Originally posted by: Regs
Pipes and Mhzs are becoming cliche and more or less marketing terms. Because every time they come out with a new card they twist the defintion of what's considered a pipe.
Agreed. Not to mention these pipes are "DX10" pipes not DX9.
The 32 pipeline config could be 32x2 or even 32x3. (based on rumours of multi function ALUs, or NV adding another ALu to there already 2 per pipeline of the G71)
400mhz could be the right estimate because you dont need high mhz for performance because most performance rely on the architectural side of things. Look at R300 vs NV30. NV30 was clocked at 500mhz while the R300 was clocked around 300mhz~. Same goes for NV40 and R420. Ones clocked at 400~mhz and the other 520~mhz. The two cards performed similarly.
If ATi did indeed have a 64 unified shader architecture, it doesnt sound to great unless theres other stuff added to them. The R580 has 48 PS and 8VS. That is total of 56 shaders. Now take the R600, since it has 64, and in DX9 would have to be configured to run at a fixed number of PS/VS. So maybe 56/8 config or 54/10. It doesnt sound as a big of a leap because R580 tripled that of the R520 but wasnt 3 times the performance.
The performance wont increase much but im thinking the minimum fps will rise considerably due to using unified shaders.
Im guessing that theres something else to this 64 unified shaders or ATi compensated R600 to be "small" and high clocked. That could mean higher yield as well as smaller die size which leads to low cost. While NV took the low clocked and "big" approach. (Similiar to NV40 (big) /R420 (small) or G71 (small)/ R580 (big).