PtP
14-06-2004, 09:57 PM
It was learned learned that the X600 and X300 generation or ATI cards won't remain PCI-E only. As we said, Nvidia and ATI don’t plan to kill their AGP parts and they have to co-exist at least for some time.
A top ATI chap confirmed to us that it will do something about it and introduce AGP versions of these chips sooner rather than later. So AGP and PCI-E X800 core won't be ATI's only AGP and PCI-E core. It would not make any sense to kill its mainstream and entry level AGP and continue PCI-X now when Nvidia doesn't plan to do that. People like new chips and R9600XT and R9550 are nice cores.
We got an answer to our question how ATI manages to make a Native PCI-E card as the result of taking the R420 core and making a R423 core from it. The answer is rather simple - just extract the AGP part of the chip and replaced it with a PCI Express unit.
This is something that AMD told us 18 months ago - that its memory controller on K8 chips is actually a separate unit that you can remove without many complications and replace it with new unit. All you have is to take care is that your ins and outs match and you are fine.
This is exactly what ATI wants to do for new AGP chips derived from native PCI-E, just in reverse.
ATI sees the life of AGP lasting for the next 12 to 18 months so has to offer something to users that want a new graphic card but don’t want PCI-E platforms.
Nvidia solved this problem with its HSI chip that works both ways, turning the AGP chip to PCI-E or PCI-E to AGP. ATI still has to come out with a solution for future AGP chip since I don’t think it will keep changing the cores for all future products over the next 18 months.
A top ATI chap confirmed to us that it will do something about it and introduce AGP versions of these chips sooner rather than later. So AGP and PCI-E X800 core won't be ATI's only AGP and PCI-E core. It would not make any sense to kill its mainstream and entry level AGP and continue PCI-X now when Nvidia doesn't plan to do that. People like new chips and R9600XT and R9550 are nice cores.
We got an answer to our question how ATI manages to make a Native PCI-E card as the result of taking the R420 core and making a R423 core from it. The answer is rather simple - just extract the AGP part of the chip and replaced it with a PCI Express unit.
This is something that AMD told us 18 months ago - that its memory controller on K8 chips is actually a separate unit that you can remove without many complications and replace it with new unit. All you have is to take care is that your ins and outs match and you are fine.
This is exactly what ATI wants to do for new AGP chips derived from native PCI-E, just in reverse.
ATI sees the life of AGP lasting for the next 12 to 18 months so has to offer something to users that want a new graphic card but don’t want PCI-E platforms.
Nvidia solved this problem with its HSI chip that works both ways, turning the AGP chip to PCI-E or PCI-E to AGP. ATI still has to come out with a solution for future AGP chip since I don’t think it will keep changing the cores for all future products over the next 18 months.