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R600 prototype card snapped
Author: Tim SmalleyPublished: 2nd March 2007
R600 prototype card images courtesy of ZDNet.
Berlind said that AMD gave him permission to post the pictures under the condition that he referred to the card as an R600 prototype. The card looks very similar to the shots that were posted in our forums a few weeks ago.
The next-generation R600 chip supports native CrossFire, just like the RV570-based Radeon X1950 Pro, and a pair of R600 stream processors are capable of delivering over one Teraflop of compute power using a general multiply-add (MADD) calculation.
R600's power requirements have been rumoured to be fairly colossal, but you could say the same about Nvidia's G80 graphics processor too. While GeForce 8800 GTX has two six-pin PCI-Express power sockets, the R600 prototype card has one eight-pin PCI-E 2.0 socket and a familiar six-pin PCI-E connector. This would point to higher power consumption than G80 but we're not going to find out the truth about the card's power requirements until we get our hands on the hardware in the run up to the launch.
A few weeks ago, sources close to AMD revealed to us that the retail versions of the card are expected to be much smaller than the prototype card AMD has already displayed. Looking at the reverse side of the prototype card, it's apparent that the PCB is much shorter than the humongous cooling solution and thus there is the prospect for retail R600-based graphics cards to be much shorter.
In related news, VR Zone is reporting that the R600 variants sporting GDDR3 memory will be available in early May, while the faster GDDR4 variants will not be available until the middle of May. This appears to shed some light on when we can expect to see the first R600-based graphics cards in the wake of the delays we reported last week.
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Comments (28)Stats: 0.129 seconds
Trying to give me a heart attack Timmy?!
That's what I thought too! The best part is that it seems like snapping could be a real problem with all that copper and 24 W fans hanging from the poor PCB.
IMO Ati has already fuxored this one. Even if it will be faster than the 8800GTX (which it WILL hopefully), it's no good as it it launched six months later! It's just taken way too long to get the card even to this phase, and even now it doesn't seem like they'll be able to get those into markets before may? Makes me expect Nvidia already has something in their sleeve to throw to the markets by the time R600 comes out.
The fact that they are finally showing it off means we must be close though which is good. May isn't too far away I guess, ho hum.
I can't see many OEMs using R600s, I think Dell are the only OEM with 8800GTXs?
I think there are going to need to some sort of extendable support between the case floor and the end of the card to suppor the weight there don't you?
But its nice to see they are showcasing working cards.
and what happens if your PSU doesn't have an 8 pin plug (do any have them yet ? :S)
Also is that a cooler or a vacuum cleaner on the end ?
We need some competition. now you can get a GF8800 for $299 (with less memory). I hope this one will be competitively priced.
exactly what i was gonna say, i think it will have to be both since the 8800GTX is using two and i think there will be an adapter of some kind
http://www.jokkocze.com/bilder/2xopty2xr600.jpg
Dual opterons and dual R600's :) (Have probably been seen before..)
The cards do loook veerrry nice.
why would they put pci-e2.0 on it? its not even close to out yet, and i havent heard of it being out for a long time....
when will vid card makers learn to cut down on powerconsumption? its the only computer component that, over the years, is increasing in power needs. ddr2, core2duo, even some mobos are all trying to cut down on power consumption, buy why not vidcard makers?