R520 - Benchmarks

Nemesis11

Power Member
Well ATI sure kept us waiting, but it will finally be introduced this month, the R520 architecture, the successor to the X800 family of graphics cards and a contender for the 3D graphics throne. But why wait for that introduction when you can have a sneak peak today? Normally we would’ve adhered to ATI’s NDA and published results the moment it expired. However this time around ATI decided to just not bother with us as they made it very clear that we did not make the cut, as we have written some articles about CrossFire, R520 and ATI’s financial situation that were not apparently not appreciated. Hence we’ve not been briefed by ATI, nor did we sign an NDA, or have been invited to the launch event, so basically they decided to cut us off.

Unfortunately for ATI we have other sources to get detailed information from, for example the board partners that will be manufacturing and selling the majority of these new graphics cards. Obviously because we’re not bound by any NDA or other agreement with ATI we’ve worked hard to get you some benchmark results prior to the launch which is scheduled for the end of this month. To ATI we’d like to comment that it is a two-way street really, we’d like to be briefed about your products and have early access to them, if that requirement is met we will have no issues with signing and adhering to NDAs. By cutting us off however we’ve just been given a new incentive to work harder to break the news when we get a chance, in our usual no holds barred fashion.


So what does the R520 architecture bring to the table exactly? For starters it is not the 32-pipeline architecture it has been rumored to be, it is half that, offering just 16-pipelines, which is less than NVIDIA’s G70 architecture that has 24. The R520 architecture will be introduced as the X1800 series, featuring the top-of-the-line Radeon X1800 XT with a 600MHz core clock and 700MHz memory clock, yielding an effective 1400MHz memory clock speed. The 600MHz clockspeed combined with 16-pipelines for the graphics processor will give it a lower fillrate than the GeForce 7800GTX though, although the 7800GTX’ graphics processor runs at just 430MHz. With 512MB GDDR3 memory connected by a 256-bit wide memory bus the X1800 XT boasts more memory than the 7800GTX, but as shown before with 512MB version of the GeForce 6800 Ultra this will usually not help performance much, if at all.

The Radeon X1800 XT will ship with a $599 price tag, which is $100 to $150 more than what GeForce 7800GTX graphics cards are currently sold at, not exactly cheap. Other models in the Radeon X1800 series include the X1800 XL clocked at 550MHz core clock and 625MHz memory clock respectively at $499, the X1800 Pro at 500MHz with 256MB of memory running at 500MHz with a $449 price tag and to close the ranks ATI will offer a X1800 LE at 450MHz/450MHz for $349 with just 12-pipelines and 256MB of memory. With the help of a board partner we’ve been able to run the same set of benchmarks we’ve previously run on NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800GT and GTX, although we could only submit our benchmark scripts and testing configuration to them. The numbers you see reflected in the next few pages are therefore provided AS IS, as we have no way to verify them as we don’t physically have a board, they are accurate as far as we can see and in line what we’ve been expecting. So without further ado, let’s take a look at what the R520 architecture is capable of.

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Our conclusion is a mixed bag really. The benchmarks were run on release candidate drivers for the Radeon X1800 Pro and XT, hence performance is not likely to change much before launch. On the other hand ATI has been able to wring extra performance from their drivers in the past, so we’d expect them to be able to pull that off here as well. Overall it looks like the Radeon X1800 XT is good match for the GeForce 7800GTX, although in most games the GTX clearly takes the lead. The Radeon X1800 Pro is slightly slower than the GeForce 7800 GT, although not by much. Considering the fact that we’ve used a top-of-the-line AMD Athlon FX57 processor, with 1GB of OCZ DDR400 memory on the popular Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard your mileage may vary, we honestly don’t know how these cards will do in a lower spec-ed system. With more pipelines, 24 vs. 16, the GeForce 7800 GT and GTX should have the advantage here.

Overall ATI has managed to finally bring the R520 architecture to market, although over 6-months late. If they had launched it earlier they’d have taken the market by storm, much like the GeForce 7800GTX did at launch. However it will now be a tough sell, the MSRP is around $599 for the Radeon X1800 XT, which is up to $150 more expensive than the GeForce 7800GTX which is faster overall. Same applies to the Radeon X1800 Pro, which will retail at $449, you can buy a GeForce 7800GTX for that amount of money, which honestly hands the Radeon X1800 Pro its own behind. For now it is clear that ATI has managed to launch a new line of graphics cards that keeps pace with NVIDIA’s, kudos to them for staying competitive.

