techPowerup.Com - R520 Full Card Preview!

[EnJoY]

http://www.techpowerup.com/index.php?5127


The card you are seeing is the R520 XT. It is a dual slot solution and uses a cooler similar to the X850. ATI will also offer one-slot versions which will have less performance.

The will only be PCI-Express boards. AGP versions are definitely not planned.
Internally the chip will use 512-bit memory transfers. However, the external memory interface will still be 256-bit - expect some nice marketing from ATI regarding that "feature".

This is why we at tpu rock your socks. :D

[cadaveca]

heh, if they used real 512bit ram, it would probably cost as much as the Wildcat "realism".

MAybe it works out to dualchannel 256bit interface,2-256mb banks of quad channel GDDR3?...that's how they overcame the latency problem of using two banks of 256mb...and kept costs lower. Hmm...then the R580, assuming ram costs are down, might just take real 512bit ram, and make the 750mhz mark for X950XTPE? :slobber:



:D


ATI are way too predictable. No wonder nVidia has them beat. :fact:

[Supertim0r]

ATI X1800 :cool:
they are about the same size as the 6800/7800 now

[metro.cl]

i wanna see benchs

[ingentingmendeg]

i wanna know why the R520XT crossfire card has only 256mb of ram :confused:

[mcnbns]

I would just like to say that clock speeds are fairly useless/unimpressive without knowing the number of pixel pipelines. Is it just me or did that article not mention anything about them?

[ingentingmendeg]

it has 16pipes, but suppose to compete with the 7800's

[cadaveca]

i wanna know why the R520XT crossfire card has only 256mb of ram :confused:


The other side of the memory controller is used to write to the composting chip, i think. This would make for almost 195% performance increase over single card with crossfire possibly. :D

[mcnbns]

it has 16pipes, but suppose to compete with the 7800's
Compete? ATi would be stupid to release a card that can only "compete". After taking a back seat to nVidia for so long I hope ATi makes a (partial, at least) comeback with this series of cards.

P.S. I'm a fanboy. :slapass:

[shigs]

do u guys really think that wat the retail version will look like? ...

i mean that card is jus MAAAAAASSIVE! looks alot larger than even a 7800gtx

[MaxxxRacer]

well i guess ATI just couldnt keep the card small anymore.. ohwell..

lets hope its not 16 pipes. If it is, ATI is screwed as a x850xtpe at 600/700 cant compete with a 7800GTX

[madgravity34]

say it has 16 pipes, what kind of score would you expect? And if it had 24 pipes? Would it OC better because its 90nm? Maybe thats what ati is betting on?

[Sentential]

Hmmmm. I am witholding judgement until I see some physical numbers

[afireinside]

do u guys really think that wat the retail version will look like? ...

i mean that card is jus MAAAAAASSIVE! looks alot larger than even a 7800gtx

Actually it looks like someone was playing around in PS with a 7800GTX pic and some red :D Anyone with a 7800GTX wana confirm if the layout is similar or not on the back?

[HiJon89]

Is it just me or are there no RAM chips on the back of the card?

[afireinside]

ROFL I didn't even notice that!

[EnJoY]

Actually it looks like someone was playing around in PS with a 7800GTX pic and some red :D Anyone with a 7800GTX wana confirm if the layout is similar or not on the back?

|
V

Is it just me or are there no RAM chips on the back of the card?


Guess that confirms it eh? :p:

[Tanktanium]

well i guess ATI just couldnt keep the card small anymore.. ohwell..

lets hope its not 16 pipes. If it is, ATI is screwed as a x850xtpe at 600/700 cant compete with a 7800GTX

Even if it were 16 pipes, ATI has redesigned their pipelines, and supposedly, they have 1.3 times the size/capability of last generation pipelines..

[longsiew]

I really do hope there is 32 pipelines version

[Bloody_Sorcerer]

keep in mind that the only fat version is the R520XT with 512mb ram. the others are all listed as single-slot

[nn_step]

Any news about driver support yet?

