Mobility Radeon X800 and X300 Launch to Low Availability
by Derek Wilson on November 23, 2004 5:57 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Even with the benchmark wins, the bottom line is that NVIDIA is still ahead until ATI can get product out the door. It doesn't matter how fast a part is until it can get into the hands of the users. We commend NVIDIA for synchronizing their launch with availability, and urge ATI to catch up.It is understandable that carrying a higher percentage of the mobile market can be a burden for ATI, but we see it as an opportunity for them to set the standards rather than follow the lead of others. Market share is an important metric by which to measure success, but with that success comes even more responsibility.
ATI has an excellent part on their hands. The R4xx generation scales down well to the mobile segment, and the 130nm low-k process seems to be taking ATI a very long way. We are excited to see technologies like DLCS, Hypermemory, and PCI Express in general make it's way to mobile. This is a very exciting launch for ATI, but we just wish we could have seen shipping notebooks today.
Again, we love talk of high quality video incorporated top to bottom in a company's GPU lineup. But that's going to have to be something we see to believe.
The MR X800 will be here sometime between a couple weeks from now and Christmas. Until then, NVIDIA is getting a very good head start on the holiday season.
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skunkbuster - Saturday, November 27, 2004 - link
would it be possible (in the future) to test the mobility x800 and the 6800 go at the same clock speeds?400/400 for the MR X800 and 300/300 for the 6800 Go...
i just wonder what (if any) performance advantage ati has because of that.
it might be interesting to see how they compare to each other if they are clocked the same.
nserra - Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - link
There are a lot of Mobility 9700 notebooks in my country and cheap ones.Is the mobility 9800 already available?
I don’t understand how ati can make so many different chips? I mean Mobility 9800 looks like an X700 chip but in reality due to the number of vertex (4 vs 6) and memory interface (128 vs 256) is not?
So many product lines, isn’t more complicated? Nvidia is faster in bringing the product to market because of this and because of the lower market share. One card is easier to sell over five, especially if you don’t have five….
onix - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
"DerekCan you post a comparison of power consumption between the 6800go X800 X300 and older chips like the 9800, 9700 and 9600 mobility? "
I agree. I would like to know what I'm passing up before buying a top of the line ThinkPad.
Sputt - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Is it worth waiting for the x800 if im getting a laptop very soon with 6800 ?DerekWilson - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Historically, we cover prodcut launches when the technology is announced. We have never talked about features like DLCS, and we hadn't put a name to hypermemory.The important thing to remember is that this isn't an update, its a launch. And the fact that we've got no product in our hands (we would love to bring you a power comparison #1, but we can't yet) is a problem for ATI to deal with when NVIDIA has shown that it is very doable to move product immediately.
That's big enough news for us to talk about. It's important for companies not to paper launch products, and we don't like seeing it happen.
LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Wee...why did you even bother posting this second "update"? Was it that slow of a news day?Anandtech should take a stand and say "If you won't give us sufficient testing time to give our readers valuable data, then we're not testing your hardware". You wasted your readers' time when you could have said "We'll post a review when there's a product you can actually buy, and when we're given enough review time to give you battery life specs, and video playback performance". You're an "industry leading site"...I encourage you to actually lead.
trikster2 - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link
Derek
Can you post a comparison of power consumption between the 6800go X800 X300 and older chips like the 9800, 9700 and 9600 mobility?
Also it would be useful to include in the comparisons the older AGP based mobil chips, so we that are about to buy a laptop can decide if these new chips are worth waiting for.
Great review!
Thanks!