Nvidia, ATI prepare for battles ahead

WE'VE BEEN hearing a lot on the grapevine about the next-generation cards out of Nvidia and ATI. Whilst no-one will talk to us officially, we've had some interesting titbits confirmed.

We've said for a while now that it wouldn't make sense for Nvidia to come out with their next-generation card first. They're sitting pretty with SLI and the 6800GT in strong positions, and are in no hurry to transition to another generation - hence their eschewing of the traditional 6-month speedbump. They are waiting to see what ATI comes up with next.

ATI, meanwhile, is debating timescales. We've heard various rumours about the card - it might be 32 pipes, they might only be half-pipes, only half of them might be enabled, la la la. One source suggested to us that the delay on R520 was because 'It is going to be their NV30, and they know it.' Whilst we can't comment on performance, we do know that it has been pushed back at least until Computex, although samples may be hitting the press before then - you may find that reviewers have cards in their hands in late May, and then you can start to expect the leaks.

One source told us that he believes it makes more sense for ATI to launch their multi-GPU technology before launching R520, since SLI is the buzz right now. We suspect that will happen, and we are expecting it to happen at Computex, once all the inevitable driver bugs have been ironed out.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have learned lots of cool info about Xbox 360 - its embedded DRAM for one. It's a pity that none of the exclusive Xbox 360 features in the R500 chip are going to make it into R520 - the architecture is just all wrong, and the Vole isn't going to be too pleased if PCs turn around and usurp it's new console before it's launched.

The G70 chip from Nvidia is, we can confirm, good and ready to go. Nvidia is sitting, waiting, sitting and waiting to see what ATI will do before launching the inevitable whirlwind of spin.

June is going to be a really fun time. Expect the usual hardware site suspects to go bonkers. µ