ATI 512MB Video Card

[virusone]

I mentioned this to a guy today and he laugh..... ATI really gone mad hoss..., check out the article

http://theinquirer.net/?article=21382


Next ATI card will have 512MB memory

R480 with more memory


By Wil Harris: Tuesday 22 February 2005, 13:56
WE EXPECT that ATI will be making an announcement, maybe as early this weekend, about a 512MB version of its X850 card.

The evidence? Here's the rundown...

ATI is sponsoring a big overclocking tournament this weekend. It is publicly saying that there will be an 'unveiling' of some sort, but no-one knows what it is.

Some of the world's top overclockers, including chaps going by the name of Oppainter, Fugger and Macci are going out there to go and take on the world record 3DMark. Aside from the fact that current ATI hardware will barely scrape the world record, these guys have been told to expect new hardware to fiddle with.

Then, there are benchmarks and blurry photos showing up on tech site Driver Heaven, which appears to have a new bit of kit in its mitts.

Analysis of the benchmarks at the site makes one thing clear - it isn't more pipes. It isn't faster clocks. All the specific scores indicate the performance characteristics of adding more memory.

ATI, of course, wouldn't tell us what it is it has up its sleeves. Sources outside of ATI also indicate to us that a 512MB part is imminent. If we're wrong, we'll just have to eat our GPUs.

Graphics RAM is becoming more interesting, at the moment. ATI is clearly playing it both ways, with this new announcement increasing the amount of on-board memory and its HyperMemory technology decreasing it. It's interesting to consider why anyone would need 512MB memory right now, and the answer is to run at stupidly high resolutions or to run with lots of anti-aliasing. There is also the question of graphics memory moving to next-generation XDR technology, from RAMBUS.

More, we suspect, to come this weekend. µ

                     

[Czar]

A move to XDR would be really interesting imo...only question is regards the cost of XDR...I suspect it may be high...

As for a move to 512MB of RAM on vid cards...I'm not so sure about that move...I can just imagine the ridiculous price that will be asked for a piece of hardware with that much...it'll prolly be sub-$1000, but I'm sure that it could go well above that if it's in low supply...much like when the 6800 Ultras and X800XT PE's were first introduced...


[edit]
Just noticed this... Gainward announces 6800 Ultra 512 MByte card

[edit2]
Seems like it's official... ATI Invites Gamers to Get a Sneak Peek at the World's First 512MB Gaming Card                    

[Crixx_Creww]

wow

what a grasp at straws

this is soo sad
lol, there little duel coring and imitation sli must be failing miserably

so they are trying diversion tactics
weak ati here bring                    

[TaC_uP]

3d labs has a 640mb gfx card                    

[W1nTry]

You'll do realise Nvid1a is also readying a 512MB card? its Gainward thats doing it. They are readying a 512 air cooler and water cooled. Look here:

Gainward announces 6800 Ultra 512MB card

War of the Big Willies

By Fuad Abazovic: Wednesday 23 February 2005, 15:10
GAINWARD HAS JUST confirmed that it is working on 512 MB version of 6800 Ultra card. Its design is underway and the company expects to show this card at SnoBit, a German show that starts on 10th of March.

The card will have 256MB on each side of the PCB, doubling total memory to a magnificent 512MB. It's a cool number and it might give some performance in 1600x1200 at 4X FSAA or more and Aniso 8X or more. It should be available after this German show, we expect it by the end of March or early April.

Imagine two of those cards in SLI. You will get 1024MB or 1GB of graphic memory but this won't come for free. Gainward expects that those cards will end up €200 to €300 more expensive. Knowing current price ranges, this will result with at least a €700+ price range for a single card. If you put those two in SLI this will cost you €1500 - just for two cards. Ouch! That hurts your wallet big time.

The cards will be available in many variations. You will be able to buy air-cooled and of course water-cooled cards and as you now water-cooled version will cost you some extra bucks.

This graphic war is just getting crazier all the time. We ended up at graphic subsystem that costs €1500. Isn't that a little bit too much for a graphic card unless you are a top model or an actor? We know that Robin Williams actually likes to play games but he prefers ATI cards to Nvidia.

We expected such a card in Q4 but it resurfaced in Q2 2005 it seems, and ATI don't plan to stay at 256MB versions, as we revealed earlier this week. µ

Point to note wrt XDR, from what I gather XDR will allow for massive amounts of bandwidth at smaller size modules. So u may well have a 128MB XDR card that completely pwnz a 512 GDDR3 card! Keep that in mind, depending on the price (which should be good since it has to be competitive with their DDR counterparts this should really open things up for us.                    

[thrillseeker]

damn wtf...i eh getting my 256mb gfx yet....these mc ppl ehh....btw would 256mb prices drop ....that'll be a plus for me                    

[Czar]

btw would 256mb prices drop ....that'll be a plus for me

We can only hope that is the case...but I tend to think that the consumer won't notice a significant difference in price any time soon.                    