In order for ATI to really compete with NVIDIA they’ll need to match their price tags and be able to ship in volume at launch. Unfortunately history has taught us that previous top-of-the-line ATI graphics cards were available as PE, press edition, only, with virtually no retail availability until months after the launch. We hope that ATI has learned a trick or two from NVIDIA that had immediate availability when they launched the GeForce 7800GT and GTX. Next stop for ATI is CrossFire, it’ll be interesting to see what two of these new Radeons are capable of when run side by side. Let’s hope for them they’ll be able to secure a decisive victory over NVIDIA, else I’ll be simply repeating myself when we cover CrossFire in detail.

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1813.1/

Benchmarks a menos de 1600 neste link.
 
"Overall ATI has managed to finally bring the R520 architecture to market, although over 6-months late. If they had launched it earlier they’d have taken the market by storm, much like the GeForce 7800GTX did at launch. However it will now be a tough sell, the MSRP is around $599 for the Radeon X1800 XT, which is up to $150 more expensive than the GeForce 7800GTX which is faster overall. Same applies to the Radeon X1800 Pro, which will retail at $449, you can buy a GeForce 7800GTX for that amount of money, which honestly hands the Radeon X1800 Pro its own behind. For now it is clear that ATI has managed to launch a new line of graphics cards that keeps pace with NVIDIA’s, kudos to them for staying competitive."

......
 
Se forem estes valores, realmente a nvidia nao precisa mesmo da ultra.

Ainda por cima com o sli ready nas boards actuais, a nvidia nao da hipotese para o topo de gama.
 
Confesso que mesmo com drivers BETA, nesta fase, esperava que a r520 fosse bem mais rápida. Mesmo com apenas 16 pipes, o incremento de Mhz em relação à X850XT (que por si já tem boa performance) deveria conseguir melhores resultados. No entanto isto é bom. Performance próxima das nVidia, suporte ao que está em "voga" no momento. Em resumo a ATI actualizou-se no suporte a tecnologias e igualou a performance da nVidia (com drivers optimizados vai lá). O unico problema mesmo, e como dizem na "review", é mesmo o atraso. A tendência de recuperação no mercado da nVidia não vai ser afectada e isto explica o porquê do cancelamento da 7800 Ultra.

Bottom line é: Já temos alternativa viável/idêntica à nVidia, SE a ATI baixar os preços e SE conseguir ter quantidade cá fora.
 
Se a ATI conseguir meter os 24 pipes nisso era muito bem mesmo. A arquitectura é nova, tecnicamente moderna e portanto agora a ATI tem um ano ou dois de optimização e rentabilização disto. A 7800 GTX naturalmente pode subir para 32 pipes, pode aumentar o relógio, pode sair a G80...

Pelo menos agora temos qualquer coisa comparável à GTX e à GT que pronto podem ser mais comptetitivas mas já não são uma classe à parte. Alguma pressão de preço fará
 
Este aritgo foi publicado por quem está mesmo "pissed" com a ATI... começam o artigo a cascar na ATI... que credibilidade poderá ter?

TDA
 
Uma Placa que vai sair Meio ano após a 7800GTX e vai ser pior no overall k esta ultima?

Mto mau isso, com meio ano quase que dava para criar já uma placa de geração acima da 7800GTX e sai uma pior. Vamos lá ver como isto se vai reflectir no mercado.
 
Última edição:
timber disse:
Se a ATI conseguir meter os 24 pipes nisso era muito bem mesmo. A arquitectura é nova, tecnicamente moderna e portanto agora a ATI tem um ano ou dois de optimização e rentabilização disto. A 7800 GTX naturalmente pode subir para 32 pipes, pode aumentar o relógio, pode sair a G80...

Pelo menos agora temos qualquer coisa comparável à GTX e à GT que pronto podem ser mais comptetitivas mas já não são uma classe à parte. Alguma pressão de preço fará

Não haverá uma G70 Ultra, porque o Tape-out do G80 já aconteceu há cerca de mês e meio ;)
 
blastarr disse:
Não haverá uma G70 Ultra, porque o Tape-out do G80 já aconteceu há cerca de mês e meio ;)


O DJ_PAPA disse noutra thread que pensava k a Nvidia tava a dormir a sombra da bananeira, afinal parece k não é bem assim, e a G80 vem ai para breve :D
 
Humm ...

Deixa lá sair mais artigos, este ainda nao me conveçeu.
Mas fico contente por ter quebrado a espera do r520 e ter comprado a 7800gtx.

