Radeon 9600 PRO having only 4 pipelines?

[dogulation000]

After watching a video from Title Club, it was stated that Radeon 9600 PRO would only have 4 pipelines. What the heck? The Radeon 9500 PRO, which I have, has EIGHT pipelines. However, I heard that 9600 PRO would be clocked higher, and have faster memory, but it seems more a like a upgrade from RAdeon 9500 Non-PRO to me.

[Aleksei (St)]

i think that the radeon 9600 its gonna be a failure from Ati

[Particleman]

Yep this is true, the higher core speed, higher memory speed, and a memory controller designed with a 128-bit interface in mind should make it perform roughly the same though. Definitely not a "upgrade" from the 9500 Pro with the exception of the addition of F-buffer, it's more of a cheaper to produce replacement. Will have to wait for the benchmarks to see for certain how it will perform, but expect peformance @ the same as a 9500 pro. If it doesn't then I would recommend picking up a 9500 pro before everyone stops carrying them, if you don't care about F-buffer.

On a side note the GFFX 5600 is a 2x2 (2 pipleline, 2 texture unit, max 4 textures per pass product). Value cards usually cut down on the number of pipes to make them cheaper to produce and in some cases just to artifically cripple them. In the cases of the RV350 and NV31 though it was to cut down on the transistor count to make them cheaper.

[Shadow Lady]

since when does GFFX 5600 have 2 pipeline?

[Aleksei (St)]

2x2=4

[dogulation000]

If you ask me, identical speeds are not enough justify a new product. Neither is a feature that is ONLY specific to a company AND won't likely to be used in a while, therefore, Radeon 9600 PRO has no justification to be made, IF it isn't faster than the Radeon 9500 PRO.

[Aleksei (St)]

agree with dogulation000

[Demigod]

Originally posted by dogulation000
If you ask me, identical speeds are not enough justify a new product. Neither is a feature that is ONLY specific to a company AND won't likely to be used in a while, therefore, Radeon 9600 PRO has no justification to be made, IF it isn't faster than the Radeon 9500 PRO.

The F-buffer isn't a vendor-specific feature. It works internally and automatically to potentially allow unlimited pixel shader operations. John Carmack has stated that he's already run into hardware limitations with the Radeon 9700. The F-buffer remedies this situation.

[Particleman]

Originally posted by dogulation000
If you ask me, identical speeds are not enough justify a new product. Neither is a feature that is ONLY specific to a company AND won't likely to be used in a while, therefore, Radeon 9600 PRO has no justification to be made, IF it isn't faster than the Radeon 9500 PRO.

It's not an upgrade it is more of a replacement in the product lineup. Of course people with the 9500 Pro need not buy it. The purpose of it is to make a chip that is cheaper to produce. Think of it this way, if you were making video cards, and you could either make your mid-range card off of a 100 million transistor plus chip and then artificially cripple it (that's what they did with the 128-bit bus, because the chip itself is still capable of a 256-bit memory interface on the 9500 Pro) or if you could make a cheaper chip that doesn't need to be artificially crippled what would you do?

The 9500 Pro was basically just an interim product until ATi was ready to launch the RV350 so ATi could have a mid-range DX9 product on the market between then and now.

Nah the radeon 9600 won't be a failure. Its new memory bandwith should help the pixel fill rate loss. I mean it wasn';t really meeting its pixel fill rate with old 9500 pro because of the bandwith limitations.

I imagine it will perform better in some cases and slower in others. Consider it like the Barton. Overall I bet you it is faster

[Chinoz]

/me waits for unwinder to do his magic again

[dogulation000]

Originally posted by Particleman


It's not an upgrade it is more of a replacement in the product lineup. Of course people with the 9500 Pro need not buy it. The purpose of it is to make a chip that is cheaper to produce. Think of it this way, if you were making video cards, and you could either make your mid-range card off of a 100 million transistor plus chip and then artificially cripple it (that's what they did with the 128-bit bus, because the chip itself is still capable of a 256-bit memory interface on the 9500 Pro) or if you could make a cheaper chip that doesn't need to be artificially crippled what would you do?

The 9500 Pro was basically just an interim product until ATi was ready to launch the RV350 so ATi could have a mid-range DX9 product on the market between then and now.

I know that, you know that, but who else knows that? There's a lot a people who might be fooled by their weird numbering system. It seems kind of a like a cheap trick to me.

