R580 a další plány

[no-X]

Docela zajímavá porce informací z jednoho rozhovoru:

- ATi has some excess inventory on X800 products because of NV's high end SLI products. (could we see discounts for consumers here in the future maybe?)
- The refresh for X1800 will be Q1.
- No release date for X1000-based AIW products yet.
- Their top driver engineer (formerly from SGI) is working to improve OpenGL performance.
- They will release AGP versions of the lower end X1000 series, and that "probably" includes the X1600. However 3rd party board makers CAN make AGP versions of X1800 using an ATi bridge chip, but only if its a viable business in their eyes.
- ATi uses AMD chips in their servers
- ATI will have a new chipset for AMD platform in Q1. This new chipset (RD580) should be faster than NForce4. It'll have 2 x 16 PCI-E lanes for SLI plus extra features.
- Which leads into this tidbit: AMD is introducing a new socket platform(!) in Q2.
- Intel asked ATi to make up to 6 million chipsets for them in 2006, which Phil said would make ATi the largest 3rd party mfgr of chipsets.
- AIW products based on X1800 will most likely have the 550 Theater chip.
- The 480M and 482M mobile chipsets are released.
- Mobile X1000 products will use about 25% more power than 9xxx mobile products.
- Mobile X1000 product in Q1 '06
- Currently ATi has about 70% of the mobile discreet video market, and the outlook is to lose about 10% market share in '06. (The discreet video market is about 30% of the entire mobile market, with integrated video accounting for the other 70%)
- The R580 (no offcial name) will be a speed bumped X1800XT. Didn't know if he meant just a clock increase though. Don't look for it to be a real big change from the X1800XT.

Rage3D

tzn. R580 bude vydaný v prvním čtvrtletí 2006 - původně se mluvilo o konci ledna, na anandtechu se domnívají, že do dřív než na cebitu (druhý březnový týden) R580 nebude, tzn. o cca 6 týdnů později oproti původním domněnkám. Krom toho by měl R580 podporovat nějaký nespecifikovaný typ pamětí, který ještě R520 nepodporuje - asi GDDR4.