[Geforce4ti4200]

That things quite massive and unimpressive! If its got 16 pipes, itll barely beat their old x850xt, sad to say. Lets hope r580 comes quick and fast

[Dumo]

The race is on to volt mod that sweet card :)

[Tanktanium]

That things quite massive and unimpressive! If its got 16 pipes, itll barely beat their old x850xt, sad to say. Lets hope r580 comes quick and fast

ARRRRGHH!! DO PEOPLE EVER LISTEN?

The actual SIZE of the pipes is what matters! NOT THE BLOODY NUMBER. A "pipeline" is not a standard unit of performance. Gah!

[Pinnacle]

looks similar to the gtx in design.

Cant wait for this Bad boy.

[zakelwe]

Yes, people need to not always get hung up on number of pipes, number of pipes was more important in the past, now as well you have to take into account the amount of shading the pipes can do per clock as well as the number of pipes, bandwidth, ROPS etc.

I still have no idea how well it will do against nvidia 7800, I wish October would be here, this r520 story has been going for years ! :)

Regards

Andy

[Tanktanium]

HKEPC has yet ANOTHER R520 Preview :D

Roughly translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hkepc.com%2Fhwdb%2Fr5 20firstlook.htm&langpair=zh-CN%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

[Geforce4ti4200]

if number of pipes didnt matter, why is ati worried about yield problems and having only 16 instead of 24 pipes? I can see this being good for 3dmark 2001 and well any game you want as long as youd rather have IQ vs. speed(like its not fast enough lol)

[muaddib]

Looks like a monster. Looking forward to October...

[Karma]

if number of pipes didnt matter, why is ati worried about yield problems and having only 16 instead of 24 pipes? I can see this being good for 3dmark 2001 and well any game you want as long as youd rather have IQ vs. speed(like its not fast enough lol)

Supposedly it was not the number of pipes, but the low clock speeds due to the bad soft grounding.

A GPU could have 1 pipe and still beat the 7800GTX, depending on the internal architecture.

[k0nsl]

OK, so we've seen pictures of a supposed core and now of the pcb itself (supposedly), but no benchmarks? Golly!

-k0nsl

[nn_step]

we need some benchmarks, they make every arguement moot...

[Jamo]

Actually it looks like someone was playing around in PS with a 7800GTX pic and some red :D Anyone with a 7800GTX wana confirm if the layout is similar or not on the back?

no there completely different, looks to be pretty genuine unless he's a photochop pro, and correct me if i'm wrong but we havnt actually heard officially from ati it will have 16 pipes

[El Snorro]

HKEPC has yet ANOTHER R520 Preview :D

Roughly translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hkepc.com%2Fhwdb%2Fr5 20firstlook.htm&langpair=zh-CN%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/r520firstlook/dram.jpg

1.2ns ram ES? (BJ12)

[Waus-mod]

Id like to see benches.. card looks great

[Tanktanium]

http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/r520firstlook/dram.jpg

1.2ns ram ES? (BJ12)

Yes, 1.26ns ram rated at 800mhz, 1600mhz effective.

BTW, VR-Zone did a proper translation and can be found here (http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/r520firstlook-e.htm).

[iS.Terminator]

Supposedly it was not the number of pipes, but the low clock speeds due to the bad soft grounding.

A GPU could have 1 pipe and still beat the 7800GTX, depending on the internal architecture.
not true.....7800GTX is very powerful, we've got yet to see the benchmarks....

[iS.Terminator]

Yes, people need to not always get hung up on number of pipes, number of pipes was more important in the past, now as well you have to take into account the amount of shading the pipes can do per clock as well as the number of pipes, bandwidth, ROPS etc.

I still have no idea how well it will do against nvidia 7800, I wish October would be here, this r520 story has been going for years ! :)

Regards

Andy
True, I can't wait eitheir, iwe've been waiting forever! Maybe Nvidia will end up wining with it's 7800gtx, or maybe ATI wil....hmmmm, can't wait to see who wins... ;)

[Karma]

not true.....7800GTX is very powerful, we've got yet to see the benchmarks....

:D Yes. Very very true. nVidia could also release a 1-pipe card with 24 internal ROP's, 32-shader fragments, and a 512-memory bus that would whoop it's own 7800GTX.

