Quote:
Originally Posted by
gunit
regardless of when it supposed to be released, it was released a week ago. everybody seems to expect ATI in this case to be the first company in history to release hardware with mature drivers. :rolleyes: this is why we have something called driver updates, heard of it? No company can possibly foresee every single problem across every possible hardware/software combination BEFORE launch, again, this is what driver updates are for. of course you already know this, but it seems like common sense took a back seat in this case.
The reason "everybody" expected mature drivers was that that was one of the reasons AMD gave for the delays.
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HWZ: With the merger, it is understandable that certain products have been realigned, but could we have an update on the R600 delays?
Henri Richard: The R600 will be out in the second quarter. The reason we decided to delay the launch was that we wanted to have a complete DX10-enabled solution top to bottom. A lot of people wrote that the reason it is delayed is because of a problem with the silicon, but there is no problem with the silicon. We are demonstrating it. We can ship it today. But if you think about it, looking at where the market is at, the volumes are going to be in the R610 and R630, so it makes sense for us to do a one time launch of the entire family of DX10 enabled products. That meant delaying the R600 for a few weeks, but frankly it doesn't make a difference in the life cycle of the product and talking with our customers and partners, they felt that it would make a bigger impact with one full launch. So we decided to do that.
Also increasingly in particular with Vista, as we've seen with the competition. It doesn't matter if you're shipping the silicon if the drivers are not stable. There is nothing more frustrating than having bought a new graphics card and having your system crash repeatedly because the drivers are not ready. Although we today, even by Microsoft standards, have the best and most stable drivers in the entire industry. The few weeks will give us even more time to continue improving the drivers. Again, the decision lies in the fact that we will have a top to bottom DX10 offering with drivers that will have a very very high level of stability and the only difference is a few weeks. So it seems to make a lot of sense to do it that way.
:bs: