9700 Pro on .13 Micron, think about it...

[Crashman]

OK, so ATI wanted the 9700 Pro on the .13 micron process to begin with for several reasons, including the fact that the die size is too large and expensive, and that it uses too much power. But the .13 micron process wasn't ready at any of ATI's foundries in time for the launch. Understandable.

Now we all know that ATI plans to correct this problem with the replacement card, and at the same time add DDRII to it. But most people have argued that this technology will not be applied to the already existing core. This makes little sense, and here's why:

Once they get the R350 production up and running, they will work all the bugs out of the .13Micron process, and rejection rates will fall into an acceptable range. At that point, it would be CHEAPER to produce the 9700 on the same process, because of the smaller die size!

Will the shrunken 9700 with DDR1 be called a 9700? Who knows, if the R350 were called a 9800 Pro, the shrunken R300 might be called a 9800 Gold. At any rate, it seems assured that the current 9700 will go away in a few months and will be replaced with a similar model that may or may not bear the same name.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[HolyShiznit]

Sure, sounds good. Whatever the case, I tip my hat to ATI. They've really gotten their act together in the past year. The future looks bright for them.

<font color=blue>
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Guns kill people just like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
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[chuck232]

A RV350 sounds like a value card to me, so it should be slower than the R9700 Pro correct? Then why would it be named R9800 Pro? Even if they phase out the R9700 Pro name and use the R9800 Gold or Ultra or whatever, it would still take a might while for retailers to sell the R9700. The R9700 would be more expensive than the R9800 and therefore, buy a *lower* card for more? (just like 8500 and 9000)

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...

 

[eden]

Chuck is right, and I was about to correct you on that one Crash, the RV prefix is denoting a value card. R350 is the real upgraded R300.
Looking forward for the ATi value cards is becoming cheap now, when you think of how the R9000 PRO was named.

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[Crashman]

Actually, I meant R350, I'll be fixing that post to put an end to the confusion.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[hellcatjr]

AS a whole ati has got their act together and have made a rock solid card that proves with preformance but the whole adding of DDRII i dunno, it seems all to weird, i think ati is really fearing the Geforce FX card, and if the benchs were correct that i had seen about a FX card they have full right to be...

 

[chuck232]

Hmmmm.... that kinda makes my post look irrelavent.... :frown: :tongue:

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...

 

[Crashman]

DDRII was in their spec long ago, in fact they were the ones to file for the GDDRII spec (a Graphics card version of the normal PC DDRII spec). They've also been planning the .13 micron switch for a long, long time now (since before the intro of the 9700 Pro), and with the smaller die size, faster clock speeds are easy.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Crashman]

Sorry. Who knows, MAYBE the R300 on .13 micron WILL have a V, as in RV350? LOL, not to confuse the matter. You know, I don't always type what I'm thinking.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[vegandago]

hellcat... what benchmarks were YOU looking at?

"There is no dark or light side, only power and those too weak to seek it."

 

[chuck232]

Intial benchies show the GF FX ahead of the R9700 Pro in fill rate heavy games such as UT2003.

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...

 

[phsstpok]

I thought ATI's spec was for GDDR3. [Where's that d*mn link?]

Ah, here it is.

<A HREF="http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1035788079" target="_new">http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1035788079</A>

[Now where is that other link?]

<b>[EDIT]</b> I came across an article which mentions that DDR2 has 3 times the write latency of DDR.

<A HREF="http://www.lostcircuits.com/memory/ddrii/" target="_new">http://www.lostcircuits.com/memory/ddrii/</A>

Would this be why ATI proposed GDDR3?

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 01/12/03 01:03 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[eden]

ATi better not be calling DDR 2 graphics RAM DDR3.

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[phsstpok]

ATi better not be calling DDR 2 graphics RAM DDR3.

I never said they were. I said they proposed a spec for GDDR3.

I believe that ATI is planning to pair this new memory technology with the R350. They may or may not use DDR2 on a revamped 9700 Pro. (Remember that ATI's vice president of technology appeared on the television show, Screensavers, with a prototype 9700 complete with DDR2 memory. This is where the speculation of a revamped 9700 with DDR2 comes from.

However, that GDDR3 announcement was a bombshell. ATI made this announcement before any production video cards even had DDR2.

I was just speculating even further, wondering if it is because of the high latency of DDR2 that ATI has apparently made the decision to move quickly to GDDR3.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 01/12/03 02:52 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[phsstpok]

Oops, forget what I said about R350.

I provided the wrong link. Here is the original GDDR3 news announcement at Xbitlabs.

<A HREF="http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1033987808" target="_new">http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1033987808</A>

It clearly mentions that GDDR3 will likely be paired with NV40 and R400 (not R350) beginning late in 2003.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

 

[eden]

I doubt the NV40 is any soon though, we've yet to get the NV30. I bet it'll take until mid 2004 until it is given a release/shipping date.

I read the link, indeed DDR3 is different, thank god. And I hope it goes for the CPU world as well. I believe ATi will be the first to use it.

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[phsstpok]

Yeah, also I wonder how DDR3 differs from GDDR3. I know JEDEC sets standards for memory modules only. Video card manufacturers may use the same general architecture of the memory but there are differences. The memory is permanently mounted on video cards for one thing. It generally runs much faster than the memory used for PCs. The memory subsystem is for only one manufacturer and partners who can deviate from the specification of PC memory modules by tweaking any way they wish. I mean you can't change the memory of you own video card so the memory subsystem does not have to be standardized. Guess that gives the manufacturers the liberty to call the memory anything they wish, like "GDDR3".

The LostCircuits article was very interesting (those parts of it they I could actually understand, that is).

We'll have to wait and see if DDR2 ever gains a foothold. Perhaps the industry will stretch out the use of DDR and then skip right over DDR2 straight to DDR3.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

 

[phial]

i said that 2 months ago


DDR2 (or wadever you wanna call it) on a 256 memory bus and .13 micron = ATI's next generation


its the only logical steop

 

[phsstpok]

DDR2 (or wadever you wanna call it) on a 256 memory bus and .13 micron = ATI's next generation

Maybe you did but we, Eden and I, have been talking about DDR3 or an adaptation of DDR3 for R400.

I still think we will see DDR2 with the current generation, R300. I personally think (and it's a total guess) that we'll see 0.13 micron with R350 but DDR2 with the Radeon 9700 revamp.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

 

[eden]

Hey, who knows, as long as it improves the card, it's good. The DDR 2 on the R300 is as Crash always believed, a major NV killer. The FX uses DDR2 but with no 256-bit memory bus, which means ATi will only have advantages when raising memory clock, and can start at MUCH less than 1GHZ DDR2 yet be tons of GBs above the FX.

If only nVidia was more aggressive.

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[Crashman]

nVidia has a very loyal following, they don't NEED to be agressive. What consumers need is for ATI to maintain a lead throughout most of the next 6 months or so. Why? To get the high-end customers more evenly distributed between the two brands and get price wars and tech wars heated up.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Ghostdog]

I think the reason that people think the R350 is going to be made on a .15 process (if at all) is becuase there was a ATI representitive who confirmed this awhile back, aswell as the RV350 being made on a .13 process. Sorry Crash, I don´t have any links, that´s just what I remember.

And yeah, it´s sounds a bit stupid to go with a more expensive process, but maybe ATI wants to stick with a known process, seing as people who come across good cores and have good chipset-cooling easily reach 400mhz on their 9700pro´s.

<font color=red>I´m starting to feel like a real computer consultant.</font color=red>