X1900 ... what is known ?

LoadsaMoney · 17 Jan 2006 at 13:03

Rumours are the new Asus Crossfire board with the RD580 Chipset could be coming out around the same time as the x1900, that will be the board to get judging by the A8R's Crossfire performance, as thats the current king of Crossfire mobo's, its the one im waiting for. :cool:

Dutch Guy · 17 Jan 2006 at 13:37

How many pipes will the cards have?

Overlag · 17 Jan 2006 at 13:57

Dutch Guy said:
How many pipes will the cards have?

it says 48 pipes.... although i find that unbeleiveable

dis · 17 Jan 2006 at 14:08

48 shaders each with one pipeline stage, down from 2 pipes on the 1800's i believe.

I think the info was posted earlier in the thread, or linked in a post.

Dutch Guy · 17 Jan 2006 at 14:20

dis said:
48 shaders each with one pipeline stage, down from 2 pipes on the 1800's i believe.

I think the info was posted earlier in the thread, or linked in a post.

I read the whole thread and couldn't find it so it might have been a link.

It says 48 pixel processors, not 48 pixel pipelines, so how does it compare to the x1800 cards with 16 pipes.

Goksly · 17 Jan 2006 at 14:25

the card is EXACTLY the same (from what i understand) except it has 3 times the number of pixel shaders. Add that to the fact it has a lower voltage requirement (1.2 instead of 1.4) and obviously more core and pcb tweaks... it should be a beast.
I expect it to have a lot more headroom etc

Goksly · 17 Jan 2006 at 14:27

Vogon said:
Hmmm .. from the scores available in benchmarks, an X1800XT crossfire set-up with an A64-4000 is faster than one X1900XTX with an X2-FX60.
I can't see that situation being much different in actual games, at a guess ...

I spy with my little eye very unoptimised drivers, or someone who cant remember which score went with what setup

As they are the same, but one has more tweaks / shed loads more shader power - i veryyyyyyyyyyy much doubt the 1800 will outscore the 1900 in any situation.

Dutch Guy · 17 Jan 2006 at 14:38

Goksly said:
the card is EXACTLY the same (from what i understand) except it has 3 times the number of pixel shaders. Add that to the fact it has a lower voltage requirement (1.2 instead of 1.4) and obviously more core and pcb tweaks... it should be a beast.
I expect it to have a lot more headroom etc

I seriously doubt it will have 3 times the pixel shaders, isn't it a same technology as the Xbox360 GPU where the card has 48 unified shaders shared between pixel and vertex operation?

dis · 17 Jan 2006 at 14:56

Dutch Guy said:
I read the whole thread and couldn't find it so it might have been a link.

It says 48 pixel processors, not 48 pixel pipelines, so how does it compare to the x1800 cards with 16 pipes.

Hmmm, i can find it now either, lol. I'll edit if it turns up anytime soon.

As far as i understand we're talking more shader units with less pipe stages (been a while since i looked at any gfx architecture but that sounds right). So if what i'm reading is right the card is targeted at shader heavy games, where it can load up lots of shaders and offset the performance loss from reducing the pipeline stages.

If thats right, then the 1800's will likely close the performance gap in games that don't use a lot of shaders.

Goksly · 17 Jan 2006 at 15:14

Dutch Guy said:
I seriously doubt it will have 3 times the pixel shaders, isn't it a same technology as the Xbox360 GPU where the card has 48 unified shaders shared between pixel and vertex operation?

Everything Ive read says 3 times the shader power - the unified architecture that you mentioned isnt until the R600 iirc? Thats some DX10 style stuff - the next big thing.

Wyrdo · 17 Jan 2006 at 15:23

Goksly said:
I spy with my little eye very unoptimised drivers, or someone who cant remember which score went with what setup As they are the same, but one has more tweaks / shed loads more shader power - i veryyyyyyyyyyy much doubt the 1800 will outscore the 1900 in any situation.

He said 1800 crossfire vs single 1900

Bit of an unfair comparison anyway.

Goksly · 17 Jan 2006 at 16:04

wyrdo said:
He said 1800 crossfire vs single 1900

Bit of an unfair comparison anyway.

If thats the case and ive misunderstood then my bad... but er yeah... i would expect the X1800's to win... but i would also expect the X1900 to be a few hundred squid cheaper than a crossfire x1800setup

D.P. · 17 Jan 2006 at 16:58

Dutch Guy said:
How many pipes will the cards have?

16 pipes (ROPS and texture units) the same as the R520, but there will be 48 shader units.

The G71 will have 16 ROPs, 32texture units and Shaderunits and faster clocks.

All rather meaningless but plainly put the R580 wont have any increase in pixel or texture power but will have a lot more shader performance than the R520.

The G71 will have more shader power and more texture units, the same pixel prcessing units and all running at far higher clock speeds. (a 400MHz G71 is as powerful as the 512MB G70 at 550MHz) but the G61 will be clocked to the giddy heights of 750Mhz as well as more shader and texture units.

