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This is amusing to read because 5 years from now when this tech becomes the integrated graphics chip in the future Mac minis and MacBooks of the world it will be derided as "utter crap."

Well, the current Intel chipsets can handle Core Image and 1080p video and people still hate.  Computer users are never satisfied.

Yeah, less games = less fun.







Well, for people that play games.

Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department.

It was mostly because something about it reminded me of a conversation I had in 9th grade where my friend and I were floored that someone had a 9600 with the 4MB VRAM upgrade.

Bat wrote:

quite a few in the industry see a re-fusion of CPU and GPU coming

Already coming:

AMD Fusion

*Looks at own GeForce FX 5200 with 64MB VRAM*

FPS controls still keep to my computer for FPS fixes.  And I still run Halo at 800x640.  blah.

ABigSmall wrote:

*Looks at own GeForce FX 5200 with 64MB VRAM*

Yeah, it's worse to not have at all than to, like Levi and myself, get and then not have time for many months to build. Now I have an orphan 3700+ after a forced dual-core upgrade (all S939s are disappearing fast & the X2s are getting downright unobtainable- darned if I'm buying mobo, RAM & CPU twice in a year). My 1900XT still hasn't fired a volt in anger , he's waiting on finishing a 7800 SLI rig, and DX10 is nearly here. Ah well; H2V doesn't use the features, and it's all I'm planning to get at full price for some time. Lots to catch up on.

Gotta agree about the controls. GoW would be sooo much better on m/kb.

Let's play some Halo on MA3 when we're done. Should be soon.

The monster grows and differentiates.

R600 will have more transistors than G80

Courtesy of 80nm process at TSMC

By Theo Valich: Tuesday 28 November 2006, 09:19

R600 IS SCHEDULED for debut in January and details of the upcoming graphics chip are slowly slipping out of the company.

The 500+ GFLOPS-producing monster chip is manufactured on a 80nm manufacturing process, which allows the chip maker to squeeze more transistors on the silicon.

While Nvidia was told by TSMC that the highest margin for 90nm process is 700 million, Nvidia pulled a wizard out of the hat and placed TMDS and HDCP logic on a separate chip. Sadly, the wizard also managed to break the NVIO1 chip, so you can forget about running 1080p video on your freshly-bought G80-based product.

ATI on the other hand, took the risky road, pulled 80nm manufacturing process from the drawing board onto silicon and produced a 720-million transistor monster that is currently seeking its final clock speed.

Regardless of the approach, in the end both products will be more similar than the companies are willing to admit. µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35995

Should be a beast running Folding@Home, too.

So what do 8800 owners do about 1080p? That's a lot of money to not do 'true HD.'

Ed. url

Last edited by Bat (2006-12-01 4:52 pm)

Play? This isn't about games, gameplay doesn't need copy protection (TMDS, HDCP). They got those into G80 via a separate chip, but apparently broke an I/O chip in the process- at least, G80 boards lack functionality they should have.

Those $450+ G80 videocards won't do DRMed video playback at 1080p.

IT LOOKS LIKE there is a problem with HDCP on G80, or at least with NVIO. The problem is not so much a bug as something that the parts do not do that [which] a $600 card probably should, dual link with HDCP on.

What this means is that if you turn on the HDCP DRM infection, that is, play a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, you are limited to single link resolutions. With a G80, you probably want to show a movie on a high rez monitor, but the lack of dual link will limit you to 720P or so, not nearly enough for my tastes.

To be fair, the G7x and R5xx cards both have this limitation, and it will not be a problem for Nvidia if the R600 does not support dual link + HDCP. Unfortunately for NV, R600 does do dual link + HDCP.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35966

Plus a little more on the other company, subject of this thread.

ATI R600 slated for February launch

Dammit and blast off

By Fuad Abazovic: Friday 01 December 2006, 09:49

IF AMD manages to stick to its latest plan, it will launch ATI's R600 in February. The original postponed plan indicated that the chip would be launched in Q1 but we got a slightly more precise date.

ATI has been pushing hard for January but it seems it won't make it. Nvidia is also preparing the faster version of G80 for around Cebit time but this is nothing new, as Nvidia traditionally likes to spoil ATI's launches.

The launch and availability will take place together, so as soon as DAAMIT officially introduces the card it should be widely available. It is an 80 nanometre part and should prove to be very powerful DX 10 hardware. It will arrive around the time of Microsoft's Vista DirectX 10 announcement, or shortly thereafter. µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36106

& finally...

