ATI recently demonstrated its R600 cards to partners and the good thing is that it put a smile back on their faces. The Add-in Board partners didn't see the real McCoy as this was a developers card powered with GDDR3 memory only but it was enough to impress the present lads. The GDDR4 memory version and the official launch is still scheduled for March time probably shortly before CeBIT. The partners are happy with the performance and they are confident that the new baby can make the G80 run for its pixels. The first R600 with GDDR3 memory was a huge card, the biggest ever built but the GDDR4 version will end up a bit shorter. The first R600 was significantly longer than NVIDIA's G80. - The Inquirer

ATI's R600 up and running, making partners happy

The latest rumor out there revealed that R600 is 80nm process technology and is entering mass production soon. The R600 final clocks could be set at 814MHz and has 64 unified shaders, which could imply about 32 ROP's. According to the rumor, it seems that low-end RV610 will be on 65nm process, and 8 layers PCB, with 256MB or 128MB 64-bit DDR2 memory. For the mainstream RV630, it will be on 65nm process as well, supporting twice 256MB 128-bit GDDR4 memory. In addition to that ATI provided some updates to their eagerly awaiting partners regarding the schedule of their upcoming DirectX 10 cards.

In fact the R600 will be launched at CeBIT but cards availability will only be in April and we heard that the official name could be Radeon X2900 series. As for low-end RV610 and mid range RV630, they will be launched in April but availability only in May.