Too many people think that GPU pipelines are it's own form of measurement. However the Xenos/R500 should have taught you otherwise.

[HiJon89]

Is it just me or are there no RAM chips on the back of the card?
I think I answered my own question, in an unusual layout move ATI has put all 8 RAM chips on one side it appears:
http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/r520firstlook/pcb.jpg

[Jamo]

I think I answered my own question, in an unusual layout move ATI has put all 8 RAM chips on one side it appears:
http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/r520firstlook/pcb.jpg


maybe its a ploy and they can upgrade to 1gb, just seeing what nvidia do

[5-Clicks]

according to the HKEPC translation, no less than 24 pipes will be on the r520.

[nn_step]

all good and all but are there any benchmarks what so ever?

[clayton]

Rumors are getting into everyone's head :(

[cadaveca]

according to the HKEPC translation, no less than 24 pipes will be on the r520.

LoL..you trust froogle for translation?



How about the english version?:

http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/r520firstlook-e.htm

whcih has the last paragraph that says this about piplines:

The card maker doesn't wish to reveal the R520 performance yet, but we can confirm that R520 at 24pp or 32pp will not be lower performance than that of the GeForce 7800GTX. Even though the 32pp and 24pp R520 mass production will face some difficulties, the 16 pipeline R520 using the 90nm core will be clocked high to maintain a certain level of competitiveness. Apart from employing TSMC to make the 90nm R520 cores, UMC will be making them as well in the near future, to make up the shortage problem and maybe we can see more of the 32pp and 24pp R520 versions.

edited the quote myself for clarity. please feel free to email hkepc if you think i have it wrong, lol or ask shamino...his site translated it.

[Jrocket]

all good and all but are there any benchmarks what so ever?

There is no point in asking or wondering about benchmarks. I can almost guarantee you that ATI has NDAs up the a$$ with this card and anyone who has one will only be able to tell us what this site has until the date the NDA is lifted. Also, on another note, ATI may be undergoing some recent hardships, but everyone hear should know from ATIs track record that they know better then to bring out a card that would only be as good as the 7800gtx. Cmon givin some credit guys.

[babyelf]

i think the ones hkepc got is not 24 or 32 pipes but they hope they will overcome yield issues and bring in 24 or 32 piped engineering sample

(correct me if i'm wrong.. haven't been using my mandarin for sometime now)

[5-Clicks]

LoL..you trust froogle for translation?

or ask shamino...his site translated it.
i used the vr-zone translation. :slap:

[7he]-[0rr0r]

awwww frig. new chipset cooler mounting. alass poor silver prop i hardly knew ye.

[Geforce4ti4200]

there technicially are 32 pipe r520s but only 10 supposedly exist. Expect the great majority to be 16 pipes and slower than a 7800gtx. If and a big IF ati can get out any 24 pipes to the public, itll surely beat the 7800gtx but Nvidia has the 7800u just waiting

[Hicks]

there technicially are 32 pipe r520s but only 10 supposedly exist. Expect the great majority to be 16 pipes and slower than a 7800gtx. If and a big IF ati can get out any 24 pipes to the public, itll surely beat the 7800gtx but Nvidia has the 7800u just waiting

Shut up man, your mr gossip.

[rick_fx]

Hicks, read the translated hkepc article :fact:

[shigs]

Shut up man, your mr gossip.

for a member with only 89 post thats a HUGE amount of disrespect to show to a memeber of 4k+ post :rolleyes:

anyhooo... geforce i do think its a lil unfair to assume that a 24pipe ati card will own a 24 pipe nv card?

shigs

[Pinnacle]

there technicially are 32 pipe r520s but only 10 supposedly exist.

got a link ?

[nn_step]

prove it man, prove it...

[J-Mag]

I wonder what initial MSRP will be on that thing... The memory itself must cost a fortune.

[waddupmm]

prove it man, prove it...