ATI R600 to go GDDR-4 only

Good-bye UFO

By Theo Valich: Friday 01 December 2006, 10:44

IF YOU REMEMBER the GDDR-4 story back in September, Samsung was telling everybody that GDDR-4 is going to rock. However, companies were worried that yields are not going to be good, and rumours about Samsung screwing up forced affected companies to spend thousands of dollars to invest in the development of alternatives.

In the end, Nvidia went with GDDR-3 memory in its G80 line-up, but DAAMIT continued to develop both GDDR-4 (Pele) and GDDR-3 (UFO) variants. Being late on the market enabled ATI to optimise. However, bean counters at AMD recently gave a "go ahead" signal for full-GDDR-4 line-up. So, forget about the dual-SKUs, 1Gig and 2Gig versions, GDDR-4 is the only way DAAMIT will go.

...

Memory layout remains the same, as does the GPU. The chip itself is rotated at 45 degree angle – not the 60 degree this tired hack wrote a week ago. Also, the chip whose pictures were leaked was not a functional chip, but rather a mechanical "dummy".

The traditional layout of ATI boards calls for DVI-DIN-DVI arrangement. However, this might change and R600 could end up with G80-style DIN-DVI-DVI, with the HD connector located at the top of the PCB, not in the middle. Just a bit over two months to go. µ

Can't wait. My bank account, tho, has more patience than I.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36091

New info.

Early AMD ATI "R600" Specs, Benchmarks Leaked

Details of AMD's next generation Radeon hit the web

Newly created site Level 505 has leaked benchmarks and specifications of AMD’s upcoming ATI R600 graphics processor. The upcoming graphics processor is expected to launch in January 2007 with an expected revision arriving in March 2007. These early specifications and launch dates line up with what DailyTech has already published and are present on ATI internal roadmaps as of workweek 49.

Preliminary specifications from Level 505 of the ATI R600 are as follows:

• 64 4-Way SIMD Unified Shaders, 128 Shader Operations/Cycle
• 32 TMUs, 16 ROPs
• 512 bit Memory Controller, full 32 bit per chip connection
• GDDR3 at 900 MHz clock speed (January)
• GDDR4 at 1.1 GHz clock speed (March, revised edition)
• Total bandwidth 115 GB/s on GDDR3
• Total bandwidth 140 GB/s on GDDR4
• Consumer memory support 1024 MB
• DX10 full compatibility with draft DX10.1 vendor-specific cap removal (unified programming)
• 32FP [sic] internal processing
• Hardware support for GPU clustering (any x^2 [sic] number, not limited to Dual or Quad-GPU)
• Hardware DVI-HDCP support (High Definition Copy Protocol)
• Hardware Quad-DVI output support (Limited to workstation editions)
• 230W TDP PCI-SIG compliant

This time around it appears AMD is going for a different approach by equipping the ATI R600 with less unified shaders than NVIDIA’s recently launched GeForce 8800 GTX. However, the unified shaders found on the ATI R600 can complete more shader operations per clock cycle.

Level 505 claims AMD is expected to equip the ATI R600 with GDDR3 and GDDR4 memory with the GDDR3 endowed model launching in January. Memory clocks have been set at 900 MHz for GDDR3 models and 1.1 GHz for GDDR4 models.  As recent as two weeks ago, ATI roadmaps had said this GDDR3 launch was canceled.

Memory bandwidth of the ATI R600 is significantly higher than NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800-series. Total memory bandwidth varies from 115GB/s on GDDR3 equipped models to 140GB/s on GDDR4 equipped models.

...

The published results are very promising with AMD’s ATI R600 beating out NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800 GTX in most benchmarks. The performance delta varies from 8% up to 42% depending on the game benchmark.

When DailyTech contacted the site owner to get verification of the benchmarks, the owner replied that the benchmark screenshots could not be published due to origin-specific markers that would trace the card back to its source -- the author mentioned the card is part of the Microsoft Vista driver certification program.

If Level505's comments seem a little too pro-ATI, don't be too surprised.  When asked if the site was affiliated in any way to ATI or AMD, the owner replied to DailyTech with the statement that "two staff members of ours are directly affiliated with AMD's business [development] division."

If true, at least it should mean these aren't made of thin air, if cherry-picked a bit. The draft DX10.1 cap removal is also interesting... please, AMD, make it affordable. (And let Harry Potter live for Oatmeal's sake).





Links and more in article.