R520 only in October, but upgraded?
According to information on a Japanese-language site, ATI’s next-generation video card is slipping for another two months, but its specifications on paper are pretty convincing.
According to the data of the site, the R520XT CrossFire Edition and the traditional R520XT will start with 512 MB of 1400 MHz GDDR3 SDRAM and 600 MHz core. The cheaper release, the R520XL, is also expected in October, but now with only 256MB of 1GHz GDDR3 SDRAM and a 500MHz core. The R520LE sets the standard even lower: 256 MB of 500 MHz, conventional GDDR memory, with a 450 MHz core.
We can expect the release of the RV520XT CrossFire in December, the exact details of which are unknown, but we can deduce a lot from the 600 MHz core clock of the traditional, non-CrossFire version, 128 or 256 MB of 1400 MHz memory. The latter may become available as early as November.
An RV520Pro will also arrive in December with a 500 MHz core and 256 or 512 MB of 500 MHz DDR SDRAM. The one lower category represented by the RV515Pro will be available as early as September, with a 600 MHz core and 256 or 512 MB of 800 MHz DDR SDRAM. Last but not least, the RV515LE is also expected for September, which will be available on two types of cards: although the core is 450 MHz in both cases, the low-height version will be 32 or 64 MB, a HyperMemory-blessed edition, but a traditional 256 or 512 MB, 500 You can also expect a release with MHz memory.
It is clear, then, that ATI's manufacturing problems remain unresolved, but interestingly, even if the data mentioned above materializes, we may be dealing with a very strong family of cards, although it wouldn't hurt to know the number of pipelines in operation. Unfortunately, presumably, even ATI has not decided on this at the moment.
