ATi Radeon R520XT ES Sample

Vikingod · Sep 8, 2005, 02:33 PM

ATI has originally planned to launch their next generation R520 at Computex Taipei 2005 but was faced several delays from July 26th to 27th August to 20th September. According to sources from several AIB partners, the most likely launch for ATI R520 now is mid October. However, we will keep our fingers crossed on this since several misses have happened causing many users to lose faith in the credibility of the launch of R520 and even suspect if R520 really exists. To satisfy readers' curiosity on R520, we have specially pay a visit to one of the Taiwanese card makers and obtain a R520 Rev 02 engineering sample and it is the first time that a R520 card is exposed.
__________
Read More / Source: HKEPC

Prince_Link · Sep 8, 2005, 04:00 PM

the R520 does exist,.. its just taken so long due to Low Yield,

its all becoz ATI have shifted to a new process, and have been trying for high clockspeeds

latest tech specs have said its gunna be at about 600-700 core clocks and 1400 mem clocks

it only has 16 pipes though, this is where it will suffer

Erroneus · Sep 8, 2005, 04:02 PM

Quote:

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.

Now that would be crazy if the 16 pipe version could compete with 7800 gtx

Sandok · Sep 8, 2005, 04:20 PM

Well the wait is soon over

tastyweat · Sep 8, 2005, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erroneus

Now that would be crazy if the 16 pipe version could compete with 7800 gtx

not really... the 16 pipe x850xt pe competes with the 20 pipe 7800gt in certain things

the x850xt pe is clocked at 540MHz... a 700Mhz x850xt pe could almost certainly compete with a 7800gtx

The_Neon_Cowboy · Sep 8, 2005, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince_Link

the R520 does exist,.. its just taken so long due to Low Yield,

its all becoz ATI have shifted to a new process, and have been trying for high
clockspeeds. latest tech specs have said its gunna be at about 600-700 core
clocks and 1400 mem clocks it only has 16 pipes though, this is where it will
suffer

Well no one said the r520 top end they just fuzzly said "r520" keeping min
like a mind a X800, X800 pro, X800XT, x800XTpe are all a "R420" . I really
would figure at least 24 pipes

Yes there was p problem in the 90NM R520 but the rest of thier line up went
with out a hitch includeing R580, wich will replace R520 on the top end of the
ATI lineup. A mFG problem that was to be adressed and we assume was only
delayed the release...once the problem is or was resolved there would be
higher yeilds.

Keep n mind though its not unccomon between CPU & GPU MFG to have a
good 90% fail rate at the beging of a fab. untill they would out the bugs and
kinks.A fail isn't a nessacarly bad chip either.. But one that has a bad pipline,
doesnt meet the clock or voltage requiments to meet the R520 spec and the
specified cooling. They are saved and resold later as lower products... all CPU&
Gpu makers do the same things...

If thy were to release R520 with 16 pipes, I'd be waiting for the "hat trick"
of whipping out R580. Or that it simply false info to throw off nvidia...

Prince_Link · Sep 8, 2005, 05:55 PM

its nvidia thats falsed info,.. they've leaked info about the 7800Ultra being cancelled

they'll spring it on ati when the least expect it

NUCLEARWINTER · Sep 8, 2005, 06:46 PM

thanks for posting this, i was very anxious to see it for quite some time now. does anyone know when the crossfire master videocards and motherboards will become available?

NUCLEARWINTER · Sep 8, 2005, 06:52 PM

ive allways been an ATI man...but recently i havent been that impressed with performance, and the availability of their products...its like too little too late. by the time ati comes out with their newest...nvidia already has something on market and in the works. looks like ati is losing the war for now. y would they come out with something inferior to the 7800gtx as far as pipelines go? its like making your cars with v-6's when the market demands supercharged v-8's. but i am still anticipating this card to be slightly better than the 7800 in performance, but nvidia already is working on the next best. i'll wait for the specs to be official before i make a decision to buy or not.

dsdsdk · Sep 8, 2005, 06:56 PM

why the hell a 90nm die with dual slot hsf?
g70 is 110 and has single slot solution...

riles9262 · Sep 8, 2005, 10:53 PM

If the clocks are as high as what's been mentioned then I guess the card would get pretty toasty...

Prince_Link · Sep 9, 2005, 12:02 PM

not as much as they would on 110nm

the smaller die means less voltage is needed to get to those speeds

SFOSOK · Sep 9, 2005, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tastyweat

not really... the 16 pipe x850xt pe competes with the 20 pipe 7800gt in certain things

the x850xt pe is clocked at 540MHz... a 700Mhz x850xt pe could almost certainly compete with a 7800gtx

Your comparing an overclocked ATI card to a stock Nvidia card.

