Rumors, rumors, rumors... (ATI)

[jclw]

So, rumor has it ATI taped out the R350 this week.

It will probably be 0.13, but there is another rumor floating around that it will be another 0.15 core redesigned to hit higher clock speeds.

It will support DDRII. ATI says the current 0.15 version supports DDRII. But since they like to keep core and memory synchronized there wasn't any point in matching DDRII memory with a 0.15 core when DDRI would easily keep up.

It is supposed to hit the shelves 1Q03, with samples out as early as this holiday season.

- JW

*PIII-800 @900 i440BX SMP and Tualeron 1.2 @1.74 i815*

 

[LtBlue14]

WOW they're really puttin the pressure on nVidia if that's true
but it may be ATI tryin to keep the hype for the FX down
as crashman said, all the nvidia hype has got to be hurting ATI sales. maybe they're tryin to make people rethink

 

[icy_oblivion]

I say let ATI hype their next card. Nvidia does it, so why not? ATI has earned the sales they should be getting this Christmas and Nvidia deserves not having the sales this season since they missed a product cycle. They were too busy living off the fat of previous sales.

Don't get me wrong I love Nvidia cards as much as I like ATI cards, I just think that ATI has done a lot more in the last year to deserve some big sales.

<font color=green>My other personality is schitzofrenic.</font color=green>

 

[Rubberbband]

I agree. Nvidia has been living off its reputation for the last little while. Gotta give Ati credit for putting out the 9700.

The Men Behind the GUNS!

<A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=327" target="_new"><b>MY SYSTEM</b></A>

 

[halkebul]

Wow, ATi is really serious about ousting nVidia! At first, I thought that they merely wanted to compete. Good job, ATi!

<i>It's your world kid!!!</i>

 

[Black_Cat]

ATI has done a lot more in the last year to deserve some big sales.

I agree. Since the release of the 8500 they have really done a great job with the release of new drivers. ATI has their sh!t together. Great technology put into great products with great support. They're basically doing what Nvidia has been doing all along. I hope ATI and Nvidia go back and forth for the next 10 years! This way we all win.

To start press any key. Where's the "any" key? --Homer Simpson.

 

[eden]

It's quite weird how a few days is all it takes to really shift the power. You'd think small companies have years before they might become better, but nowadays a single day could change it all. ATi did that. MS is going down suddenly, even as we thought they would never lose. It's just weird!

--
*You can do anything you set your mind to man. -Eminem

 

[icy_oblivion]

I have to agree it is weird, but it sure makes for a good consumer market!! It forces the top dog to work very hard and produce almost perfect products everytime if they want to stay on the top of the market. If the top dog isn't willing to produce, there is always an underdog who has been waiting to take advantage of the situation.

<font color=green>My other personality is schitzofrenic.</font color=green>

 

[eden]

Yes and it could perhaps shift things as oddly, for AMD as well. Who knows!
It's hard to even imagine Intel having financial trouble, let alone constantly losing market share.

It's sad this is not the case with global companies out of the tech sector. Globalization is happening and yet this weird phenomenon isn't or won't affect the outer tech sector, so that perhaps small companies could rival the big ones. :frown:

--
*You can do anything you set your mind to man. -Eminem

 

[icy_oblivion]

Right now I am hoping that AMD's Athlon 64 does run all over the P4 3.06GHz with HyperThreading. That would make for a better market again. And for some reason I have always had the mentality that if a product is almost equal and the price isn't that different, I prefer to buy from the company that has been the underdog for longer.

Don't ask me to explain why I think this way. I haven't even figured you why I think this way, hehe.

<font color=green>My other personality is schitzofrenic.</font color=green>

 

[LtBlue14]

hey how is MS going down? i'm very excited to hear that, i just didn't know they were havin problems. what's goin on?

 

[eden]

Profits for the first time seem to actually be down. Not to mention the many people seeming to drift, and the monopoly suing and changes they are bringing to the "Freedom" of use of the OS.

I for one do not want them to lower down or lose, just keep their integrity all the while letting other companies try to compete.
But the signs that MS is not a domination are much more clear now.

--
*You can do anything you set your mind to man. -Eminem

 

[HolyShiznit]

I like the thought of a universal document format...what was the extension, xml? something? I'd imagine the new competition it would bring would make MS Office affordable for pennypinchers like myself. Bill Gates getting a pie in the face again would be nicer though.

 

[jclw]

I use WordPerfect office, you can pick up an OEM version for about CDN$50 when you buy a motherboard. And it doesn't have the stupid dancing paperclip.

- JW

*PIII-800 @900 i440BX SMP and Tualeron 1.2 @1.74 i815*

 

[spud]

Eden what are you talking about MS is one of the few companies to ever exist that have never had a bad quarter. They are growing all the time even this year they grew in sales by 3%. The US government is off their back and the European Unions will fold soon enough. MS aint going no where folks I dont know where you got this idea from Eden but its way off.

