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http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/07/12/ati_ship_r500_r520_now/
ATI shipping R520s and Xenos
Posted 10:11 - 12 July 2005 - by Wil Harris
Gone until 520?
ATI is starting to churn out supplies of its next generation chips, both for
the Xbox 360 and the PC.
According to reports on the Inquirer (here and here) the third tape-out of
the R520 graphics processor has gone according to plan - finally! Whilst the
first two goes resulted in wafers coming back that didn't have enough
working chips on them, this time around each wafer is yielding enough chips
to make full-on production viable.
What we still don't know is whether R520 is going to be 24 or 32 pipes - we
have a sneaking suspicion that it will be 32. But you can rest assured that
Nvidia will have their 7800 Ultra part waiting in the wings for whenever ATI
choose to launch the R520.
Of course, the problem for ATI is that Nvidia have really raised the bar for
launches, shipping the 7800 the same day they launched it. If ATI are to
avoid looking like poor relations, they're going to have to do the same -
and that's going to mean waiting until September.
In the meantime, IBM are ramping up production of the Xenos chip that will
be in the Xbox 360. Don't expect such problems on this: they're already
shipping out cards to developers who are working on the first batch of games
for the 360.
However, still no news on the appearance of Crossfire on the shelves. Last
we heard, ATI were having some problems with the compositing chip. There
appears to be the distinct possibility that we won't see Crossfire until
R520 starts to appear, despite the launch last month.
ATI shipping R520s and Xenos
Posted 10:11 - 12 July 2005 - by Wil Harris
Gone until 520?
ATI is starting to churn out supplies of its next generation chips, both for
the Xbox 360 and the PC.
According to reports on the Inquirer (here and here) the third tape-out of
the R520 graphics processor has gone according to plan - finally! Whilst the
first two goes resulted in wafers coming back that didn't have enough
working chips on them, this time around each wafer is yielding enough chips
to make full-on production viable.
What we still don't know is whether R520 is going to be 24 or 32 pipes - we
have a sneaking suspicion that it will be 32. But you can rest assured that
Nvidia will have their 7800 Ultra part waiting in the wings for whenever ATI
choose to launch the R520.
Of course, the problem for ATI is that Nvidia have really raised the bar for
launches, shipping the 7800 the same day they launched it. If ATI are to
avoid looking like poor relations, they're going to have to do the same -
and that's going to mean waiting until September.
In the meantime, IBM are ramping up production of the Xenos chip that will
be in the Xbox 360. Don't expect such problems on this: they're already
shipping out cards to developers who are working on the first batch of games
for the 360.
However, still no news on the appearance of Crossfire on the shelves. Last
we heard, ATI were having some problems with the compositing chip. There
appears to be the distinct possibility that we won't see Crossfire until
R520 starts to appear, despite the launch last month.