Either way, I still don't think they are justified. Why? Because by the time that things is released, the thing would be worth around $199, with the Radeon 9500 PRO's price likely to drop. The only justification it seems, is that from what I heard, is that would using the 0.13 micron process.

I'm not worried about how much slower or faster it is. The fact is, that some people might be fooled into thinking that upgrading to a Radeon 9600 would give you a definite upgrade. I'm worried about people who already have a Radeon 9500 PRO might think about the Radeon 9600 PRO. The numbering system makes the 9600 seem like it is INDEED a BETTER, FASTER, product than 9500 PRO, when in fact, it is its not THAT much faster Radeon 9500 PRO.

[Player-X]

Let's just wait for the benchmark results first

[Demigod]

Originally posted by dogulation000
I'm not worried about how much slower or faster it is. The fact is, that some people might be fooled into thinking that upgrading to a Radeon 9600 would give you a definite upgrade. I'm worried about people who already have a Radeon 9500 PRO might think about the Radeon 9600 PRO. The numbering system makes the 9600 seem like it is INDEED a BETTER, FASTER, product than 9500 PRO, when in fact, it is its not THAT much faster Radeon 9500 PRO.

Companies always use misleading numbers and names to hype their products. The GeForce 4 MX is a good example (technologically inferior to the GeForce 3), as well as the Radeon 9000 (slower than the Radeon 8500). At least ATI is trying to get their numbers straight (renaming 8500 to 9100). I think 9600 is a good number for it, as it'll most likely perform faster than the 9500 but slower than the 9700. We'll need benchmarks to confirm that though.

[Shadow Lady]

better r9550 or something ;P

[Demigod]

I think that would confuse consumers even more, as ATI cards have always gone by hundreds. Besides, it's just a name, no need to get so anal about it.

Well, Not liking ATis Naming policy myself. The Benefit of the doubt should be given. At least they didn't classify this card as a new Line of Radeon.

Maybe the 10500 or something. because its Obviously not that.

The name is not that better. The Whole purpose of this release is to sour the Geforce FX's arrival. This product would never have seen daylight had the Geforce FX not existed.

And as demigod noted. Its a just a number. And is currently the fastest thing available.

[Aleksei (St)]

we really should wait until the first benchmarks arrive then we will see the diferences between the cards

[Particleman]

Originally posted by ChrisRay
Well, Not liking ATis Naming policy myself. The Benefit of the doubt should be given. At least they didn't classify this card as a new Line of Radeon.

Maybe the 10500 or something. because its Obviously not that.

The name is not that better. The Whole purpose of this release is to sour the Geforce FX's arrival. This product would never have seen daylight had the Geforce FX not existed.

And as demigod noted. Its a just a number. And is currently the fastest thing available.

I'm pretty sure we would have seen the 9600 regardless. The 9800 ATi might have skipped, but they released it to solidly regain the performance lead for their flagship line of cards. The 9600 on the other hand would have been released regardless though, since companies are always looking for ways to produce products more efficiently and profitable. For example the 9000 released last year, only purpose for that was to make a more affordable and profitable 8500.

As for the naming, it's ok, if it performs slightly better than the 9500 would you prefer they call it the 9400? Or if it performs the same they can't name it the same thing since that would be even more confusing since buyers would have no idea what card they are getting. The naming isn't perfect but it also isn't the worst naming travesty of all time either, that belongs to the GF4 MX, the Radeon 9000 name is pretty bad too though not quite as bad as the GF4 MX since the closest relative to that was back several generations to the GF2.

Originally posted by Particleman


I'm pretty sure we would have seen the 9600 regardless. The 9800 ATi might have skipped, but they released it to solidly regain the performance lead for their flagship line of cards. The 9600 on the other hand would have been released regardless though, since companies are always looking for ways to produce products more efficiently and profitable. For example the 9000 released last year, only purpose for that was to make a more affordable and profitable 8500.

As for the naming, it's ok, if it performs slightly better than the 9500 would you prefer they call it the 9400? Or if it performs the same they can't name it the same thing since that would be even more confusing since buyers would have no idea what card they are getting. The naming isn't perfect but it also isn't the worst naming travesty of all time either, that belongs to the GF4 MX, the Radeon 9000 name is pretty bad too.

In regards to naming. I could give a crap what companies label their products. They could name it "Best card of the year gaurenteed to get you laid" for all I care.

The 9600 was neccasary for more reasons than one. They are tired of people modding and creating 9500 to 9700s