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the 90nm R520 will be a 16-pipe, 16-shader processor design with a number of different SKUs based on the GPU. Internal ATI documentation specifically claims that the R520 series will ship at launch, just as NVIDIA's 7800GTX and 7800GT series shipped and launched on the same dates.

Xilleon based TV encoder, SM3.0, H.264 decode acceleration and CrossFire support. Also expect to see HDTV options for all 90nm ATI cards in the near future, although they may be limited to the All In Wonder series for R520.

At the top end is the Radeon X1800 XT; this 16-pipe R520 will feature a 600MHz core clock, with a 256-bit memory bus connected to 512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 700MHz. The 600MHz core clock will give it a lower fill rate than the GeForce 7800 GTX (24-pipes at 430MHz), while the 700MHz memory clock will give it more memory bandwidth than the stock GTX (600MHz). Much like the GTX, the X1800 XT will be priced at $599. The X1800 XT will feature two DVI outputs with HDCP support. The lower fillrate seems alarming at first, but consider several factors. First of all, ATI's traditional core design can do "more" per clock cycle (at least on the R420 design) than NVIDIA. Secondly, R520 has a lot of little tweaks including hardware asissted H.264 decoding. Just last week, we also received details about ATI's revamped memory controller which operates on an internal 512-bit ring bus. There is a lot to speculate about performance, but even with similar fill rates as NVIDIA, there is a strong possibility that other workings in R520 will differentiate the card on a real world performance level.

SPOOFE wrote:Why? The upgraded "old" design performaned admirably. It certainly held its own with nVidia's "new" design. If they can deliver excellent performance, who cares? They can be using a chip unearthed in some archeological dig and I'd still buy it if it performed well.

But it didn't move ahead technologically. Pixelshader version, HDR, all the interesting stuff...

SPOOFE wrote:

But it didn't move ahead technologically. Pixelshader version, HDR, all the interesting stuff...

Shader 3.0 offered very little in terms of real-world additions, and HDR is compatible with Shader 2.0. What other interesting stuff is there other than pushing pixels and lighting effects at awesome framerates?

SPOOFE wrote:Shader 3.0 offered very little in terms of real-world additions, and HDR is compatible with Shader 2.0. What other interesting stuff is there other than pushing pixels and lighting effects at awesome framerates?

SLI support, or the equivalent?

We're starting to see a noticeable difference in performance between 2.0 and 3.0 in the newer games, and this gap will only increase for future games.