Ya I saw this a lil while back too heres the link http://www.nforcershq.com/article3899.html
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2647&s=1

[CaTalyst.X]

Shut up man, your mr gossip.

cant disagree, any1 can just say a bunch of crap, anytime something new about R520 is released, its amazing how many ppl know everything about it already :)

-CaT

[MaxxxRacer]

some say they know everything, but infact everyone knows nothing. -me

[Karma]

I had a small bird tell me that the R520 is going to be called the X1800XT and uses an "ultra-threaded quad-core 3D architecture" and a "512-bit ring bus" memory controller.

But, honestly I know nothing, all I really do is spew what comes from ATi's market advisory, and point to Anandtechs website:

ATI's 512-bit Ring Bus and R520 Product Naming (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2527) :p:

[pduan87]

for a member with only 89 post thats a HUGE amount of disrespect to show to a memeber of 4k+ post :rolleyes:

anyhooo... geforce i do think its a lil unfair to assume that a 24pipe ati card will own a 24 pipe nv card?

shigs

Have you ever read geforce's posts?

[davidw8818]

dang... wat a video card, its on sale yeT?

[nn_step]

we only wish that was true...

[davidw8818]

how much is that card gonna cost?

[zakelwe]

To be honest all posts in this thread can be classed as gossip so no point having a swipe at someone in this regards who you disagree with.

16 pipes is probably closer to the mark than 32 though.

Regards

Andy

[del_fuego]

16 pipes

Can you say '16 pipes' once more please Andy cos (if my calculations are correct) that would actually make it the millionth time you've said it in the past year or so!! (just an observation btw). It seems that no ones been hearing you, but the closer we get to release, the more likely it seems that you 'hit the nail on the head' and quite some time ago too.

I for one have believed you buddy and have huge respect for your unwavered thought process in the face of so much speculation.. If this card does end up with 16 pipes, well, im gonna start thinking that you designed it! I wouldnt be suprised to find a post from Zakelwe around the time the 9700pro came out stating something like - 'ah, i can see the boys who designed this coming out with a '16 piped' card codenamed r520 toward the end of 2005'!!

I enjoy reading your posts Andy, keep up the good work.

Cheers, dEl. :toast:

[G H Z]

This new platform is designed for a 32 pipe/512mb interface in the high end card's. It seems that ATI just could'nt pull it off at this early point in the game because of poor yeilds. And it looks like they need to refine the new 512mb memory interface further if the reference card HKPC has has only 256 enabled rather than it's full 512mb as designed.

So we'll have to play the waiting game for a while longer even past R520/X1800 until the platform matures. Then I think we'll see ATI dominating once again with a 32 pipe/512mb interface card.

[jjcom]

G_H_Z, I agree with that. Makes sense, maybe ATI will then doing something like have a X1850 series.

[Vapor]

Or a X1900....they do have room for that in their number scheme for a reason.

[nn_step]

or maybe they are just jerking us around with the R520 and release something completely different...

[ViperJohn]

i wanna know why the R520XT crossfire card has only 256mb of ram :confused:

Times two cards in a CF = 512Mb's that's why.

Viper

[Vapor]

I've heard otherwise....ONLY the CF card will have 512MB of Ram. This is probably to accomodate to later 512MB XTs. 512-bit bus (ring bus or something) is also present but not the mem controller :stick:

[ViperJohn]

there technicially are 32 pipe r520s but only 10 supposedly exist. Expect the great majority to be 16 pipes and slower than a 7800gtx. If and a big IF ati can get out any 24 pipes to the public, itll surely beat the 7800gtx but Nvidia has the 7800u just waiting


nVidia killed the 7800 Ultra cards last month lol.

Viper

[cadaveca]

You mean nv50? Does this mean thier 90nm designs are ready?




:D



:fact:

[EnJoY]

No, still the NV40/G70, just Ultra (clocked faster). But as John said, they canned it, atleast for now, as they don't feel it will be necessary to release even in the near future.

[ViperJohn]

No, still the NV40/G70, just Ultra (clocked faster). But as John said, they canned it, atleast for now, as they don't feel it will be necessary to release even in the near future.

