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NVIDIA is to launch their next-gen graphics chip, the G70, on June 21st and it has been revealed that ATI will reveal its rival GPU, the R520, a month later on July 26th.
It is currently believed that the G70 will ship as the 7800, 7800GT and the 7800GTX with the top cards utilising 24 pixel pipelines and eight vertex engines. NVIDIA have apparently dropped the Ultra brand that appeared in the 6800 series. The cards will feature DirectX 9 SM3.0 and OpenGL 2.0. SLi support will also be available.
ATI’s launch a month later could face problems because of reported poor yields of the R520. Yields are usually low early in the life of a new GPU but Xbit Labs are reporting that ATI is concerned over the number of working parts being pressed out of each wafer. This could mean a slightly higher retail price than usual for a new GPU when the part is released, as well as heavy shortages.
ATI has a month after NVIDIA launch the G70 to tweak their core and memory clocks in order to outperform their rival. The R520 is expected to support SM3.0, which was missing from the previous X800 and X850 cards and will also support ATI’s CrossFire which is their version of SLi.
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