series it had 180-stream processors) then ati will take the image quality crown again.

 

AMD + ATI = My Preference.

 

From a manufacturer point of view, ATI certainly won't want a price war. The money they have spent on the architecture is something that ATI wants to make up in the price of the card itself, so the better the performance, the better for the company, because ATI can charge a little more for their products. They can do that because they know the card will still sell.

But, if ATI's original selling price is something that can compete with nVidia's current pricing, then its only to their benefit. I remember when ATI was releasing the X1800 set of cards, and how late they were to the market, because the issue with the cores. But, this time round, they seem to have developed the car fairly quickly, and are approaching a release. It just puts some pressure on nVidia, who have had no real competition so far.

 

When ATI releases midrange chips, like 2600 to compete with Geforce 8600, there will inevitably be a price war. There's always a struggle to control the "most powerful GPU in the world," but the midrange cards empirically have been very equal in performance. Take the "I have the most powerful one!" out of the equation and you have people who have no incentive to favor one over the other unless they're biased ... the next move is to lower prices to make your products more attractive.

 

With high end cards you always price gouge , it will probably come out at $650-700 just like the 8800gtx did. Just like the x1900/7900 did, x800/6800 did, and just like always .

 

What kind of CPU's will AMD be releasing around Q4 2007?

Maybe an AMD/ATI build will be cheaper than an Intel/Nvidia build.

 

AMD will bring out the K10 by fall 2007. Its also codenamed Kuma and Agena/Agena. The Kuma is dual core and the others true quadcore. Thats 4 CPUs one one die and not 2x2 like the Intel quads. The Kuma will work with current AM2 Mainboards so AMD claims atleast. But they will bring out the AM2+ with some imporvments too.

 

See the thing about this rumour is that it makes no sense whatsoever compared to the previous information on the R600. First, up to now, it was known/thought that AMD would be using the R500 as a model for the R600 and the unified shaders woud be vector units. This is completely plausible since the R500 is a fine design, was developed for Microsoft, and was basically the prototype for unified shaders anyways. As well, previous designs like the R580, focused on placing many vector pixel shaders into the GPU which would be consistant with having a unified vector shader model. ATI could easily overpower nVidia's simple scalar shaders with a decent amount of vector units. Unless, ATI were never using vector shaders it would make no sense for them to switch just because nVidia did.

ATI also doesn't have as much experience as nVidia in getting the performance out of scalar shaders. The whole basis is that they each don't do much work, but they are clocked crazy high compared to the rest of the die. nVidia has been doing variable clocking across the different parts of their GPU for several generations now so this is just a natural extension of them. ATI however has always had their entire die clocked at the same speed (ie. 650MHz for the R580).

If ATI is using scalar unified shaders, it makes no sense for them to be scaling them stream processors. That is entirely an nVidia marketing term. ATi has always come up with their own marketing terms for the same features, like GPU vs VPU or CineFX engine vs SmartShader.

Lastly the 320 number seems completely arbitrary. It's ackward just like the 8800GTS' RAM count. A number like 256 or even 384 would make more sense.

I have no doubt that the R600 will be a great GPU, but I'm just not sure that the internal architecture is using stream processors. I'm more inclined to think there are 96 or 128 full vector units.

 

Personally I think they should have stuck with these video RAM ammounts:

128mb
256mb
512mb
768mb (Yes, I know about the 8800)
1024mb

 

If ATI is using a 512-bit memory bus, then those numbers that usapatriot has posted, should be the ones. At least, the higher ones, for obvious reasons. nVidia just went with an awkward bus width, which caused its awkward graphics memory values. I believe the memory that ATI will be using on the fastest of their cards will be 1 GB and 512 MB.

 

I believe there has actually been reports that ATI would go with 2GB in their FireGL version. That's more system RAM than my laptop has right now and probably most systems in the world too.

And in my earlier post I was commenting on the reported 320 stream processors. That number is ackward and something like 256 stream processors would make more sense.

 

damn,

i'm dying to see benchmarks of AMD's top down release

I"M CRAPPING MY PANTS WAITING FOR THIS

damn

any word on the specs on mid-range (300 or so CAD) cards?

 

hmmmmm: AMD Is keeping everything hushhush but apparentely AMD is going to be releasing every single dx10 card at the launch party in Tunis, Tunisia (or is it the other way around?) sometime in May. So basically all their low-end to high end desktop (and possibly laptop?) cards will be released similtaneously.

 

yea

i know they're doing a top down release

can't wait for some benches from anandtech

why did they choose tunis, tunisia to release their cards?

isn't a little weird to show case a new card in africa?

and i dunno of its going to be a paper launch or if we'll really see some hardware in stores

 

Maybe they ll use some of the stream processors to do physics, which they have been telling us for ages...

 

Well, the graphics processor, apprantly, has support for physics. Also, some benchmarks are floating around the Internet, which compare an HD 2900 XT to an 8800 GTX, and the HD 2900 XT is behind by about 5 to 6% behind the 8800 GTX. Remember, the HD 2900 XT is supposed to compete wth the 8800 GTS, so it could be an indication how powerful the HD 2900 XTX will be. But, only a few benchmarks were conducted, and its not really extensive emnough for concrete analysis. Anandtech should be coming with a nice article wwit a good comparson, probably when the card is lauched.