VR-Zone

AMD GPG (ATI) and Nvidia are hard at work with their 40nm DX11 products, and consumers can expect a flurry of DX11 products across multiple segments all the way till 2010. Of course, most of these dates are purely based on speculation and rumours.

On the ATI side, we have the entire Evergreen family - beginning with Cypress (5800), continuing with Juniper (5700) and Hemlock (dual-5800), finishing up with Redwood and Cedar (entry-level). Things are far more uncertain as far as Nvidia is concerned, with rumours of significant problems (such as terrible sub-10% yields) with the upcoming GT300 products. We can, however, expect GT200b shrinks/rebrands as well.

Here's a rough schedule of speculated release dates. Price ranges are included:

• September 22nd - ATI Radeon HD 5850/5870, $249-299 / $349-399 (Cypress). Widespread availability, late-September.
• October, 3rd week - ATI Radeon HD 5750/5770, $149/$199 (Juniper).
• Late-October, early-November - ATI Dual-Cypress "Hemlock" (rumored to be ATI Radeon HD 5870 X2), $499-599.
• Q4 2009 - Nvidia rebrands, (much-delayed) GT200b 40nm shrinks (GT214, GT216, GT218)
• Late-December 2009/January 2010 - Nvidia GT300 (Rumoured to be Nvidia Geforce 380). Widespread availability, Q1 2010.
• Early Q1 2010 - ATI Redwood ($99-$119), Cedar (<$99) (Entry level - rumoured to be 5600 and 5300/5500 series, respectively)
• Q2 2010 - Cypress refresh/die shrink, GT300 derivatives (?)
  

As we can see, we have a clear direction of where ATI is headed, but things are quite obscure as far as Nvidia is concerned. However, it's early to write off Nvidia yet. Remember G80? ATI did it with RV770 too. GT300 may turn out to be a monster chip, in the end, once they solve their yield issues. Or maybe they have a dual-GT300 card in store. Having said that, there is no doubt that ATI have a significant upper-hand moving into the DirectX 11 era.