I do not think it will be either. As everyone one knows I am an ATI man from head to toe but with the R520 going from a 700Mhz, 24 pipe, 7800 ass ripping FUDO to a 600Mhz, 16 pipe FUBAR I do not think NV has a damn thing to worry about lol.

Hopefully that 600/16 is just ATI trying to put NV on a false scent ahead of release (wouldn't be the first time for either ATI or NV). If not is would indicate that even after three respins, and in spite of what ATI says, they have serious yeild issues with the R520 cores when they can only regularly get a 16 working pipe count out of the 32 in the core.

Viper

[cantankerous]

well with your mods I'm sure we will see 800+ on the core no doubt.

[del_fuego]

Hopefully that 600/16 is just ATI trying to put NV on a false scent ahead of release (wouldn't be the first time for either ATI or NV).

I hope (but am not holding my breath) for the same marketing spin otherwise the 'beast of a card' weve all been waiting to see is gonna be another 6 months away at least :( When's the NDA up damnit?!! The 6600gt i got to tied me over is just not gonna cut it for much longer and i need something to make my bro's 7800gtx seem small (brotherly love and all that!), although i get the feeling that i might just have to get a gtx that clocks higher than his to do so, this year anyway. If im gonna be spending these high prices on a new card i'd just like to know that it will still be the fastest card in a month or two. I guess the wait should be over soon............. Aaaarrrgggghhhhhh, give me benchmarks already god damnit!

Cheers, dEl. :toast:

[zakelwe]

I do not think it will be either. As everyone one knows I am an ATI man from head to toe but with the R520 going from a 700Mhz, 24 pipe, 7800 ass ripping FUDO to a 600Mhz, 16 pipe FUBAR I do not think NV has a damn thing to worry about lol.

Hopefully that 600/16 is just ATI trying to put NV on a false scent ahead of release (wouldn't be the first time for either ATI or NV). If not is would indicate that even after three respins, and in spite of what ATI says, they have serious yeild issues with the R520 cores when they can only regularly get a 16 working pipe count out of the 32 in the core.

Viper

Well Ati managed not many 16 pipe X800XT's but a lot of X800 Pro's which was their backup cards with 1 quad disfunctional, but here you are saying that Ati are sacrificing 4 quads to go from 32 to 16.

Wouldn't you expect at least 24 functional, ie lost 2 ? Losing half their pipelines ?

r520 has always been a 16 pipe card no matter what the inquirer or vr-zone says IMO.

Regards

Andy

[STEvil]

seems to me we were told it was 16 pipes more than once also..

[jjcom]

Now if we go with 16 pipes, what all is in the die? It's about the same size as a 130nm 16pipe card...this die is 90nm with the same size and pipes, so what else do they have in there? Just some food for thought

[cadaveca]

Now if we go with 16 pipes, what all is in the die? It's about the same size as a 130nm 16pipe card...this die is 90nm with the same size and pipes, so what else do they have in there? Just some food for thought



:rolleyes:

like really. the whole design of the graphics chip is different...as in no pipes...at least not like pipes we have now.

WHY? try running AA and HDR...doesn't work on some cards, does it? the GPU itself is not capable to doing both operations because of the way frames are rendered into the final buffer...so it doesn't matter what's in it, or how many pipes, or how many vertex shaders..or whatever...


This chip should be a completely new beast. :fact:

[ViperJohn]

Well Ati managed not many 16 pipe X800XT's but a lot of X800 Pro's which was their backup cards with 1 quad disfunctional, but here you are saying that Ati are sacrificing 4 quads to go from 32 to 16.

Wouldn't you expect at least 24 functional, ie lost 2 ? Losing half their pipelines ?

r520 has always been a 16 pipe card no matter what the inquirer or vr-zone says IMO.

Regards

Andy

Man this post makes so little sense I want to know what the hell you are smokin' cause I want some!!!

"r520 has always been a 16 pipe card" = What planet have you been on lol.

Viper

[Pinnacle]

Man this post makes so little sense I want to know what the hell you are smokin' cause I want some!!!

"r520 has always been a 16 pipe card" = What planet have you been on lol.