**dj_stick** · Sep 9, 2005, 02:19 PM

an overclocked previous gen card with a stock newgen card…

Prince_Link · Sep 9, 2005, 03:23 PM

nvidia are gunna have the G80 released before ati start on the R6xx's

actually the G80 is already in development,...

tastyweat · Sep 9, 2005, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince_Link

nvidia are gunna have the G80 released before ati start on the R6xx's

actually the G80 is already in development,...

ahem... the R600 is actually the r400, which turned into the r500 for the xbox360 and is coming to the pc in the form of the r600... so ATi have been working on the R600 technology for quite a long time and are already able to implement it in some form (xbox 360)

Nvidia are having problems with the G80... because DX10's specs ask for unified pipelines... and so far nv have not been able to suss getting unified pipelines to work properly... so at this rate the G80 will either be a crappy enhancement of the current design that is able to emulate unified pipeline's behaviour at a huge subsequent performance issue... or the G80 won't even be DX10... or the R600 will be out a long time before the G80

Prince_Link · Sep 9, 2005, 05:59 PM

meh unified pipelines are stupid.. microsoft has really screwed up thier own specs this time, i doubt ati's implementation will be any better then nvidia's

NUCLEARWINTER · Sep 9, 2005, 06:30 PM

where does the heat go? back into the case?!? i'd much rather lose my adjoining pci slot. y'd nvidia and ati go back to belching hot air back inside case?

Prince_Link · Sep 9, 2005, 07:17 PM

eh no... we are talking about pixel and vertex pipelines,

i think a unified architecture will make it worse off, as it means the pipeline has to do twice as much work,

the future isn't combining pipes it should be splitting them off and making them run at thier own higher speeds,.. just like the new delta clock in the 7800's

tastyweat · Sep 9, 2005, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince_Link

eh no... we are talking about pixel and vertex pipelines,

i think a unified architecture will make it worse off, as it means the pipeline has to do twice as much work,

the future isn't combining pipes it should be splitting them off and making them run at thier own higher speeds,.. just like the new delta clock in the 7800's

I disagree... it's better to have unified pipes that can be used to process what they need when they're needed

For the games that use more pixel shaders... more pipelines can be dedicated to those tasks... and then when vertex processing power is required... that can be the dedicated operation... so it's a good move imo - it also means the die can shrink in size and that subsequently means less overall heat... which means higer clock frequencies... you're more likely to see high clocks from unified designs than you are from dedicated designs.

Think of a game that was to only use pixel shaders... no vertex processing at all... wouldn't it be better to have 48 pipelines dedicated to pixel shading than to have something like 32 for pixel and 16 for vertex or such like.... and then like i just said... the 48 pipelines could also be running at slightly higher frequencies.

And when it comes to splitting up vertex and pixel pipelines... where would that end? It might get to the point where you need dual cores on a graphics chip.. one for pixels, one for vertex... or heck... an ali/crossfire system might end up consisting over a vertex processing graphics card and a pixel processing graphics card... where would it end?

tastyweat · Sep 9, 2005, 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince_Link

meh unified pipelines are stupid.. microsoft has really screwed up thier own specs this time, i doubt ati's implementation will be any better then nvidia's

And in the case of nvidia's implementation vs ATi's implementation... that's not the question you should be asking... it's whether nv can acutually suss out how to get unified pipelines working! They haven't had any luck so far... whereas clearly ATi have (48 unified pipelines in the R500 - xbox 360 core)

Prince_Link · Sep 9, 2005, 08:34 PM

this makes sense, never thought of it that way,

theres still a big difference between a gpu in a console and a gpu on a removable video card,.. xbox and pc are 2 separate devices so it would be easier to design a chip for a set machine for it to run in, i don't like the look of the xbox 360 anyways..

Prince_Link · Sep 9, 2005, 08:39 PM

still 48 pipelines aint that great.. they can't even get a decent batch of XI800s out

Sandok · Sep 9, 2005, 08:52 PM

Crappy name is you ask me...

tastyweat · Sep 9, 2005, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince_Link

still 48 pipelines aint that great.. they can't even get a decent batch of XI800s out

Totally different teams working on the x1800/r600 (with some r600 people working with xbox 360 iirc)

To demonstrate... the xbox 360 is already in production... and running just fine and dandy... so no problems with the graphics chip

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince_Link

this makes sense, never thought of it that way,

theres still a big difference between a gpu in a console and a gpu on a removable video card,.. xbox and pc are 2 separate devices so it would be easier to design a chip for a set machine for it to run in, i don't like the look of the xbox 360 anyways..

well... there's certainly a difference... however the difference between the GF3 Ti and the original xbox wasn't all that big (granted big bandwidth improvements... but the chip itself was very similar)...

