POSSIBLE RELEASE OF NEW ATI GPUs SOON!

Searching the web recently, I found this engineering reference document on ATIs website. It provides a list of vendor IDs for ATI products, probably so programs can identify the GPU and determine if a game supports it.

http://www.ati.com/developer/vendorid.html

Among the entries listed...
ATI MR X1350
ATI MR X1450
ATI MR X1700

I'm going to speculate that the X1x50s are die-shrinks to 80nm of the same part and core, but the X1700 lists RV530 as the ASIC...that might be an error and they meant the RV560 but I'm not too sure.

Also http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20060405200748.html shows that ATI may be planning an Aug/Sept release of the cards...I'm not too sure about all of this, but we might soon see a refresh of GPUs!

I printed the pages, just in case the link goes down. If it does, I will post a PDF of my printout!

 

Great find, and thanks for sharing. The Mobility Radeon X1700 should be a beast.

 

I'm just hoping that they show up soon and they are not cancelled...and hopefully in a couple of notebooks!

 

what is it? a desktop replacement or performance card?

 

well the X1800 is in no laptops that I know of so hopefully they will actually put this in some laptops soon...

 

As far as I can tell, the X1700 is supposed to be a replacement of the X1600...which means many features and the power consumption levels should be similar enough. My guess is that the X1700 is a die-shrink of the X1600, add it a few features (bigger bit-bus most likely) and shaders, while consuming as much or less than an X1600.

Translation: It might be drop in compatible, and notebook makers might be able to quickly switch over without significant redesigns of notebooks.

kingcrowing: the X1800 can be found in the XPS M2010, and possibly other notebooks that I do not know of.

 

The X1800 is also available in the new AW area51 m5750

I do hope this X1700 available as an upgrade

 

If I were to hazard guesses, and I don't want to get called on this later, but...

I agree, the X1350 and X1450 are probably die shrinks (horribly, horribly numbered die shrinks) and will probably get modest performance improvements. I'd expect the X1350 to be about X600 speed, and the X1450 to be about X700 speed. Again, we're talking about the mobility parts.

The X1700 on the desktop is going to be ATI's response to the 7600, which pounds the life out of the desktop X1600. In the notebook arena, I agree with Chaz, I'd expect the Mobility Radeon X1700 to be a real monster, since the notebook 7600 is admittedly pretty cut down while the notebook X1600 is unusually powerful.

The XPS M2010 is NOT a notebook, by the way. That's a portable computer if ever I saw one, but that's NOT a notebook. It IS pretty freaking neat, though.

 

Considering the x1600 already outperforms the 7600go then I doubt its going to be a huge step forward, obviusly slower than the x1800 and I doubt it will have a 256bit mem bus.

As for the x1350, and x1450, I doubt the x1450 will be up to x700 standards due to half the pixel pipelines and a lot less vertex shading power.

 

Thanks for sharing those! The X1800 is out already, since a few months. The X1700 should be a beast!

Note: I think these videocards are designed for the Merom based notebooks. Can you imagine it? A 2.16 GHz 4 MB L2-cache Merom, 2 GB 667 RAM, X1700, 15.4" WXSGA+ running Oblivion with HDR and 2x AA....!

Charlie

 

We might actually see the X1700 soon enough here....going through a few websites I found this:

http://www.wenig.ch/ak-laptops-15.17.html

If you look carefully at the first laptop listed...ATI Mobility Radeon X1700

 

Nice find. The Radeon X1700 for the desktop is supposed to appear around the back-to-school time, no word on the mobile version though.

 

I'm starting to wonder about that...when the mobile version will be released. I'm really beginning to think that the mobile and desktop versions will be released at the same time...

Here is a couple of comments that might support that...
1) Merom is right around the corner, so what better time to update the GPU?

2) ATIs website mentions the MR X1700 on the Vendor ID page...slip up or are they preparing to update drivers/other code needed to support the GPU?

3) The laptop mentioned above has the X1700 listed as the GPU...this was probably a MAJOR slip up on the manufacturer's behalf. My guess is that they announced it a little TOO early.

4) The back to school season IS almost here. This and the holiday season are the best times to release new tech, so why delay releases? Delays cost money and market share, as I'm sure Microsoft can tell you...

5) With Vista around the corner (hopefully), I think ATI will want to squeeze as much out of their DX9 parts before working to develop the first wave or DX10 parts. With Intel's X3000 already documented, I'm sure ATI & NVIDIA are working hard to come up with SOME solution to the DX10 problems.