Viper

i agree

[zakelwe]

Man this post makes so little sense I want to know what the hell you are smokin' cause I want some!!!

"r520 has always been a 16 pipe card" = What planet have you been on lol.

Viper

Well we'll see soon ( hopefully ! ) :)

Regards

Andy

[Geforce4ti4200]

r520 core has 32 pipes internally but due to yields, all your gonna get is up to 16 pipes with pros being 12 pipes. Theres rumors of 24 pipes but you wont see that till r580. This is going to be a rehash of the x800 line basically with similar performance and ps3 thrown in. If you must have the fastest, get 7800gtx.


http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2679


x1800xl scores nearly 7k marks in 3dmark 2005 making it similar to an x850xt PE in performance! 16 pipes has been confirmed. Basically both cards are the same except r520 is on 90nm with ps3. If you are waiting, dont bother just get a 7800gtx or if your budget isnt $500, get the x850xt(PE) and your games will fly. r520 has been delayed to October 5 now and im hearing itll be late October at the earliest before they ship! There is no point anymore waiting. If you want ATI get the x850xt(PE) or if you gotta have the fastest, get the 7800gtx(or two lol)

[HousERaT]

Threads like this build up post counts talking about nothing...... This is all speculation until someone gets a real card and does some real tests.

[Stuperman]

r520 core has 32 pipes internally but due to yields, all your gonna get is up to 16 pipes with pros being 12 pipes. Theres rumors of 24 pipes but you wont see that till r580. This is going to be a rehash of the x800 line basically with similar performance and ps3 thrown in. If you must have the fastest, get 7800gtx.


http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2679


x1800xl scores nearly 7k marks in 3dmark 2005 making it similar to an x850xt PE in performance! 16 pipes has been confirmed. Basically both cards are the same except r520 is on 90nm with ps3. If you are waiting, dont bother just get a 7800gtx or if your budget isnt $500, get the x850xt(PE) and your games will fly. r520 has been delayed to October 5 now and im hearing itll be late October at the earliest before they ship! There is no point anymore waiting. If you want ATI get the x850xt(PE) or if you gotta have the fastest, get the 7800gtx(or two lol)


first of all, what the hell is with the link, that looks like pure speculation, equation the driver design, to card performance of an un tested gfx card.

and that second part takes that speculation as fact.

I vote wait and see cause all this argueing does is create bitterness, and and then in the end someone says I told ya so, and the whole thing starts over some of the details, and optimizations and the next product will be so, and so, savour, and blah, blah, blah, and we are back to where we started.

[Karma]

Well Ati managed not many 16 pipe X800XT's but a lot of X800 Pro's which was their backup cards with 1 quad disfunctional, but here you are saying that Ati are sacrificing 4 quads to go from 32 to 16.

Wouldn't you expect at least 24 functional, ie lost 2 ? Losing half their pipelines ?

r520 has always been a 16 pipe card no matter what the inquirer or vr-zone says IMO.

Regards

Andy


Howdy, dizietsma. I'm so surprised that ViperJohn, a professional video card modder, is so adamant.

I'm just amazed how many technically savvy people in Xtremesystems are still stuck in the old mentality.

When do you think we should "hit them in the face with a frying pan"? ;)

[ViperJohn]

Howdy, dizietsma. I'm so surprised that ViperJohn, a professional video card modder, is so adamant.

I'm just amazed how many technically savvy people in Xtremesystems are still stuck in the old mentality.

When do you think we should "hit them in the face with a frying pan"? ;)

Damn now ya got me scratchin' my head lol.

Viper

[cantankerous]

mine too!

[Karma]

Time for something more official:

AnandTech's R520, RV530 and RV515 Pre-NDA Extravaganza (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2532)

*rummaging for my frying pan...*

[ViperJohn]

Time for something more official:

AnandTech's R520, RV530 and RV515 Pre-NDA Extravaganza (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2532)

Just confirms what was already known. What you now have in the R520 "FUBAR" is the equivalent of faster clocked x850 with PS 3.0 shaders and a hell of a lot higher price. The 7800's are going to run over it like Stormin Norman ran over the Iraqi's in Desert Storm.