From the names... it suggests that the r600 will be a step up from the r500... so the pc version of the xbox 360 chip should be even more powerful... I wonder if it will have more than 48 pipes... but still... they have the chip design sorted for the xbox 360, so that would suggest (although it's far from a certainty) that the basic technology is in place for the r600 for the pc... I guess we'll just have to wait and see

Back to the R520... seeing as they've got the R580 already sorted... in one respect it'd worth their while (and better for consumers) for them to just leap ahead of nv and release the r580 instead of the 520... but from a business point of view... it's better to release a card that only just about beats the competition... but then if they released the r580 that could probably trounce the 7800gtx... they'd control the high end market until nv could release something better

The_Neon_Cowboy · Sep 9, 2005, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince_Link

not as much as they would on 110nm

the smaller die means less voltage is needed to get to those speeds

But it also mean less surface area to disperce the heat.
plus Thier adding alot to the core wich brings them to haveing
more packed in a tigter space = more heat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince_Link

nvidia are gunna have the G80 released before ati start on the R6xx's

actually the G80 is already in development,...

LOL your funny.. R580 is tapped out, R6XX is probubly far along

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince_Link

meh unified pipelines are stupid.. microsoft has really screwed up thier own specs this time, i doubt ati's implementation will be any better then nvidia's

Actualy it allows developers to use what ever shaders they want.
ATI shader performance on the R500 console probubly blows away
anyhing nvidia has in the near future... unless they pick up on what
ATI did... Basically as a desktop video processor it would be postioned
far above G71 or R580. Becouse of thats mass of "stupid unified pipelines "

Quote:

Originally Posted by NUCLEARWINTER

where does the heat go? back into the case?!? i'd much rather lose my adjoining pci slot. y'd nvidia and ati go back to belching hot air back inside case?

yea I don't exatcly get that the way they do thier coolers VS throwing
the air out the back of the case. But alot of cases have vent holes on the
sides or on the back near the case side. where freah air comes in...

Keep in mind this is pretty crude but also you have to factor in, blow
wholes with fan on the side and top of the case as found in virtually
all premium cases...

It works, but if the heat sink wer reveresd unless your cheat sink
goes all the way to the back of the case, and you have a chance of
crateing a "hot spot" and a serious issue

They way they did it long as you have good case flow you should
be all right. Same kida coolers they used with the X800 with some
veriations

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandok

Crappy name is you ask me...

not sure if itthe final name if so thats prety cheesy sounds
ike an AMD XP1800 cpu. AS that was what I though of when I
1st seen thayname used

Prince_Link · Sep 9, 2005, 09:54 PM

where do you get the less surface area thing

90nm is the microprocess

it can still have the same surface area. the transistors inside are just made smaller, its how nvidia fit over 300million/billion?, on the 7800GTX

surface area doesn't necessarily mean more heat,.. it all depends on how efficient the cooler and the bondant is at transfering the heat from the core to the heatsink and then how efficient it is at dispersing from the heatsink,

an efficient case fan system is vital in todays computers and the most problems people have with heat is due to inefficient cooling setups

such as mine

mine works differently from your diagram

i have 2 fans in the front, 1 side fan, 1 back fan, 1 top fan and the psu also expells heat so thats 6 fans all up

the front fans suck cool air in... and the side fan also sucks some cool air in.. BUT, the side fan also blows the cool air from the front fans across my video card and up to my cpu, then my rear fan sucks out heat from the video card and the cpu is handled by the psu fan and top fan. thats an example of an efficient cooling system

Sep 8, 2005, 02:33 PM	#1
Vikingod Int'l Fish Liaison Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: By the light of lamp I sit and type... Posts: 16,187 Rep Power: 109 System Specs	ATi Radeon R520XT ES Sample ATI has originally planned to launch their next generation R520 at Computex Taipei 2005 but was faced several delays from July 26th to 27th August to 20th September. According to sources from several AIB partners, the most likely launch for ATI R520 now is mid October. However, we will keep our fingers crossed on this since several misses have happened causing many users to lose faith in the credibility of the launch of R520 and even suspect if R520 really exists. To satisfy readers' curiosity on R520, we have specially pay a visit to one of the Taiwanese card makers and obtain a R520 Rev 02 engineering sample and it is the first time that a R520 card is exposed. __________ Read More / Source: HKEPC __________________ *How You Can Help DriverHeaven By Using Digg*

Sep 8, 2005, 04:00 PM	#2
Prince_Link HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 274 Rep Power: 0	the R520 does exist,.. its just taken so long due to Low Yield, its all becoz ATI have shifted to a new process, and have been trying for high clockspeeds latest tech specs have said its gunna be at about 600-700 core clocks and 1400 mem clocks it only has 16 pipes though, this is where it will suffer __________________

Sep 8, 2005, 05:55 PM	#7
Prince_Link HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 274 Rep Power: 0	its nvidia thats falsed info,.. they've leaked info about the 7800Ultra being cancelled they'll spring it on ati when the least expect it __________________

Sep 8, 2005, 06:46 PM	#8
NUCLEARWINTER Reap What You Sow. Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Louisville, Kentucky Posts: 1,133 Rep Power: 61 System Specs	thanks for posting this, i was very anxious to see it for quite some time now. does anyone know when the crossfire master videocards and motherboards will become available? __________________ insert witty comment here!

