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[xexex]

http://theinquirer.net/?article=22202

ATI R520 "Fudo" has 24 plus pipelines

More pipes than Jock McFrock's bagpipes

By Fuad Abazovic in the Bosnian wilds: Wednesday 30 March 2005, 09:43
ATI'S FUTURE R520 CHIP will end up with a minimum of twenty four pipelines. We are talking about extremely big chip and it won't be a problem to plumb it with more than just twenty four pipes.

If we are talking about more than 300 million transistors in the chip that is 17 square mm small, we believe that we are talking about one of the biggest semiconductor chip for a computer ever built and it will be used for games.

We still cannot predict the exact number of pipelines of R520 chip. ATI placed 32 pipelines inside, but there is a chance that it will enable just 24 for a start. It will be a pure marketing decision but technically every R520 "Fudo" will have full 32 pipes. ATI can just keep these extra eight pipes for the later chip and enable them if necessary. If ATI's czars decide that they need more performance they will go with full 32 pipes.

You can imagine that twice as much pipelines from R420 generation can result with almost twice the performance that we saw with the Radeon X800 generation of cards. This will be creepily fast and one R520 can possibly give two NV45 a run for their money.

If this is not fast enough for you, you will be able to plug two cards in and have 48 or even 64 pipelines rendering your graphics at once. If ATI Multi rendering becomes ready this summer and R520 turns out good and fast, Nvidia's SLI will definitely have some nasty competition. µ

that Inquirer guy could easily be getting confused with 24 pixel pipelines plus the 8 vertex shader units which are sometimes called pipelines also.


R520 Fudo has either:

a.) 8 vertex shaders plus 24 pixel pipelines

b.) 8 vertex shaders plus 32 pixel pipelines

c.) either. some versions having 24 pixel pipes, others 32 pixel pipes, ala X800 series having 8, 12 or 16 pixel pipes.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

You're right, it's probably option A from you showed.

32 pipes would just be insane.

 

[tahrikmili]

You're right, it's probably option A from you showed.

32 pipes would just be insane.

That's what they said about R300's 256-bit memory rumours.

I have my money on 32 pipe upper and 24 pipe mic-level versions.

 

[xexex]

That's what they said about R300's 256-bit memory rumours.

I have my money on 32 pipe upper and 24 pipe mic-level versions.

yes. true.

and also what they said about the R420 / Loki (what would become Radeon X800) having 16 pixel pipelines.


for R520 Fudo, I expect 32, 24 and 16 pixel pipeline versions, much like there were 16, 12, and 8 pixel pipe versions of the current generation ATI VPUs.