Hopefully ATI will learn from this fiasco and not do a die shrink on the core for a new top end flagship (more like sunk ship now) card without first working out the kinks in a lower tier card first.

Viper

[Stuperman]

I still think wait and see

[Karma]

Just confirms what was already known. What you now have in the R520 "FUBAR" is the equivalent of faster clocked x850 with PS 3.0 shaders and a hell of a lot higher price. The 7800's are going to run over it like Stormin Norman ran over the Iraqi's in Desert Storm.

Hopefully ATI will learn from this fiasco and not do a die shrink on the core for a new top end flagship (more like sunk ship now) card without first working out the kinks in a lower tier card first.

Viper

;) The best is yet to come. "Already known", huh? You sure switch positions fast:

Man this post makes so little sense I want to know what the hell you are smokin' cause I want some!!!

"r520 has always been a 16 pipe card" = What planet have you been on lol.

[ViperJohn]

;) The best is yet to come.

Dang lets hope so cause it can't get any worse for an ATI man like myself. I bleed ATI red not nVidia green lol.

Hopefully now that the R580 cores are taped out ATI can spin them in FAB to get the working pipe count yields where they should be.

Viper

[zakelwe]

Viper John,

What evidence do you have that r520 has more than 16 pipes but some are disabled due to yield issues ?

I personally do not think that r520 HAS EVER been designed to have 32 pipes with the reason they are at 16 is because the chip is so FUBAR'd. Indeed it is worse than that because it seems ( a la X800Pro) there will be a 12 pipe version of r520 so with that chip there are 20 pipelines broken, or 62% of the chip. Sorry, that is just too much. From what Dave Orton and other people from Ati have hinted the problems have been trying to get the speed of the chip up, not trying to get more pipes working. When you have 16 pipelines you need to have them working fast.


I do not know where v-zone gets their information from so I cannot comment on that, however I am interested to see what the sites say when the reviews are released, especially Dave Baumann at B3D, in regards to this. Dave Baumann has been hinting for months that it is 16 pipelines and he tends to be fairly close to Ati. In fact he is getting rather tired of vr-zones claims it seems.

One things for certain, I may be wrong with all the above but I do know the number of pipes will be an even number :)

Regards

Andy

[cadaveca]

PFFT! 16x16 PPxVS? WHAT!?!why 16 VS? :confused:


becasue it is 32 unified pipes...so of course it's 16 pipes only. LOL. yeild issues...lol... :rolleyes:

any chip that was that bad in yeild would not have left the fab..period. you cannot screw up the design that much..like really!

[pduan87]

Anandtech confirmed that R520 has 16 pipes.

Good stuff andy.

[Karma]

This thread is regarding the techPowerup article. Perhaps we should continue this discussion in the Anandtech Pre-NDA thread?

[aMp]

HKEPC got their hands on an engineering sample. (http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/r520firstlook-e.htm) Looks like the "intended 32 pipelines but yields are awful" speculation is accurate:
According to our source, the R520 core is design with 32 pipelines in mind but due to yield problem, not all the pipelines can be utilized. We expect R520 will have 16pp, 24pp and 32pp versions using 90nm micron process technology from TSMC.

That would also go a long way towards explaining the die size.

As for what everybody actually wants to know:
As the card maker doesn't wish to reveal the R520 performance yet, but we can confirm that R520 at 24pp or 32pp will not be lower than that of the GeForce 7800GTX. Even though the 32pp and 24pp R520 mass production will face some difficulties, but the 16 pipelines R520 using the 90nm core will be clocked high to maintain a certain level of competitiveness.
"A certain level of competitiveness." Gotta like the sound of that. :rolleyes:

-aMp-

[G H Z]

I dunno, I think I trust an article where they have an actual card(s) over that Anandtech article, even if the card is a reference card(s) like HKPC had access to. They are in the Heart of where the cards are manufactured and dev'ed so I think their proximity to the source makes it more credible.

Either way it's been a long wait and it better damn well match a 7800 if not out gun it:slapass:

[drcrawn]

I want AGP! :(