ATI Boosts RADEON X800 Specifications

[Steven]

ATI Boosts RADEON X800 Specifications

ATI's R420 Increases Number of Pipelines

by Anton Shilov

04/08/2004 | 10:01 AM

Only weeks before the release, ATI Technologies decided to boost performance of its next-generation code-named R420 processor by increasing the number of pixel pipelines inside the chip. Industry source told X-bit labs that the story is not about redesign, but about enabling ?big guns? that were ?hidden? inside the chip from the very beginning.

ATI Technologies? chip known as R420 will be called RADEON X800 PRO and is likely to be launched on the 26th of April, 2004. Higher-speed flavour of the R420 ? the RADEON X800 XT ? is expected to debut on the 31st of May, 2004, if the assumptions posted earlier this week are correct. PCI Express x16 solution powered by the R423 architecture will see the light of the day on the 14th of June. ATI on Tuesday began marketing campaign on its web-site to support the launch of the new graphics architecture.

Sources familiar with the company?s roadmap revealed Thursday, the 8ththe 420/R423 graphics processors will have 16 rendering pipelinesng pipelines, significantly more compared to the previously released information about 8 or 12 pipes. Apparently, the company?s future chips have the same capability of enabling and disabling pixel pipelines like the predecessors ? the R300 and R350/R360 chips ? which were capable of working either with 4 or 8 rendering pipelines. Initially the company believed that 8 pixel conveyers would be enough to stay competitive against the rivaling NVIDIA NV40 chip, however, at this point ATI wants to expose all capabilities of the RADEON X800-series chips to fight with the competitor.

According to previously released information, the ATI code-named R420/R423 graphics processors will contain about 160 million of transistors and will be produced using low-k 0.13 micron technology at TSMC. The chips are projected to utilize the current R300 architecture, but with general improvements in the way they compute and perform.

Sources did not elaborate on possible yield impact as a result of boosting the specification of the R420. They also declined to comment on clock-speeds of the RADEON X800-series graphics cards. It was stressed that availability and launch dates unveiled earlier this week are not projected to be pushed forward as a result of specification change. Typically ATI Technologies is very concentrated on high gross-margins and volume availability of graphics cards based on its high-end processors.

Officials from ATI Technologies did not comment on the story.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display...0408100025.html

[XLS]

BOOYA ! GO ATi :D

[jaffa]

ATI comes back to defend it's throne :D

they just released "Fake" specs to fool Nvidia and now come with something way better :laugh:

[carpediem]

Discussion on B3D: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.ph...der=asc&start=0

Lets hope this is true... :)

[Cynicalsomething]

Awsome!!!!! (Y)

[Steven]

Discussion on B3D: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.ph...der=asc&start=0

Lets hope this is true... :)

:spam: please don't do that. We have our own discussion here! :p

[carpediem]

:spam: please don't do that. We have our own discussion here! :p

Yes, but if you really want in depth analysis and speculation from people that are in the industry or even work at ATI/Nvidia (under secret aliases of course), that's the place to be. :)

[Digital Pimp]

Very interesting, looks like this is heating up to be a good battle between ATI & Nvidia. Shame they wont fight about pricing, top price all the way :(

[Max Veteran]

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Go ATI!

[armaddon]

yeah what's with that? seems like either way we get ripped off... $500 is friggin' outrageous if you ask me. I'll just keep to my 5900nu for now.

It will be interesting to see the way things heat up. Unfortunately the price almost makes me want to go back to consoles again. They cut sales of the XBox again ya know.... :unsure:

anyways i'd be happy to go ati if they can pump out a competetive product decently cheaper than nVidia. definitely wouldn't mind the IQ boost :cool:

~armaddon

[carpediem]

yeah what's with that? seems like either way we get ripped off... $500 is friggin' outrageous if you ask me. I'll just keep to my 5900nu for now.

It will be interesting to see the way things heat up. Unfortunately the price almost makes me want to go back to consoles again. They cut sales of the XBox again ya know.... :unsure:

anyways i'd be happy to go ati if they can pump out a competetive product decently cheaper than nVidia. definitely wouldn't mind the IQ boost :cool:

~armaddon

The fastest cards are enthusiast only in the beginning, but that's how it always has worked. Give it a few months after release and they'll be down to more affordable prices.

I'm getting the fastest card when it comes out though and I hope it'll be ATI this time too :)

[giga Veteran]

Woot woot. lol. i cant wait to see benchmarks between the new nvidias and ati's.

[cpu killer]

HaHa - and ATi COMES BACK BABY!

Saw it coming, one more round - and the winner? DING DING DING, ATi!

:).

[tronmaster]

Sounds cool.

I'm hoping for a $300.00 dollar model so I can finally upgrade to my last AGP video card from Nvidia's Ti4200.

The next upgrade after that will be strictly PCI Express. :D

[ForeverUnknown]

man this card is sounding sweet. i cant wait until we get a look at it

[DigitalN.]

aw yeah, ATi is gonna rock NVIDIA outta the house (me hopes)

[b3ta]

I just knew that ATi wouldn't let nVidia beat it to the finish line!

[Cynicalsomething]

Should I buy the X800 or should I wait a month for the X800 XT to come out????

[ForeverUnknown]

Should I buy the X800 or should I wait a month for the X800 XT to come out????

i say wait for the xt but also depends on how much money you have

[Arrowhead]

How come your all goin "wooo ATI" dont forget that the NV40 has 210million transistor AND the same number of piplines, do the maths fanboys.

160m vs 210m = hmm.

[XLS]

Arrowhead, wait and see, wait and see ...

[Arrowhead]

Yeah you say that now, but whats with the huge celebration on the previous page. You act as if its totally gonna "whoop ass." typically american *sigh*

[XLS]

American ? WTF i come from Denmark ...

:blink:

[Arrowhead]

Thats besides the point, give BOTH the cards a fair chance man! i expect both of them will kick ass, infact they WILL kick ass, stop taking sides and being a victim to marketing loyalty.

[+Random Stranger Subscriber¹]

i'll ahve to wait till the PCI express versions to come out - then its major upgrade time - new smaller and quiter case with larger fan and sound proofing. sata hdd. athlon 64bit maybe. new mb to support all the new stuff. i am pumped. now i hope i make enough monay at work to support all the purchases.