R600 launch will be top-to-bottom

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 6th March 2007
Comments (27) Stumble
AMD says that its R600 family will launch top-to-bottom in a matter of weeks.

AMD says that its R600 family will launch top-to-bottom in a matter of weeks.

In an interview with ExtremeTech, Dave Orton, former CEO of ATI and now Vice President of Visual and Media Businesses at AMD, has confirmed that the company's upcoming R600 family of graphics processors will launch top-to-bottom.

Just a couple of weeks ago, AMD announced that R600's launch would be delayed until the second quarter, but didn't really go into much detail as to why it was delayed.

Many believed that something had gone drastically wrong, but Orton explained that this wasn't the case. "In fact, our mainstream chips are in 65nm and are coming out extremely fast. Because of that configuration, we have an interesting opportunity to come to market with a broader range of products.

"Instead of having them separate, we thought, lets line that up, so we delayed for several weeks," he added.

Details of AMD's lower end DirectX 10 offerings are quite scarce at the moment, but AMD says that R600 will be known as Radeon X2900-series and will launch with XTX, XT and XL variants. There's no release date yet, but AMD was clear that the card was a matter of weeks away. We'll bring you more as and when we get it.

Discuss in the forums
Quote rupbert 6th March 2007, 17:53
Smart move.

The high-end R600 would look very expensive compared to the equivalent 8800, releasing the entire series at once gives much more buying options...
Quote Nix 6th March 2007, 18:21
Lets hope its not as long as the 8800GTX.
Quote DougEdey 6th March 2007, 18:28
Methinx that come R600 launch Tim and Bindi are going to look like this

http://www.icanhascheezburger.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/tell-me-when-its-over.jpg
Quote poenanie 6th March 2007, 19:05
Quote:
Originally Posted by DougEdey
Methinx that come R600 launch Tim and Bindi are going to look like this

http://www.icanhascheezburger.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/tell-me-when-its-over.jpg

lol you're a catfreak just like me ^^

On topic : Few weeks away ; Let's hope for an april launch then :)
Quote Redbeaver 6th March 2007, 19:22
that is so cute :)

anyhow,

oh yeah, this is perfect... now to wish that 8800 series will have further price cut when R600 is out... that'll b wicked :)

radeon 2900XTX lol that sounds intimidating
Quote trig 6th March 2007, 19:24
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redbeaver
radeon 2900XTX lol that sounds intimidating

wait until the next gen comes out...39000TXXTX
Quote EQC 6th March 2007, 19:48
hmmm... so I'm confused... when I first read "top-to-bottom," and "R600 family", I assumed it meant a wide range (say, the Radeon 2300, 2700, and 2900)...

but based on the rest of the article, and some of the comments, it seems like it really just means Radeon X2900-XTX, X2900-XT and X2900-XL, and they're calling the XL a "mainstream" part?

Which is it?

If it's just a bunch of 2900's, it's not really any different from NVidia and the 8800GTX/GTS simultaneous release. A $300 card may be "mainstream" for heavy gamers...but many folks (me included) are more interested in a low-end card that can do a decent job decoding H.264 HD video. Anybody know when those'll come out? Or someplace that actually benchmarks the 2D/HD video performance of cards?
Quote Krikkit 6th March 2007, 19:54
Quote:
A rare moment when I actually went "Awww". Great pic. :D
Quote Tim S 6th March 2007, 20:56
Quote:
Originally Posted by EQC
hmmm... so I'm confused... when I first read "top-to-bottom," and "R600 family", I assumed it meant a wide range (say, the Radeon 2300, 2700, and 2900)...

but based on the rest of the article, and some of the comments, it seems like it really just means Radeon X2900-XTX, X2900-XT and X2900-XL, and they're calling the XL a "mainstream" part?

Which is it?

If it's just a bunch of 2900's, it's not really any different from NVidia and the 8800GTX/GTS simultaneous release. A $300 card may be "mainstream" for heavy gamers...but many folks (me included) are more interested in a low-end card that can do a decent job decoding H.264 HD video. Anybody know when those'll come out? Or someplace that actually benchmarks the 2D/HD video performance of cards?
Top to bottom meaning a full product family (i.e. all cards and GPUs derived from R600 technology).
Quote Cobalt 6th March 2007, 21:00
Quote:
Originally Posted by EQC
hmmm... so I'm confused... when I first read "top-to-bottom," and "R600 family", I assumed it meant a wide range (say, the Radeon 2300, 2700, and 2900)...

but based on the rest of the article, and some of the comments, it seems like it really just means Radeon X2900-XTX, X2900-XT and X2900-XL, and they're calling the XL a "mainstream" part?

Which is it?

The article says we know the R600 will come out in XTX/XT/XL flavours but we don't know anything about the lower end (eg RV630). So the XL isn't the mainstream part they are talking about.