So the two cards (G71 and R580) will be completely different really. The R580 should have a slight shader advantage but the G71 will have a far higher texture advantage and for the first time in about 3 years will have a higher pixel processing performance than the ATI rival.

So performance will depend on the game and how much shadin and texturing it uses.

Subtlesnake · 17 Jan 2006 at 17:09

Yes. The X1900 has separate vertex and pixel shading units, like the X1800. It's just an X1800 with 3 times the number of pixel shader processors.

This is what ATI did with the X1600 (R530) - there are only 4 conventional pipelines, but 12 pixel shading units. So the X1900 is effectively an X1600 XT quadrupled.

roadie · 17 Jan 2006 at 17:51

Subtlesnake said:
Yes. The X1900 has separate vertex and pixel shading units, like the X1800. It's just an X1800 with 3 times the number of pixel shader processors.

This is what ATI did with the X1600 (R530) - there are only 4 conventional pipelines, but 12 pixel shading units. So the X1900 is effectively an X1600 XT quadrupled.

Exactly. Everyone should read the X1600XT review on Beyond3d to see how the X1600 and the X1900 differ from previous cards in terms of their design and where their power lies.

Vogon · 17 Jan 2006 at 17:57

wyrdo said:
He said 1800 crossfire vs single 1900

Bit of an unfair comparison anyway.

Yep thats what I meant .. and yes it may be pricier, but i already have an X1800XT and an A64-4000 ... so an X1800 crossfire card would be cheaper than buying an X1900 and having to buy an FX60 to let it breath .... sure the crossfire set-up will be CPU limited too .. but from what I have seen circa 13k on x18 crossfire /w A64-4000 all stock, with x19 and FX60 stock giving circa 12k and between 700-800 pts of that is down to the dual cores ...

The point I was making, anyone in my situation looking for more performance would be better off in performance and money terms buying the x18 crossfire edition.

(Unless the actual games results buck the indications of the leaked benchies that is).

chaparral · 17 Jan 2006 at 18:30

Vogon said:
Yep thats what I meant .. and yes it may be pricier, but i already have an X1800XT and an A64-4000 ... so an X1800 crossfire card would be cheaper than buying an X1900 and having to buy an FX60 to let it breath .... sure the crossfire set-up will be CPU limited too .. but from what I have seen circa 13k on x18 crossfire /w A64-4000 all stock, with x19 and FX60 stock giving circa 12k and between 700-800 pts of that is down to the dual cores ...

The point I was making, anyone in my situation looking for more performance would be better off in performance and money terms buying the x18 crossfire edition.

(Unless the actual games results buck the indications of the leaked benchies that is).

I would recommend one single very fast card over crossfire or sli...

Big problem with crossfire & sli is that it gives you almost double the FPS in games that work very well with daul cards..BUT the other games that don't work so well with daul cards you be looking at only getting a few fps more..

Where a single very fast card you get the extra speed in all your games..

Goksly · 17 Jan 2006 at 18:45

D.P. said:
So performance will depend on the game and how much shadin and texturing it uses.

Yup its a bit crap in that respect... dont get me wrong, both cards will perform damn good in their "weakest" games, but hopefully the arival of vista will start to push them in the same direction.
In regards to the G71 - with the increase in switches (an extra 8 pipelines + shaders etc is gonna wack it up a fair wack) as well as the increased clock speed - im interested in how they are going to cool that.

Vogon · 17 Jan 2006 at 18:55

As I understand it .. and again I might be wrong, but crossfire is done on ALL games,(using "tile" method) certain games have other implementations which are done at a driver level.

Certainly there is more chance of problems with 2 cards (driver/game issues etc). but I personally feel its not too likely, and any hiccups will get fixed fast.

It's looking like you need dual core and 2.6ghz upwards to let the X19 shine ... my cpu runs 2.6ghz 24/7 ... but it isn't dual core

So spending £350 on an X18 crossfire card, is preferable to spending £700 on an FX60 (or even £230 on an X2-3800 and hoping you can clock it to those levels) and around £400 upwards on anX1900 XTX.
That my logic anyhow

Of course thats just based on what info I can find ATM, a clearer picture will be available after NDA is lifted

D.P. · 17 Jan 2006 at 19:31

In regards to the G71 - with the increase in switches (an extra 8 pipelines + shaders etc is gonna wack it up a fair wack) as well as the increased clock speed - im interested in how they are going to cool that.

The move to the Low-K 0.09um process from the standard .11u process. Also, look what they did to the G70, from 430MHz to 550 and beyond. + The G7x cards are very efficient on transistors, the G70 is smaller and has less transistors than the R520 despite having more shader units and texture units (24 vs 16). It is very likely the G71 has less transistors than the R580 and so can run faster.