Sep 8, 2005, 06:52 PM	#9
NUCLEARWINTER Reap What You Sow. Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Louisville, Kentucky Posts: 1,133 Rep Power: 61 System Specs	ive allways been an ATI man...but recently i havent been that impressed with performance, and the availability of their products...its like too little too late. by the time ati comes out with their newest...nvidia already has something on market and in the works. looks like ati is losing the war for now. y would they come out with something inferior to the 7800gtx as far as pipelines go? its like making your cars with v-6's when the market demands supercharged v-8's. but i am still anticipating this card to be slightly better than the 7800 in performance, but nvidia already is working on the next best. i'll wait for the specs to be official before i make a decision to buy or not. __________________ insert witty comment here!

Sep 8, 2005, 04:20 PM	#4
Sandok DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 9,472 Rep Power: 66	Well the wait is soon over

Sep 8, 2005, 06:56 PM	#10
dsdsdk DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Denmark, CPH. Posts: 586 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	why the hell a 90nm die with dual slot hsf? g70 is 110 and has single slot solution... __________________ No more Kitty!

Sep 8, 2005, 10:53 PM	#11
riles9262 Driverheaven brewmaster Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: British Columbia, Canada Posts: 4,842 Rep Power: 70 System Specs	If the clocks are as high as what's been mentioned then I guess the card would get pretty toasty... __________________ A beer a day keeps the doctor away.

Sep 9, 2005, 12:02 PM	#12
Prince_Link HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 274 Rep Power: 0	not as much as they would on 110nm the smaller die means less voltage is needed to get to those speeds __________________

Sep 9, 2005, 03:23 PM	#15
Prince_Link HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 274 Rep Power: 0	nvidia are gunna have the G80 released before ati start on the R6xx's actually the G80 is already in development,... __________________

Sep 9, 2005, 05:59 PM	#17
Prince_Link HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 274 Rep Power: 0	meh unified pipelines are stupid.. microsoft has really screwed up thier own specs this time, i doubt ati's implementation will be any better then nvidia's __________________

Sep 9, 2005, 06:30 PM	#18
NUCLEARWINTER Reap What You Sow. Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Louisville, Kentucky Posts: 1,133 Rep Power: 61 System Specs	where does the heat go? back into the case?!? i'd much rather lose my adjoining pci slot. y'd nvidia and ati go back to belching hot air back inside case? __________________ insert witty comment here!

Sep 9, 2005, 07:17 PM	#19
Prince_Link HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 274 Rep Power: 0	eh no... we are talking about pixel and vertex pipelines, i think a unified architecture will make it worse off, as it means the pipeline has to do twice as much work, the future isn't combining pipes it should be splitting them off and making them run at thier own higher speeds,.. just like the new delta clock in the 7800's __________________

Sep 9, 2005, 08:34 PM	#22
Prince_Link HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 274 Rep Power: 0	this makes sense, never thought of it that way, theres still a big difference between a gpu in a console and a gpu on a removable video card,.. xbox and pc are 2 separate devices so it would be easier to design a chip for a set machine for it to run in, i don't like the look of the xbox 360 anyways.. __________________

Sep 9, 2005, 08:39 PM	#23
Prince_Link HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 274 Rep Power: 0	still 48 pipelines aint that great.. they can't even get a decent batch of XI800s out __________________

Sep 9, 2005, 08:52 PM	#24
Sandok DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 9,472 Rep Power: 66	Crappy name is you ask me...

Sep 9, 2005, 09:54 PM	#27
Prince_Link HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 274 Rep Power: 0	where do you get the less surface area thing 90nm is the microprocess it can still have the same surface area. the transistors inside are just made smaller, its how nvidia fit over 300million/billion?, on the 7800GTX surface area doesn't necessarily mean more heat,.. it all depends on how efficient the cooler and the bondant is at transfering the heat from the core to the heatsink and then how efficient it is at dispersing from the heatsink, an efficient case fan system is vital in todays computers and the most problems people have with heat is due to inefficient cooling setups such as mine mine works differently from your diagram i have 2 fans in the front, 1 side fan, 1 back fan, 1 top fan and the psu also expells heat so thats 6 fans all up the front fans suck cool air in... and the side fan also sucks some cool air in.. BUT, the side fan also blows the cool air from the front fans across my video card and up to my cpu, then my rear fan sucks out heat from the video card and the cpu is handled by the psu fan and top fan. thats an example of an efficient cooling system __________________ Last edited by Prince_Link; Sep 9, 2005 at 10:00 PM.