Some new info on R600 - four flavours

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 4:31 am

It's from The Inq, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think it's worth reading:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37040

Ryan Norton · Post by **Ryan Norton** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 6:01 am

Saw that... jeez louise, I can't believe the 6 pin PCIe VGA card power connector is already not enough and they're on to an 8 pin... I think I finally give up on playing new video games "the way they're meant to be played" (aka with ridiculously power hungry and overpriced VGA cards) the day you need a separate power brick for your gfx card.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 6:18 am

The Inquirer are right far more often than not, and I have no reason to suppose they are wrong with this information, remember they brought us the first news on DAAMIT, and only yesterday showed us the new (inevitable) 8-pin PCI-E power connector.

Andy

mattcoz · Post by **mattcoz** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:21 am

Why is the low-end card the filet mignon? Shouldn't that be the high-end card?

From high to low it should be: filet mignon, new york strip, ribeye, sirloin

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:38 am

mattcoz wrote:Why is the low-end card the filet mignon? Shouldn't that be the high-end card?

From high to low it should be: filet mignon, new york strip, ribeye, sirloin

New York strip over ribeye??

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 12:52 pm

Yes, it's for real; watch for a review of a PSU that supports the new 8-pin connector coming soon.

nici · Post by **nici** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:36 pm

Well this sucks.

spookmineer · Post by **spookmineer** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:09 pm

nici wrote:Well this sucks.

Indeed. I just bought a new PSU not even 2 months ago.
Maybe connector adapters will solve things

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 5:26 pm

and it will cost $1200.! Ok thats just a guess.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:25 am

First official picture of the 31 cm long XTX version:
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4622

WR304 · Post by **WR304** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:16 am

Does that mean the OEM version is more powerful than a retail card?

According to that article:

"Both feature 1GB DDR4 memories on board but the OEM version is 12.4" long to be exact and the retail is 9.5" long. The above picture shows a 12.4" OEM version. The power consumption of the card is huge at 270W for 12" version and 240W for 9.5" version." VR Zone

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:08 am

ummm...so that thing is massive. No way that is the final version. I don't know of a case that can fit it! When do we start buying motherboards with the graphics chip onboard and a slot for the cpu because that is how the power consumption is going now. This is crazy AMD. Stop.

zenboy · Post by **zenboy** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:41 am

Some more pictures, including a closeup of the blower fan with model numbers and the power connectors. Oooogly.

disphenoidal · Post by **disphenoidal** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:28 am

WR304 wrote: "Both feature 1GB DDR4 memories on board but the OEM version is 12.4" long to be exact and the retail is 9.5" long. The above picture shows a 12.4" OEM version. The power consumption of the card is huge at 270W for 12" version and 240W for 9.5" version." VR Zone

Up to 270 watts!!

Have their designers gone insane? Everybody brace yourselves for a whole new wave of 1kW+ power supplies...

[F]bernZ · Post by **[F]bernZ** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:27 pm

To a certain extent.. I believe this stupidity is also leading into higher power usage and increased pollution. It can only be bad for our environment.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:10 pm

It does seem mildly (!understatement of the year!) ridiculous that the GPU could take up to 4 times as much power as the CPU, maybe to some extent the recent energy-efficient chips from Intel and AMD have allowed people to go crazy on their GPUs? After all if you're running a 130W Preshott + 8800GTX you're going to have serious power and heat problems, but now that Core 2 Duo are so cool you can have a massive GPU and still not stress the PSU (assuming most people have PSU in 400-500W range).

This is along the same line as the theory that more efficient cars makes people drive more, a form of jevons paradox.

WR304 · Post by **WR304** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 3:25 pm

Before seeing this card I was thinking that the 8800GTX seemed excessive with its heat and power requirements.

The main thing this card may achieve will be to make the GeForce 8 series cards seem economical.

It could help to encourage watercooling for more people too.

Neither the 8800GTX or R600 really appeal though.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 3:50 am

Some new pictures of the R600 XTX:
http://overclockers.com/articles1411/
That 2A fan is not a good sign IMO.

Doomer · Post by **Doomer** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:37 am

Do you guys think that Ati/Nvidia will eventually take same kind of approach like Intel did with its Conroe, or do you see that videocards will just get more hotter and noisier in the future?

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 2:44 pm

Fvsking nuts. That thing is monstrous. Although to be fair, the card itself is not much bigger than say 8800GTS/GTX, the rest is blower type fan. I suppose if the videocard wasn't so power hungry you could replace the stock cooling and get it to normal length size, but it would seem this card really needs so much cooling, take a look at the heatsink, it's almost as huge as some CPU heatsinks. The only way to improve cooling on this beast would be to go watercooling.

I was thinking of finally upgrading my PC after bearlake motherboards start coming out to get 6600 C2D and overclock it to 3GHZ, the only question was about video card. I sort of hoped that by that time either nVidia or ATI would fulfill their promise of bringing more power efficient video card on the market, sadly they didn't. What am I gonna do?

Doomer · Post by **Doomer** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:51 am

JazzJackRabbit wrote:I sort of hoped that by that time either nVidia or ATI would fulfill their promise of bringing more power efficient video card on the market, sadly they didn't. What am I gonna do?

Do like I did. Forget upgrading until Ati/Nvidia get tired to their "Who has the biggest" contest and play older games

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:48 pm

Doomer wrote:Do like I did. Forget upgrading until Ati/Nvidia get tired to their "Who has the biggest" contest and play older games

Older? I have 1920 display and my 6800ULTRA still struggles with HL2/Far Cry at these resolutions, and that's without HDR/AA/AF enabled. Both of the games are two years old...

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:36 pm

JazzJackRabbit wrote:
Doomer wrote:Do like I did. Forget upgrading until Ati/Nvidia get tired to their "Who has the biggest" contest and play older games
Older? I have 1920 display and my 6800ULTRA still struggles with HL2/Far Cry at these resolutions, and that's without HDR/AA/AF enabled. Both of the games are two years old...

Why don't you get the mid-range DX10 cards when they get released? Some of those should hopefully perform close to a 7900/X1900, which are pretty fast cards in their own right. I bet the mid-range cards will be between 50-75 watts at burn... should be reasonable to cool and keep quiet. In fact it seems the ATI mid/value will possibly 65nm.

Btw just because it's interesting, here's the retail version of the R600:

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37588

spookmineer · Post by **spookmineer** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:52 pm

Prices and specs of the complete family:
http://www.hartware.de/news_41451.html

No source mentioned though.

nici · Post by **nici** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:58 pm

The fan is outside the PCB...? Without the fan that card is about the same lenght as a 1900XTX. Looks incredibly stupid. I dont even know if that really is a R600.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:39 am

Apparently the 31 cm version is OEM only, for Apple according to this:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37614