Radeon® X1800 Announced

[CR6 0]

After a few manufacturing delays, ATI has finally announced their new series of video chips to go head-to-head with Nvidia's 7xxx series, which has had no competition ...

http://apps.ati.com/ir/PressReleaseText.as...eleaseID=758490

ATI Technologies, Inc. and TSMC ( have announced that TSMC is in volume production of multiple 90 nanometer (nm) products for ATI, including the Radeon® X1800, Radeon® X1600 and Radeon® X1300 series chips (Ed. R520, RV530 and RV515 respectively), and has shipped large quantities of production wafers to ATI.

...

ATI expects the latest cards to begin arriving on store shelves by the end of September.

The X1800 is basically the same video chip architecture in the Xbox 360, so it will be interesting to see how it performs.

[NYR_32 6]

I have a feeling I'm going to really want one. Maybe I'll grab one after the R580 boards come out muhahahaha.

[Crimson 0]

I'm thinking of selling my 7800GTX and going down to an X800 Pro so I can save some money for the DX10 cards which are going to smoke. The general consensus at AT is that ATi's card will be about 5-10 percent slower than the GTX.

[GreyHaired 0]

ATI also announced info about new imaging and video software "AVIVO" that'll be integrated in upcoming ATI products:

http://apps.ati.com/ir/PressReleaseText.as...eleaseID=758491.

http://www.ati.com/technology/avivo/index.html

http://www.beyond3d.com has a preview of this software.

As to the cards: the ATI Tech Day is end of September where 100 people are invited, amongst those one of the "biggest Nvidia fan sites" so it'll be interesting to see if ATI can impress them ;-)

[pz3 338]

supposibly crossfire isnt its all cracked up to be either

[Colin 0]

It is totally typical you no sooner take it out of the packet and they go and bring out a new one, Jees do they think we are made of money.

I just bought an overclocked GT and its a real nice card, I have used ATI for years but thought I would change and I am glad I did things look so much better with this GT.

Colin

[GreyHaired 0]

To Colin: no worries with that GT - that's a great card

To Prozac: CrossFire is said to have limitations.

There's quite some info around and

http://www.rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=75

has a good overview.

[Crimson 0]

Once it was confirmed CrossFire wouln't do resolutions past 1600 x 1200, people freaked. Oh well, only time and updated drivers will tell.

[GreyHaired 0]

8 days and counting down : http://www.ati.com

In 8 days we'll know what we've been counting down for.

Question is when the Non Disclosure Agreement will be lifted and if we get benchmarks hopefully later this week.

Asus brings a Dual 7800GT card but only in 2.000 copies.

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2737&s=1

Dual meaning that instead of having two cards in an SLI setup, the cores are on one card only. Asus made a similar dual card for the 6800GT. That one was only for showcase and not for commercial sales.

Next question is if you can have two if those dual cards in an SLI board.

AMD has already announced new M2 Socket and X2 5000+ cpus to be released next year

It never stops, that's the only given fact.

PS: Crossfire benchmarks now released.

rage3d.com has a list of links.

[CR6 0]

Once it was confirmed CrossFire wouln't do resolutions past 1600 x 1200, people freaked.  Oh well, only time and updated drivers will tell.

←

To be honest, CrossFire came out a little too late for the X800 generation of cards. It's much cheaper to buy a single GF 7800GTX than 2xX850XT cards + the ATI mobo that supports CrossFire.

It should make a bigger impact going up against SLI for the X1800 generation of cards.

Recent articles also show that although CrossFire provides competitive frame rates, it is more difficult to set up CrossFire than SLI. That's likely because CrossFire was more an afterthought for ATI to compete with SLI, which Nvidia actually incorporated into the design of its 6000 series from day one.

[Crimson 0]

Once it was confirmed CrossFire wouln't do resolutions past 1600 x 1200, people freaked.  Oh well, only time and updated drivers will tell.

←

To be honest, CrossFire came out a little too late for the X800 generation of cards. It's much cheaper to buy a single GF 7800GTX than 2xX850XT cards + the ATI mobo that supports CrossFire.

It should make a bigger impact going up against SLI for the X1800 generation of cards.

Recent articles also show that although CrossFire provides competitive frame rates, it is more difficult to set up CrossFire than SLI. That's likely because CrossFire was more an afterthought for ATI to compete with SLI, which Nvidia actually incorporated into the design of its 6000 series from day one.