Mas gostava de testar uma :D
 
Pelos testes vistos, não achei a X1800XT nada de especial, nem a Pro.
Mas a verdade é que esta analise é um pouco pobrezinha. Estava á espera de ver alguns benchs do F.E.A.R. e outros jogos. Mas para agora, não está mal.

Já agora, alguem sabe quando é a data em que acaba o NDA da ATI e começam a apareçer as reviews por todo lado.
 
Nao sei se é fake ou nao os benches, mas para se ver o quao mal optimizados tao os drivers basta olhar para o grafico do HL2, em que até a X850XT PE faz melhor que a X1800pro e quase empata com a X1800XT.
 
blastarr disse:
Não haverá uma G70 Ultra, porque o Tape-out do G80 já aconteceu há cerca de mês e meio ;)

E que tal o Tape-out houve feedback para o exterior? nenhum insider se desbroncou? :D

Que tecnologia de fabrico usa o G80 ?
 
Nem uma foto da placa veio incluida nessa review, cheira-me a fake.... :o vamos esperar por + reviews e drivers novas.
já deve faltar pouco (s td correr bem :cool: )
 
kem gosta mais de ati ja pode comprar a sua placa porque a performance e parecida com a da nvidia mas se a diferença de preços for como está no artigo e onde peca a placa. 600$ e 450$ respectivamente... para nos significa o mesmo valor numerario em euros :mad:
 
Ati
ATI's (Chris Hook) first reaction to this article was: " Fiction. I don't believe these numbers were ever run on a 520 ".

And then a second response (from Chris) came in:

"This is a complete hoax - done with an OC'd X850, we think. Call our partners yourself and ask if they have R520XTs in house. The numbers aren't even close."

http://www.guru3d.com/newsitem.php?id=3069

Hardwareanalysis
So this time around, the upcoming R520 launch, I contacted ATI about three weeks ago and asked whether I was getting a sample prior to the launch and/or was invited to the launch party on Ibiza. ATI PR, came back with 'We’re sorry you did not make the cut', so obviously I asked why, and who did. They made it very clear that press who have a willingness to work with them across every roadmap will get priority. Or rather because I have been criticizing ATI in a few articles and refused to write about other ATI products that I frankly didn’t find interesting enough at that point, they'd rather not work with me. The press that did get invited apparently has written no such articles and basically was very open and willing to publish anything ATI offered.

I then got in touch with one of the AIBs and told them what happened, they were frankly shocked to hear of another ATI PR ‘fiasco’ as they called it and offered to help me. As I outlined above they could not send me a sample, but were willing to run a set of benchmarks on a pre-production R520 clocked at XT and Pro speeds. They did not want to tell me what board revision or what driver was used, but they did say that the scores I’ve been given are close to what the final product will be capable off. So how did I get these scores? Simple really, as is outlined in the article (the majority of people are lazy these days, they don’t care to read anymore). I gave them the exact specs of the system we’ve previously used to test the GeForce 7800GT, GTX and X850 XT (again outlined in the article), hence the scores for these cards are from a previous article, they did NOT run them. All they did is set the game settings as per my instructions (4x AA, 8x AF for example) copy the timedemos I sent them to the game folder and ran the timedemo scripts for these games, no more, no less.

That, in a nutshell is the story behind all this. And as mentioned in the introduction of the article the scores are provided AS-IS, I have no way to verify them. And before you start talking about integrity and credibility and all that, keep in mind that I served these scores with a disclaimer and am just providing a piece of the puzzle. These scores could be 100% accurate or completely off, but sources close to ATI, other than the AIB that ran the benches told me they’re close. But the AIB also mentioned that final clocks could still change, hence the scores could go either way. And obviously ATI is not going to say ‘Good job Sander, thanks for getting the word out’, they will always say they’re false, regardless whether they are or aren’t.

Did I have an axe to grind with ATI? Well to certain extent yes, would I then knowingly publish false information? I sure wouldn’t, this is not a smear campaign. But when ATI wrote back and I quote ‘Once again, you can write what you like’ I just wanted to point out to them that there’s other ways for me to get samples, or scores and would then simple go ahead and post them ahead of any launch date. So am I a whining kid that didn’t get his ice-cream? Perhaps, the bigger issue is that they apparently cut off press that is not afraid to give them a hard time over products that have issues. If that makes me a whining kid, I’d rather be that than not inform my readers of these issues, even if that gets me shitlisted with ATI. To be honest I know many journalists are in the same boat as I am, I have gotten plenty of emails in my inbox, also from prominent websites, not just the smaller ones, these past few days that all have a similar story.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=568986&postcount=426

Se quizerem bloquear esta thread, força.
 
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