Has it been *Confirmed?* ATI R600 not until Feb or later?

[camaroz06]

Hello all,
Has it been confirmed that we will not see ATI’s DX10 offering until March or sometime after February? Because all I remember is people saying end of Jan...its the end of Jan and havent heard anything in the form of previews or news. I want a rig and am probally going to go 8800gtx if there is nothing soon.

Thanks
Eddie

 

[sailer]

From what I've read, the R600 will not appear in Jan, though keep in mind that the end of Jan is still over a week away. AMD/ATI said there were some problems and they were trying to get the codes right before shipment. Production is supposed to start in Feb, with distribution in late Feb or early March. Basically, I'll believe it when I see it.

The 8800 has been a good performing card in XP, but from the last I read, wasn't had working drivers as a DX10 card in Vista. Some have said that the release of Vista drivers won't take place until Microsoft releases Vista to the general public. Others have said that the Nvidea drivers haven't worked with the Microsoft specification. I don't know what the real answer is.

With the high probability that there will be some initial bugs with Vista, I'm not planning to build my next machine until about June. As such, if the R600 is a bit late, it doesn't matter to me. Another thing to keep in mind is that when the R600 comes out, the 8800 prices will probably drop a bit. Patience is a key here, but if you want to build a machine quickly, then the 8800 is the only answer for now.

 

[camaroz06]

Another route I might go is get a X1950Pro or even a 8800GTS, since one on rebate is around $360, right now and then get whatever is king of the hill when the R600 is released. I have a few components like power supply, dvd drive, monitor, hard drive, memory. I am probally going to pick up a E6600 today. That leaves the mobo, and video card. MAybe a Asus Commando or Abit's new 680i.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Who do you expect to *confirm* this?
ATi and nV don't confirm rumours, they just announce due dates when they're final. They give cryptic timeframes to analysts, but that's as close as you get.

As for the best unconfirmed info, this is likely closest;
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36799

BTW, CeBit is March 15-21.

 

[camaroz06]

basically looking for the most *confirmed* unconfirmed rumor

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Production is supposed to start in Feb, with distribution in late Feb or early March. Basically, I'll believe it when I see it.

Production start in February? Hardly it's already been going.
From the start of production to achieve volumes high enough to sell en mass would be minimum of 2 months like the GF7900 series (one of the quickest yet). The R600 likely has been in production since before Xmas.

The 8800 has been a good performing card in XP, but from the last I read, wasn't had working drivers as a DX10 card in Vista. Some have said that the release of Vista drivers won't take place until Microsoft releases Vista to the general public. Others have said that the Nvidea drivers haven't worked with the Microsoft specification. I don't know what the real answer is.

Well the early feedback from the forums, like ElderScrolls.com (Oblivion) is that the performance is down significantly from XP, which would be similar reaction to vista that the GF7 series had. I doubt there'll be magic drivers by the time Vista launches at the end of the month, but likely a few quick revisions will get performance better, but how that compares to the competition is another story.

However I do agree, if you got build right now, the GF8800GTS is a good card if you're concerned about future performance at all. If you can wait then see how things work themselves out over the next few weeks.

IMO forget DX10/Vista performance for now and focus on the GTS being a damn fine DX9/XP card with some potential added DX10/Vista gravy later.

 

[grifter33]

The newest news:

there is a rumor coming out from the websites in China currently that AMD is planning to launch R600 on 8th or 9th March and be officially named as Radeon X2K series. The mass production silicon is expected to be still at A12 for the R600 cards at launch.

It seems like ATi has successfully taped out a A15 silicon that is able to work at 1GHz probably we can hope to see another series of R600 cards with higher working clocks in the near future. The article suggests ATi's next generation R680 is scheduled for Q3 launch but suggested that NVIDIA will have G81 and the next gen. GPU ready to compete.

According to our sources but still a rumor revealed R600 as X2800 series. There are 2 variants for XTX; 1GB and 512MB. X2800XTX runs at 750MHz core, 2.2GHz memory, 512-bit memory interface and GDDR4 while XT runs at 600MHz core, 1.8GHz memory, 512-bit memory interface and GDDR3.

LINK

 

[sailer]

I guess that I haven't kept up on my reading, or have read wrong articles concerning the R600. Maybe just misunderstood what somebody wrote. Don't know for sure.

I knew performance was down on the 8800 under Vista, which is why I stated that it was good under XP. As far as performance under Vista, Like I said, I don't know the real answer there. Better drivers might help, but I think there will be a lot of learning going on as to how to get good speed with DX10 and Vista. Time, patience and engineering will probably give the answers. For now, my crystal ball is cloudy on the issue.

 

[tamalero]

From what I've read, the R600 will not appear in Jan, though keep in mind that the end of Jan is still over a week away. AMD/ATI said there were some problems and they were trying to get the codes right before shipment. Production is supposed to start in Feb, with distribution in late Feb or early March. Basically, I'll believe it when I see it.

The 8800 has been a good performing card in XP, but from the last I read, wasn't had working drivers as a DX10 card in Vista. Some have said that the release of Vista drivers won't take place until Microsoft releases Vista to the general public. Others have said that the Nvidea drivers haven't worked with the Microsoft specification. I don't know what the real answer is.

With the high probability that there will be some initial bugs with Vista, I'm not planning to build my next machine until about June. As such, if the R600 is a bit late, it doesn't matter to me. Another thing to keep in mind is that when the R600 comes out, the 8800 prices will probably drop a bit. Patience is a key here, but if you want to build a machine quickly, then the 8800 is the only answer for now.

the inquirer later countered that news about "errors" in the silicon..
just AMD is forcing ATI to dont offer the product until they have volume to sell ( Ie, they dont want paper launch )

 

[sailer]

Well, I missed it for sure then, not that I put all that much faith in the Inquirer. I do appreciate that AMD/ATI doesn't want a paper launch, and I'm glad of that.

 

[zenmaster]

Performance will NEVER be as good under Vista as it is under XP unless Microsoft relents on who they allow drivers to operate.

Under XP drivers were allowed to have full access to the OS kernel which allows for very fast performance but in essence made it part of the OS with unchecked power.

Under Vista, they are moving the drivers outside of the kernal so anything they do needs to go through far more layers. The performance difference in doing this is dramatic.

Now the pure power for the DX10 cards is going to be vastly greater than that of the DX9 cards just due to technology advancement so we many eventually see better performance in the future with Vista than what we currently have in XP. They may also be able to tweak and improve many of the DirectX calls so they are progmatically more efficient.

However, the very nature of Vista is designed to make it a slower and less efficient OS though one that is more secure from both hackers/trojans but also from poorly written drivers/software.

Personally I wish MS had left hands off of drivers so as not to kill performance of real and virtual hardware devices. Protect me from the 13-year old virus hacker. Don't protect me from NVIDIA/ATI/VMWare/Symantec, etc....

 

[sailer]

Like I said, my crystal ball is very cloudy on the issue. Yes, I've read about the accusations between Nvidia and Microsoft, each pointing fingers at the other. As you say, Microsoft needs to relent so the hardware companies can do their job right. The issue does make me consider migrating to Linux occasionally. But with Linux comes problems of programs that don't work on it.

13 year old virus hackers, or of whatever age, wish there was some type of program that could not only block their stuff, but also send something back that would render their computers dead.

 

[jorberg]

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4510

 

[themelonator13]

I can remember where i read it i think it was in vr zone but they said that a press kit by amd would be released jan 28. They also said that longer rtm versions of the r600 will be sent to manufacturers and reviewers

link
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4461