AMD Dropping R300-R500 Support In Catalyst Driver

Phoronix ^ | March 05, 2009 | Michael Larabel

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Beginning next month with the Catalyst 9.4 release, support for the R300/400/500 generations of graphics processors

will be dropped from AMD's mainline ATI driver. In a move they hope will allow them to focus their efforts on newer and upcoming graphics processors, the mainline Catalyst driver on both Linux and Windows will stop supporting cards older than the Radeon HD 2000 series. Linux customers affected will be encouraged to use their open-source driver stack (xf86-video-ati or xf86-video-radeonhd and Mesa) or stay with the Catalyst 9.3 driver.

Catalyst 9.3 is due out later this month and it will be the last unified release that supports the all Radeon GPUs going back to the R300 series. After that point, only the Catalyst driver that is updated monthly will only support the R600/700 series (and future ASICs). This move is beneficial to AMD by having their Catalyst developers focus primarily on their newer products and by stripping out the support for older cards so there is less code to maintain and hopefully better quality code as a result. Ideally we will see speedier and more reliable adoption of graphics processors to be released in the future. To the customer, this is a good move, permitting you are an owner of a Radeon HD 2000..............

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Now sure how the numbering scheme works...

Current stuff is 4000 series.

[NEMDF]

This sounds VERY hugh and series...whatever it means.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

means....everybody run out there and get a new card...

[mowowie]

I’d never but an ATI card.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Geez....R500 is not that old...

ATI's Radeon X1000 series GPUs

********************EXCERPT***********************

ATI's Radeon X1000 series GPUs
The graphics game changes again
by Scott Wasson — 8:00 AM on October 5, 2005

WE'VE BEEN WAITING quite a while for ATI's new generation of graphics chips. It's no secret that the R500-series GPUs are arriving later than expected, and fans of the company have nervously speculated about the cause of the delay. ATI chose to build its new series of graphics chips using 90nm process technology, and going with new process tech has always been risky. Some folks fretted that ATI may have run into the same sort of problems at 90nm that made Intel's Pentium 4 "Prescott" processors famously hot, power hungry, and unable to hit their projected clock speeds. In a related vein, others fussed over rumors that ATI's new high-end R520 architecture was "only" 16 pipes wide, compounding the process technology risk. If the R520 couldn't hit its clock speed targets, it could have a difficult time keeping pace with its would-be rival, NVIDIA's GeForce 7800, whose wider 24-pipe design makes it less dependent on high clock frequencies. As the weeks dragged on with no sign of ATI's new GPUs, the rumor mill began circulating these concerns ever more urgently.

Two weeks ago today, Rich Heye, VP and GM of ATI's desktop business unit, stood up in front of a room full of skeptical journalists and attempted to defuse those concerns. The problem with R520, he told us, with neither a snag caused by TSMC's 90nm process tech nor a fundamental design issue. The chip was supposed to launch in June, he said, but was slowed by a circuit design bug—a simple problem, but one that was repeated throughout the chip. Once ATI identified the problem and fixed it, the R520 gained 150MHz in clock frequency. That may not sound like much if you're thinking of CPUs, but in the world of 16-pipe-wide graphics processors, 150MHz can make the difference between competitive success and failure.

With those concerns addressed, ATI proceeded to unveil not just R520, but a whole family of Radeon graphics products ranging from roughly $79 to $549, based on three new GPUs that share a common heritage. It is one of the most sweeping product launches we've ever seen in graphics, intended to bring ATI up to feature parity with NVIDIA—and then some. Read on as we delve into the technology behind ATI's new GPU lineup and then test its performance head to head against its direct competition.

[Terpfen]

Current gen is the 4xxx line, previous gen was the 3xxx line, then the 2xxx line. The X1xxx line was prior to that. So basically they’re cutting off support for stuff from 3-4 years ago.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Guess the r500 line...the 1000 nomenclature... was introduced late 2005 ....see above...which isn't that long ago...Newegg is still selling stuff from the line....

POWERCOLOR X1650PRO 512MB D2L Radeon X1650PRO 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card

[Mr. Lucky]

As soon as you set the special decoder key on your Little Orphan Annie Badge, it will all make sense.

[dljordan]

“As soon as you set the special decoder key on your Little Orphan Annie Badge, it will all make sense.”

Nope, you have to have the glasses too.

[ShadowAce]

[Terpfen]

Newegg’s still selling, but the only people buying are those looking for budget parts just to get a rig up and working again. Even HTPC buyers, who typically lag behind the tech curve in video cards, have moved on to the 4000 series thanks to its hardware video acceleration.

The low end of the upcoming ATi 40nm parts are going to be huge for HTPC owners.