-Jeremy

<font color=blue>Just some advice from your friendly neighborhood blue man </font color=blue>

 

[Spitfire_x86]

I use the "free" version of Office XP with Frontpage

Let us know <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=25703#25703" target="_new"> What File compression format you use? </A>

 

[eden]

I had picked it from Hard News!
Apparently it's their first ever drop in sales.
All I'm saying is that some companies which were highest of the highest, are shifting positions. Look at ATi, perfect example of how what we thought that nVidia had a cash hoard to survive, and now they're really losing it.

And christ, why does everyone hate Clippy?
If you don't like him, ever heard of the icon with a friggin 'X'?

--
*You can do anything you set your mind to man. -Eminem<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Eden on 11/24/02 00:39 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Ghostdog]

Back to topic. If ATi comes out with something faster in Q1, I might just have to reconsider(again) what GC I´m buying.
I think the R350 might just be a slightly modified core (0.13?) of the R300, and using DDR2. Tha naming suggests something like this (R200 - R300).

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

 

[jclw]

The more I read about it, the more I think it'll be a redesigned 0.15 core at higher speeds, maybe with DDRII.

Considering the problems everyone has been having with 0.13 (well, AMD and Nvidia anyways) I think ATI will wait. Maybe even do 0.13 version with GDDR3 next summer or whenever that stuff is finalized.

*Dual PIII-800 @900 i440BX and Tualeron 1.2 @1.74 i815*

 

[eden]

If they keep current bitwidth and add DDR2 and keep memory clockspeeds intact, nVidia's done for, the DDR2 advantage can possibly allow quad bit instead of DDR.

--
*You can do anything you set your mind to man. -Eminem

 

[vacs]

<A HREF="http://www.siliconstrategies.com/story/OEG20021115S0028" target="_new">Nvidia first — and perhaps only — user of DDR II until 2004</A>

Although I don't know how accurate this article is because the author says that the ATI flagship has not been designed for DDR II (ATI of course denies this); but the article predicts that ATI will not switch to DDR II (or GDDR3 as they call it) during the next year!

 

[eden]

I find the naming GDDR3 to be one misleading name. And stop with the DDR Xth generation naming already, it's overusing the name!

--
*You can do anything you set your mind to man. -Eminem

 

[Crashman]

NOW THIS IS WHAT I LIKE TO HEAR, RUMORS BEING CALLED RUMORS...as compared to nVidia's recent rumors being called revolations! Anyway, I believe .13 micron was in the original design spec of the R300, but was delayed due to implementation problems at the foundries. Now, if the R350 is nothing more than a .13 micron R300 (ATI has been saying they would drop the R300 to that size) with GDDRII support, the higher clock speeds and faster memory should put it at least square with the NV30. This is because it has been shown that the performance of the R300 scales almost equally with clock speed, ie 25% more clock with 25% faster memory = 25% more performance (not all chips can do that). Now, those are facts, now we get back to the hypothesis: the die shrink should allow 30% higher clock speeds. The new memory can exceed that. So that should put them back in the running. Of course, if nVidia's performance claims are exagerated, it should put ATI in the lead again. Either way it will push technology up and prices down, good new for buyers of either product!

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

 

[TheGame]

LOL. crashman, i understand where your coming from. i for one hope that ATI keeps the lead, but thats just me, i dont like it either when people are misled by pple that think that they have the first "facts" about the up and coming products.

-TheGame-

 

[AndrewT]

"all the nvidia hype has got to be hurting ATI sales"

I hope so, after all the money I payed for this damn card all I got is the lamest ever manual that explain nothing other than how to install the card.

Also for the past 30 minutes I'm trying to use the s-video tv out to watch a movie and get nothing but purple or blue screen on tv. long as I only want to see the desktop it show fine, but when I set wmp to fullscreen it's all gone to hell. So far the only way I managed to see some of the movie is making the desktop extend to tv and then move wmp to tv. pretty cheap if you ask me, way too far from the claim that I can use dual display and different resolutions...

Hope they don't sell another till they make a decent manual and driver that work, not just show what you should be able to change. don't bother trying to move the picture on the tv, you can click all you want and it will stay (plus I can't get the friggin tv to do 800x600, it's stuck at 1024x768). also after every couple of minutes of trying to set it right, all the ATI tabs go away till I reboot.

I love the card when I play games on the monitor, it's just great, but now that I was trying to use other options... I think this card was released way too early into development, but with our luck... any try to make it work well will die because they release another new card and then nobody will care about the one before which is still not running a 100 or even 80%.

Anyway, just ranting because I'm pissed of this p.o.s., for almost 700$ (Canadian and with 15% taxes) I expected something that works well not near 50%.

<font color=red>Got a silent setup, now I can hear myself thinking.... great silence</font color=red>