[TrinireturnofGamez]

increasing video memory is no diversionary tactic..... and the ATI SLI isn't to come out till  the next generation of cards . This is a simple tactic  to get more sales .
 1. most people think more video memory = faster so they will spend the extra money for this.
2. Cards will need more video memory  in time as with unreal III textures supposedly take up more than 1GB of VRAM .    
   Video memory won't increase performance much unless you have very little system RAM, all of the latest games nowadays use much more video memory than we have , and swap it all to the system  RAM ... in fact some games store textures in the system RAM alone... eg. half life II , So the future lies not in video cards with alot  of RAM,  but faster video processors , bigger  a bigger bus between the video card and system RAM (PCIX ) and alot of system RAM ( at least 1gb by 2006) .  
                       

[TrinireturnofGamez]

The card will have 256MB on each side of the PCB, doubling total memory to a magnificent 512MB. It's a cool number and it might give some performance in 1600x1200 at 4X FSAA or more and Aniso 8X or more. It should be available after this German show, we expect it by the end of March or early April.

Imagine two of those cards in SLI. You will get 1024MB or 1GB of graphic memory but this won't come for free. Gainward expects that those cards will end up €200 to €300 more expensive. Knowing current price ranges, this will result with at least a €700+ price range for a single card. If you put those two in SLI this will cost you €1500 - just for two cards. Ouch! That hurts your wallet big time.
 

 people don't  understand SLI ,   each card has to hold identical data , so 2x 512mb cards does NOT = 1 GB card , the performance increase comes from  extra processing power ......  

   And Doom III, MOPHA and riddick DO use more than 256mb of video memory without AA on .... so 512mb of memory WILL help .                      

[W1nTry]

Anyways heres a look at the monsters:
                     

[W1nTry]

Now for the backside:p                    

[TrinireturnofGamez]

also GDDR 3 is higher density than older DDR  so the costs won't be THAT much..... only 4  chips to 128mb on my 6600gt while the 8500 has 8,  16 to a board won't  add much cost to cards that are already retailing for 500 US + .  And with the cards moving to even higher density chips ( GDDR 4-5) it will become more feasable for medium end parts .  
                         

[unimatrix001]

up to now i fine 64MB on a graphics card is good enough...                    

[W1nTry]

unimatrix, u obviously are not playing more recent games? case in point, Doom 3, half-life 2, UT2004 (although I know it will work on a64MB card), Farcry. Or if u have, u are satisfied with substandard graphics and low framerates. Cause even with my 9800PRo 128MB card I am not yet satisfied. What games do u play?                    

[unimatrix001]

w1nTry... i have a aiw 9800 (128MB) on ah 512MB(SDRAM) 1.8Ghz computer an half life 2 and doom 3 all play excellent on my computer at maximum graphics... i've played with my friend from school (who has some 256MB nvidia graphics card, athalon 2800+, 512MB DDR) these games an my computer was still giving out higher frame rates etc than his...infact he had to play his game on medium to get relatively good performance                    

[TrinireturnofGamez]

thats the point i am trying to put out people.... memory doesn't matter , if you put a PCI-e 6800 ultra with 64mb of RAM and 2 gigs of system RAM , the games will move faster than a 128 or 256mb 6600gt ..... the card can use system RAM !                      

[W1nTry]

Umm no way on earth uni.. u can't run Doom 3 on maximum graphics with SD (not ever DDR memory dude come on seriously u want me to give any credibility to ur claims next u'll tell me AGP 4x). Ur not gonna convince me or anyone with some hardware experience with that one. I can tell u honestly that my system acheives a lil under 30fps on HIGH settings on Doom 3 and I have 1GB HyperX plus an OC Cpu (2600+ Barton @ 2.3GHz). They will be playable. but what u may not realise is I said I was not satisfied and I realise that diff ppl have diff expectations. When I can play Doom 3 on ULTRA High even without AA or Ansio and get a solid 30fps or 60FPS then I will be happy. U are prolly alot more lenient with framerates than I am cause there no way u could be getter better than 25. As for comparing a 256MB card, unless u comparing a 256MB 5900XT(or higher) or 5950 to a 9800 doh even bother!!! cause we ALL know that a 256 5700 will get wiped ALL over the floor compared to our cards (9800). So again I say it, 64 is NOT enough.                    

[TrinireturnofGamez]

exactly... and whats the difference between a 5700 and a 5900? or a 6800? the GPU's raw power....     I will keep saying again,  that the card can use the system RAM to store everything it needs , and as long as the system RAM is enough, you will get smooth FPS ......
     eg.  my 6600gt plays doom III @ ultra at 30-40 FPS, but since it swaps 512mb of texture data to my RAM, it sticks when entering new rooms etc., if i'm running @ medium (supposed to use 128mb) my RAM usage is 400mbs (checked in task manager)  if i run at high, it goes up to 528mb, at ultra it jumps to 750-800mbs .
   How do you think the 9800 pro with only 128mb of memory handles doom III at high  when its supposed to need 256mb ? swapping ! The memory bandwidth may be alot less, but the latency is much lower ( video cards run high latency RDRAM)  so it works out to keep performance good.