AnandTech's R520, RV530 and RV515 Pre-NDA Extravaganza
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 13, 2005 9:24 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
ATI's RV530 aka Radeon X1600
Targetting the upper midrange is the Radeon X1600 (RV530), built on the same 90nm process as the Radeon X1800 (R520). All of these RV530 series and lower are single slot products, according to the roadmaps.
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ATI RV530 Roadmap
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| Card | Pipes | Std Core Clock | Std Memory | Power Consumption |
| X1600 XT | 12 | 600MHz | 700MHz | 60W |
| X1600 Pro | 12 | 500MHz | 400MHz | 40W |
Radeon X1600 will actually be very similar to X1800LE, but with a smaller internal bus (256-bits) and a smaller memory bus (128-bits). The X1600 cards also have H.264 support like the R520 series.
Like X600, there will be many vendor dependent options for the cards. The configuration roadmap allows for DDR1, DDR2 or GDDR3 in both the XT and Pro cards, with memory sizes ranging anywhere from 128MB to 512MB. In fact, we even have claims from one manufacturer that they will produce 64-bit versions of the card en masse; so potential buyers will need to be wary of buying Radeon X1600 Pro cards with the smaller bus (like with the Radeon 9800SE). Another noteable is the support for HDCP and HDMI on many cards. Also, like with the GeForce 7800 series, vendors are allowed (perhaps even encouraged?) to bin chips for higher clock speeds. We've received reports from AIBs that some RV530 Pro cards will ship with 525MHz clock speeds even though the roadmap indicates 500MHz is the standard configuration.
Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of RV530 is the low power consumption. Reference 64-bit boards of RV530 using GDDR3 at 500MHz core clock speeds have a power consumption of just 25W. 128-bit boards were estimated at 40W and X1600XT boards with all the goodies were estimated by AIBs to be 55W.
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imaheadcase - Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - link
But you don't need the fastest CPU out to get the latest and greatest, unlike graphics card.IKeelU - Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - link
Would you be more satisfied if they released $300 vid cards every 18 months? It would definately cost less to own the latest-and-greatest.I wouldn't, because having super-high end video cards is a good thing, no matter how much they cost. This is what makes PCs such an great platform: if you want to pay more to get better graphics, you have the ability to do so. Games devs will always target the most popular platform, so you will never *need* a top-of-the line card to get a good experience (HL2 kicked ass on my 3.5 year-old PC).
You no longer need a high-end CPU to enjoy games because, generally, user demand for game improvements in CPU-intensive functions has gone down (only with the popularity of realistic physics has demand gone up, but with dedicated physics cards on the way, it will go down once again, just like when GPUs took over transform and lighting).
yacoub - Thursday, September 15, 2005 - link
"Would you be more satisfied if they released $300 vid cards every 18 months? "As opposed to $600 cards every 6 months, thus costing twice the price and being outdated three times as quickly? Yes, I'd rather have a $300 purchase every 18 months, which is about as frequently as a person currently needs to upgrade a videocard anyway. The Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb card has been out around 24 months now, IIRC, and it is just now needing to be replaced by a 7800-series card to run very high resolutions smoothly in the latest games. So yeah, $300 every 18 months is about right.
xsilver - Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - link
whats wrong is people that are WILLING to pay $500-600 for a video cardits all about supply and demand
also for as long as I can remember now high end pcs cost a little over 2k US, over time, many things have reduced in price, so expensive video cards just make it possible to keep the total system cost to around the same mark
tonyou - Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - link
The price for the 512MB X1800 XT looks like a steal if it can debut at the same price NVIDIA had for the 256MB 7800GTX. Damn, and I just bought a 7800GTX, hopefully I won't regret it!Cybercat - Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - link
"First of all, ATI's traditional core design can do "more" per clock cycle (at least on the R420 design) than NVIDIA."refering to what? obviously not shader ops...
jonny13 - Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - link
Being that the GTX has been out for so much longer and the prices have dropped since release, the GTX retails for about the same price as the X1800 PRO. That might be a tough sell for ATI unless these cards are monsters at all price points. Either way, it should be interesting to see how the new cards perform as they look competetive on paper.Pete84 - Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - link
Heck, ATi has a card for EVERY price point!!! When are the mid and low range GeForce 7's going to come out?coldpower27 - Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - link
When Nvidia is ready to debut products on their 90nm process. The 6800 GT, 6800 will do in the meantime. They are basically feature complete speedwise they maybe a problem.xsilver - Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - link
i dont see how the 6800gt can be a "problem" -- it kicks! the only reason why the x800xl is competitive right now is price, when these ati cards come out, nvidia will sure revise their whole pricing schemeby looking at the speculation right now - the ati cards may only perform marginally better than the nvidia counterparts, not quite the revolutionary "kick ass" chip everyone's been expecting