Final Words
For now, we are left with reports that there is no physical UVD hardware in R600. But is this really the case, or was UVD hardware included but broken (reminiscent of the problems NVIDIA had with PureVideo on the 6800 line)? If the physical hardware simply isn't present, the way things have gone seem to indicate that AMD's own staff didn't understand exactly what was going on. For journalists to miss something like this is one thing, but channel partners printing boxes with non-existent features on them is entirely different.
This is more than a little troublesome, but we are awaiting a response from AMD on all the issues we've presented here today. We were hoping to have their response to include here at publication, but we will absolutely update this article when we do hear from AMD.
So where do we stand now? Well, board partners who've already printed boxes with UVD labels and retailers who list UVD as a feature of the HD 2900 XT will need to go back and revise their materials. This is certain to cause plenty of headaches with everyone involved in the making, marketing, retailing, and purchasing of the HD 2900 XT. Journalists have had to go back and correct articles to reflect the lack of UVD support in R600, and everyone is looking to AMD and wondering just what that was all about.
While we might not really think UVD is necessary in a high-end graphics card, just as full video decode might be overkill in an 8800 part, many have lamented the fact that their high-end graphics hardware supports last years video decode feature set. This is true even on G80 hardware where the technology lag makes sense due to the extra development time NVIDIA had with G84/G86. Honestly, for us, the issue is not the lack of the feature; it's the way in which this situation blossomed.
From the beginning, at press briefings, AMD could have grouped R600 with X1000 and separated it from the rest of the R6xx lineup. They had no problems pointing out the differences between G80/G7x and G84/G86. After the fact, with almost every article indicating that UVD was in HD 2900 XT, AMD corrected no one. It took people asking direct questions to start to get real answers. But we still don't feel like we've got the whole story.
With our go-to man for graphics at AMD, Will Willis, having quit shortly after the R600 launch, and most of the other PR people we used to work with from ATI already absent, we have been a little worried about the situation. Losing Will will certainly be a blow for AMD PR, as he was by far the most helpful guy around. Having a key member of the PR team depart just after a launch like this also doesn't feel good. Hopefully, the replacement AMD finds for Will can fill his shoes, and hopefully we will get some answers soon.
We are left with the feeling that AMD wanted this to be ambiguous for as long as possible (whether this is true or not). The reasoning for this is are certainly not attractive, and range from blatant deception (i.e. suggest there's at least one feature on HD 2900 that you couldn't get from 8800 GTS/GTX) to a last minute problem with UVD on R600 that kept them from enabling it. But without answers from AMD, we just can't know what really went on in their minds while all this was going down.
For now, we are left with reports that there is no physical UVD hardware in R600. But is this really the case, or was UVD hardware included but broken (reminiscent of the problems NVIDIA had with PureVideo on the 6800 line)? If the physical hardware simply isn't present, the way things have gone seem to indicate that AMD's own staff didn't understand exactly what was going on. For journalists to miss something like this is one thing, but channel partners printing boxes with non-existent features on them is entirely different.
This is more than a little troublesome, but we are awaiting a response from AMD on all the issues we've presented here today. We were hoping to have their response to include here at publication, but we will absolutely update this article when we do hear from AMD.
So where do we stand now? Well, board partners who've already printed boxes with UVD labels and retailers who list UVD as a feature of the HD 2900 XT will need to go back and revise their materials. This is certain to cause plenty of headaches with everyone involved in the making, marketing, retailing, and purchasing of the HD 2900 XT. Journalists have had to go back and correct articles to reflect the lack of UVD support in R600, and everyone is looking to AMD and wondering just what that was all about.
While we might not really think UVD is necessary in a high-end graphics card, just as full video decode might be overkill in an 8800 part, many have lamented the fact that their high-end graphics hardware supports last years video decode feature set. This is true even on G80 hardware where the technology lag makes sense due to the extra development time NVIDIA had with G84/G86. Honestly, for us, the issue is not the lack of the feature; it's the way in which this situation blossomed.
From the beginning, at press briefings, AMD could have grouped R600 with X1000 and separated it from the rest of the R6xx lineup. They had no problems pointing out the differences between G80/G7x and G84/G86. After the fact, with almost every article indicating that UVD was in HD 2900 XT, AMD corrected no one. It took people asking direct questions to start to get real answers. But we still don't feel like we've got the whole story.
With our go-to man for graphics at AMD, Will Willis, having quit shortly after the R600 launch, and most of the other PR people we used to work with from ATI already absent, we have been a little worried about the situation. Losing Will will certainly be a blow for AMD PR, as he was by far the most helpful guy around. Having a key member of the PR team depart just after a launch like this also doesn't feel good. Hopefully, the replacement AMD finds for Will can fill his shoes, and hopefully we will get some answers soon.
We are left with the feeling that AMD wanted this to be ambiguous for as long as possible (whether this is true or not). The reasoning for this is are certainly not attractive, and range from blatant deception (i.e. suggest there's at least one feature on HD 2900 that you couldn't get from 8800 GTS/GTX) to a last minute problem with UVD on R600 that kept them from enabling it. But without answers from AMD, we just can't know what really went on in their minds while all this was going down.
