Ya know I am finding this kinda funny in a way with people doing the "OMG", No Way, Can't Be, How Come,
I though, etc, etc about the R600 card performance. It was no surprise at all.
I have been telling you for months (heck since last year) that ATI was having MAJOR FAB and Speed Bin
issues with the 80nm R600 cores. ATI respun the 80nm part several times and they could no way, no how
get speed bin yields of more than single digit percents that could match, let alone beat a standard clocked
8800GTX. The problem was as the 80nm core parts clock speeds were pushed up they developed internal
current leakage issues that were so bad it made the water going over Niagara Falls look like a damn dripping
faucet.
The decision was made in early January to dump the 80nm process core and shrink the die to 65nm. The
80nm parts already in stock would land on the initial sub XTX cards to use up available stock with the later
65nm parts going on the XTX card then rolling onto the sub XTX cards down the road a bit. Unfortunately
that die shrink was a disaster on the first spin (in would have taken an act of god for ATI, or anybody, to
nail a new 65nm part on the first spin) and that has delayed the XTX (and 65nm sub models) until at least
mid July '07.
That would only be if ATI nails 65nm R600 cores on a respin quickly. If they don't the 65nm R600 cards will
most likely never see the light of day as every time you have to respin you add about 90 days to the release
date. The R600 architecture will simply be to damn old, at least for top end flagship cards, by then. NV
already has their 65nm "next gen" silicon nailed down, ready to FAB in volume (with some initial stock tucked
away now) and is just waiting (actually deliberately delaying) for ATI to give it a reason to release their next
gen models.
The R600 is the R520 all over again only worse and ATI is trying disparately to get something, anything out
of their R600 development efforts. For DAMMIT as a whole they now find themselves far behind the curve on
both the CPU and GPU fronts. That is extremely bad news for a company that is loosing roughly 6-7 million
a day with no end in sight, is already 2 billion+ in debt and is trying to arrange another 2 billion in "VooDoo
Financing" (Dammits words not mine).
DAMMIT will not be going away anytime soon (years) but they will be rotting ripe for a hostile takeover in the
not to distant future. It that does happen you can bet the first thing that will go will be discrete GPU and
graphics card products.
Viper
. 