←

Unless something crazy happens, it doesn't look like waiting for ATi's next generation cards was worth waiting for. CrossFire might be an option on the R600, if they get rid of crap like the dongle and what not. nVidia got it right the first time. (More or less.)

I was really looking forward to ATi's R520, but they screwed the pooch way to many times and I ended up with a 7800GTX. I've already got a few months use out of it by the time people update their older cards to ATi's new offering. Oh well. I hope ATi has a lot more success with the R600.

[Dan 0]

Asus brings a Dual 7800GT card but only in 2.000 copies.

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2737&s=1

Dual meaning that instead of having two cards in an SLI setup, the cores are on one card only. Asus made a similar dual card for the 6800GT. That one was only for sho

←

Could you SLi 2 of these cards? So have 4 GPUs crankin up?

[GreyHaired 0]

Not yet as there are no motherboards that support such setup.

Question of time.

Meanwhile "Hexus" revealed prices for the new ATI cards that are launched next week:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3566

[Crimson 0]

$500 for a card that probably wont outperform a GTX... ATi is going to run themselves into the ground if I'm right.

[GreyHaired 0]

Agree.

Furthermore the AGP has apparently been dropped.

It looks like ATI aims at selling their chipsets, hoping consumers will buy a new motherboard based on the Xpress200 chipset (that also supports CrossFire for what it's worth).

So here's hoping that the X850XT will drop in price now.

[CR6 0]

$500 for a card that probably wont outperform a GTX... ATi is going to run themselves into the ground if I'm right.

←

Well, because of the delay, ATI has had lots of time to make sure their flagship card is clocked to speeds to run at least as fast or faster than the GTX (even if this means they can only produce small amounts of high-end cards like the X800XT Phantom er... Platinum Edition ).

I'd be surprised if they release a top-end card slower than the GTX ... if this were the case, they would be delaying even more. I guess we'll know soon

Although ATI might have misfired with CrossFire for their X800 series, I think they are far from running themselves into the ground ... remember that the majority of both ATI's and Nvidia's business and income is in lower end cards (e.g. GF4 MX/GF 5200 for Nvidia) For example, look at the top cards used for HL2:

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Right now, it's a two-horse race for the performance crown in the graphics industry (note in terms of sales, Intel is still the top graphics vendor), and they are taking turns in the lead. The trend seems to be whoever is working on the Xbox graphics chip falls behind

[GreyHaired 0]

Of course like CR6 says, it's the mainstream cards/OEMs that bring the cash.

Meanwhile ATI throws a party on the island of Ibiza, Spain, this weekend.

There are some headlines about the R520 on http://www.theinq.com/

Expectations amongst ATI fans are high but that may be related to the sunny party island of Ibizia Hopefully benchmarks are released before October 5; had expected them end of last week.

The next ATI chip R580 (32 pipelines) is "in the house and working" and we'll see more of this and the next Nvidia G80, during the first half of next year.

[GreyHaired 0]

Today ATI lifted the NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) and benchmarks were released.

Rage3d has a good overview:

http://www.rage3d.com/index.php?cat=75#newsid33830809

Have fun

[Crimson 0]

Well... ya can't win 'em all, but you should be able to avoid a KO... ooops.

[CR6 0]

The next ATI chip R580 (32 pipelines) is "in the house and working" and we'll see more of this and the next Nvidia G80, during the first half of next year.

←

Latest news today is that Nvidia will be pulling the G72 out of their hat for the spring 2006 refresh:

http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20051005A7033.html

Nvidia schedules G72 GPU release in early 2006

Nvidia has scheduled its G72 graphics processing unit (GPU), which will be manufactured using 90nm process technology, to be introduced in early 2006, according to sources at Taiwan graphics card makers. The G72, a 90nm version of the G70 GPU, will compete with the 90nm R-series from ATI Technologies, which will announce the launch of its long-awaited R520, RV515 and RV530 GPUs on October 5, U.S. time, indicated the sources.

The 90nm G72 will have a much smaller size than the 0.11-micron based G70 allowing for multiple GPUs to be utilized on one graphics card through SLI technology, providing an effective and attractive alternative to those who do not want to fork out money for two graphics cards, the sources claimed.

Ah, the legacy of the Voodoo 5 5500 dual GPU continues to live through Nvidia hehe

[GreyHaired 0]

..........and I won't be surprised if Nvidia still this year brings an "Ultra" version or similar on the market when ATI's X1850XT is launched. Nvidia has definitely been the Cat and ATI the mouse this year (apart from AGP cards).