Will ATI Deliver The R600 In May?

It has been a really long wait for the ATI R600 VPU. Delayed time and time again, even ATI's staunchest fans are beginning to wonder if the R600 will ever see the light of day. Yes, even though these fans may vehemently denied it, deep in their hearts lurks a nagging feeling that the R600 was beginning to feel like another Duke Nukem Forever.

In fact, when we poked fun at the R600 earlier this month, many ATI fans actually rejoiced; triumphant that their long wait had not been in vain, and that AMD and ATI had intentionally delayed it to deliver their killing stroke in the form of the Excellon and RenderX chips. Does that read like a bad kungfu movie? Well, it does but many ATI fans still tried to pre-order those chips! Evidently, they have been waiting for the R600 way too long...

But ATI may now be quite close to a final launch date. Although yours truly is not privy to ATI's secret plans, we do know that ATI has invited a bunch of tech journalists to an R600 Tech Day in Sunnyvale, California from April 26-27. There, ATI intends to demonstrate the R600 to those fortunate few.

Does this mean that the R600 will be released in May? Well, we heard that ATI intends to launch it somewhere in the middle of May, with some giving May 14th as a tentative date, but that's just another rumour in a long line of rumours. Given the fact that ATI has not been shy in postponing the launch of the R600 on numerous occasions, it's not inconceivable they will do it again.

Although we will not be in Sunnyvale for the event, we wish those journalists all the best. We hope they come back from ATI's HQ packing some review samples. That would be a clear sign that ATI is ready to launch sometime in May. Since it's a two-day event and AMD/ATI is actually flying them all the way to California, it's very likely a serious pre-launch affair, and not just another preview.

So, watch out for news on the ATI R600 on April 28, or perhaps even as early as April 26 or 27. If this is merely another show-and-tell session, then tech publications invited to the event will be posting what they learned at the R600 Tech Day. If so, we probably won't be see the R600 launched until June or July.

But if there is nothing but silence on April 28, then you know they are all under NDA and ATI will be launching the R600 very soon. Middle of May would be a good time, giving these lucky websites a shot at some serious test sessions before launch date. So, it's going to a pretty tense weekend as we wait to see which way the dice fall.

It's Confirmed!

Okay, we can more or less confirm that the ATI R600 will see the light of day on May 14th, 2007! Yes, it's FINALLY going to be launched for real!

Will it be the GeForce 8800 killer that ATI has been saying it is? Or will NVIDIA have something up their sleeves to spoil ATI's fun?

We can't say more but May is going to be a month of interesting thrusts and parries by NVIDIA and ATI. Keep a close eye on Tech ARP when May begins. We are going to have some juicy stuff for you guys then!

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