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trisct - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
The reason behind the UVD confusion seems fairly obvious. ATI was just purchased by a CPU company. The original design for the 2000 series GPUs almost certainly included UVD, it would have been an obvious weakness vs. NVIDIA, even if they only have full decode for one compression standard.The problem is that parent AMD is meddling with ATI's plans, and decided to do an about-face on the UVD component, in order to promote uses for multi-core CPUs. The marketing material was already done at that point, though, so everything got confusing. This is a clear internal conflict of interest, where on one hand AMD wants to sell high-end CPUs, and make them as useful as possible for as many tasks as possible, but also sell high-end GPUs, which in this instance compete directly with one of the main reasons to get a powerful multicore CPU. I hope this all doesn't boil down to ATI graphics going the Intel route and depending on the CPU more and more.
lemonadesoda - Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - link
Probably will.Anyone else get the impression that ATI is suffering major brand dilution. I have been a loyal ATI customer since 8500. My "loyalty" was partly due to driver simplicity (one driver pack for all machines)... but also because you knew-what-you-got and prices and performance was both competitive and leading edge.
I don't hold the same view anymore.
lopri - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
Or take the job offer from NV. He won't be missed.Frumious1 - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
Neither will your posts, if you'd care to STFU and get back to sniffing the AMD happy-shrooms.Khyron320 - Monday, June 4, 2007 - link
People are being way to harsh on this review. It is just good journalism they are reporting the facts here. Now if Nvidia is getting away with something similar and Anandtech is not reporting it then i would call them "anti-AMD". But as far as i know there they have not skipped on any anti-Nvidia news/reviews.lemonadesoda - Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - link
Good journalism = facts + issues + accurate + well writtenI supprt godd journalism. But his article scores a low 50%, and is not up to Mr. Wilsons usual standards. He can do better
DerekWilson - Sunday, July 22, 2007 - link
actually I appreciate the fact that you feel I can do better, and I agree that this was one of my weaker articles ... but I don't think what was said was unimportant or inaccurate ... companies need to be careful how the present details, especially when it can be so easily misconstrued by their partners (let alone journalists).TheOtherRizzo - Monday, June 4, 2007 - link
I think AT are absolutely correct in putting down AMD for this. But the question is why have these kind of things never been investigated before and why have AMD been singled out when Nvidia are just as guilty of lies concerning Purvideo. In case someone from AT is interested here is a quick list of issues to get you started:-Nvidia still [url=http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html">http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html]claims[/url] all sorts of Purevideo features for AGP cards when in fact they have been disabled in the driver for over a year now. Not even a task as basic as hardware deinterlacing works anymore (even my GeForce 3 could do that). This is a far more blatant lie than what AMD did with UVD.
-both AMD/ATI and Nvidia claim H264/VC-1 decoding when in fact they skip deblocking in most cases although deblocking is a non-optional part of the spec.
-both AMD/ATI and Nvidia announced hardware encoding years ago. AMD is still trying to be clever by offering a software only encoder that will only work if certain GPU's are present.
To find more information search doom9 and avsforums.
DerekWilson - Wednesday, June 6, 2007 - link
Thanks for the comments and the email ... Sorry I hadn't stepped in here and updated this thread earlier. I actually haven't been feeling well lately :-(Anyway, I just want you to know that we really do take your comments seriously and I'm looking into the issue. Here's a copy of the email I sent a couple NVIDIA PR and technical marketing contacts:
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Hey guys,
In the wake of all the AMD Avivo HD confusion with their HD 2900 XT, I'm getting a lot of requests from users to look into other issues with improper reporting of feature support.
A number of readers have pointed me to this page:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html">http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html
These readers are saying that current drivers disable support for most (if not all) purevideo features in all AGP hardware, even with MPEG-2. I haven't tested this yet, and I'm not sure if I'll have the time this week. But I'd really appreciate it if you could get back to me with a statement about this.
If purevideo is currently disabled on AGP hardware, if the feature list is not accurate with current drivers, and if there are any plans to change this, can can you let me know?
I'm sure, with the current issues we're having with AMD, it goes without saying that accuracy and honesty would go a long way here.
Thanks,
Derek Wilson
7oby - Sunday, June 10, 2007 - link
Thanx, but I guess the question is too general to be answered by anyone at nvidia.
I just did a quick google to recall my last findings, but it's not complete nor did I always find the source of information.
WMV AGP Accleration seems to be enabled up to 78.01
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t15...">http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t15...
Audio/Video sync issues seem to be the reason for disabling this Accel mode:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=12150...">http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?show...p;mode=t...
There exists an additional theory that the AGP Bandwith is not sufficient for the way the work of the different accelerated decoding stages is distributed among CPU/GPU (German only):
http://www.computerbase.de/forum/showpost.php?p=10...">http://www.computerbase.de/forum/showpost.php?p=10...
About MPEG-2 and SSE related Stuff, I currently don't have any links.
When this topic was of more general interest other reviewers also did not get detailed information (Only German: Read the "update" part):
http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardware/grafikkar...">http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardwar...zember/b...
7oby