I'll probably be getting the XT or maybe the XL depending on pricing and RAM. All I know is that I want at least 512MB of GDDR4. Every graphics card I have ever bought had twice the amount and speed of on-board RAM and I don't intend to break that trend :D
Quote DXR_13KE 6th March 2007, 23:07
tell me when someone has benchmarked one of these.
Quote Crazyglue 6th March 2007, 23:13
wow since its top to bottom, people will actually be able to afford a card from this series.... great job amd
Quote poenanie 6th March 2007, 23:49
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazyglue
wow since its top to bottom, people will actually be able to afford a card from this series.... great job amd

What does top to bottom actually mean ? ( i'm not english )
Quote Krikkit 6th March 2007, 23:51
The full range of cards will be available at launch, not just the really expensive one.

It is further up in the thread. :p
Quote dgb 7th March 2007, 01:32
Quote:
Originally Posted by poenanie
What does top to bottom actually mean ? ( i'm not english )

It means that there's a problem manufacturing the high end so by the time they can release the high end they'll have stockpiles of the low end. Essentially, their low-mid range is on schedule but their high end isn't, so they'll be able to release all of them at once. It's damage control in reality - the low/mid range isn't earlier, the high end is just later.
Quote zero0ne 7th March 2007, 03:56
Quote:
Originally Posted by dgb
It means that there's a problem manufacturing the high end so by the time they can release the high end they'll have stockpiles of the low end. Essentially, their low-mid range is on schedule but their high end isn't, so they'll be able to release all of them at once. It's damage control in reality - the low/mid range isn't earlier, the high end is just later.

hahahaha, but oh so true.
Quote Tyinsar 7th March 2007, 05:20
Quote:
Originally Posted by dgb
It means that there's a problem manufacturing the high end so by the time they can release the high end they'll have stockpiles of the low end. Essentially, their low-mid range is on schedule but their high end isn't, so they'll be able to release all of them at once. It's damage control in reality - the low/mid range isn't earlier, the high end is just later.
:) That's exactly what I thought. Even so it should give us better prices and competition for Nvidia.
Quote Mother-Goose 7th March 2007, 09:12
From this it sounds like it may not be mid may release then? lol sorry maybe its wishful thinking.

I agree with the pic, but maybe it should read "tell me when its out" :)

S'all good, cheers for the news bite
Quote Kipman725 7th March 2007, 21:33
hope ati hangs in there for abit and don't go all 3dfx on me :| if there was no compotition of nvidia there prices would sky rocket (there already over priced in the midranged cards).
Quote Krikkit 7th March 2007, 21:41
Don't worry about that, AMD won't stop making graphics cards anytime soon, they've only just finished developing R600, and if they had any plans to stop, they wouldn't have finished it.

dgb has hit the nail on the head tbh - they're having trouble making the high-end cores, but the ones which don't quite meet the standard are suitable for the XT and XL product lines. Why waste good cores when you can have a massive, expansive product release and poke nVidia in the eye?
Quote randosome 7th March 2007, 21:46
well its hardly poking nvidia in the eye, its so late its like [insert appropriate anecdote here]
Quote Krikkit 7th March 2007, 21:51
How many people have waited for R600? How many more will now wait, knowing they'll probably be able to get an XT/XL at the end of May if it trounces an 8800GTS for the same money?
Quote EQC 8th March 2007, 02:13
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim S
Top to bottom meaning a full product family (i.e. all cards and GPUs derived from R600 technology).

Thanks for the response...but I still need a little clarification. I'm unfamiliar with ATI's convention, but I know with nVidia, say the G80 is the "top of the line" and it's used in the 8800GTX and GTS -- just slightly disabled and clocked differently in the GTS version. Then they'll also have a G86 (for an 8300) and a G84 (for an 8600). All of those are in the G8x family, but not necessarily in the G80 family, depending on your mindset...

So when you say "derived from R600 technology," would that include only GPUs/cards that actually use an R600 core (at various clock speeds, with or without some parts disabled), or would that include any chips in the R6xx category?
Quote DougEdey 8th March 2007, 07:25
R600 is top of the line I believe. The R630 is middle and R650 is bottom (or numbers to that affect)

To get an idea of model numbers, look at ATIs X1xxx Range and replace X1 with X2.
Quote Tim S 8th March 2007, 07:37
Quote:
Originally Posted by EQC
So when you say "derived from R600 technology," would that include only GPUs/cards that actually use an R600 core (at various clock speeds, with or without some parts disabled), or would that include any chips in the R6xx category?
I forget the exact model numbers off the top of my head (plus being half awake at this time of the morning) so please forgive if the mid and low-end parts aren't the correct models. With that said R600 technology = R600 (high-end, 80nm), RV630 (mid-range, 65nm) and RV615 (low-end, 65nm).
Quote EQC 8th March 2007, 19:03
Neat...thanks. Sounds like a pretty big launch then.
Quote rupbert 10th March 2007, 23:03
@ Tim S

Worth holding off buying an 8800?
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