Thursday, March 1st 2007
R600 Delay Linked to GDDR4
Many people were disappointed by the recent R600 delay, which saw the release date for ATI's first DirectX 10 card pushed back to the next quarter at the earliest, but ATI has remained in the dark a little bit as to the true cause of the delays. However, I've received information from a reliable source that the delays were linked to problems with the GDDR4 which the top-end R600 cards will use. As of yet there is no more information on the specifics, so sorry for the brief story and lack of technical details, but at least that sheds some light on the matter.
Please note that this information is still unverified and may be wrong
Please note that this information is still unverified and may be wrong
16 Comments on R600 Delay Linked to GDDR4
-Dan
afterall not all the cards use the ddr4
But then why dont they just release a GDDR3 version of the R600 right now and a GDDR4 version 2 months later, like they were planning to?
This is the last ATi "only" video card to come to market.AMD realized the R600 was to far along to stop a product so far along in development BUT if the product isnt going to be a "HARD" launch they stepped in and postponed it.
I think its a AMD call.
But hell what do I know :rolleyes:
G80 has had so much mixed press. It's not a hot-cake seller. The drivers are dreadful. But it IS the most powerful core to date. People are waiting with some excitement to see if the ATI meets or surpasses performance.
But think about the Intel AMD battle. Intel took a LONG time to come back with the Core 2 Duo. But when it did: WHAM. It wasn't about small margins of performance... but a whole chunk that no "next step" clock upgrade from AMD could match.
Even if AMD is now able to make a CPU with (near) equivalent performance, the crown was lost, and the PR and brand equity is now overwhelmingly in favour of Intel.
So AMD has learned from this experience. There's not much point with the new ATI only meeting or marginally beating the G80. The mini-leapfrog game has to stop. They need to release a card that is UNQUESTIONABLE superior. So superior that there is NO DEBATE, no discussion.
And the new recently announced samsung ultra-high speed GDDR4 looks very interesting and might help them squeeze more performance.
It's probably too late in the design cycle for ATI to improve the core logic and tape-out for R600, but it's still possible to improve some of the hardware specs, esp. clock circuits and the memory interconnect.
There might also be issues with related circuitry... e.g. the new Theatre Chip, or dual-link DVI outputs for ULTRA resolution screens, or HDMI out.
If it was only a driver issue, then ATI would release the product for the 2000/XP/2003 segment (>90% of market), and release the Vista drivers later (<10% of market). But they haven't. So it's a hardware issue. Not software.