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 Intel’s two month old acquisition of Havok, whose Havok FX engine allows physics management by the GPU, hasn’t created too much enthusiasm with its competitors.
According to Richard Huddy, former ATI and now manager of developer relations at AMD, few games will definitively adopt the Havok FX, if it even arrives on the market at all. This manufacturer is therefore more in favor of physics management by multi-core CPUs. Moreover, Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, shares this position and evokes the negative synergies that will be caused by this buyout. According to him, there are other companies active in this domain and certain game developers are conceiving their own physics engines.
Either way, it’s certain that it’s not in Intel’s interest to encourage the adoption of a technology which favors GPU power as long as its own graphic circuits do not offer 3D performances worthy of the GPU name. This is even truer given their current push to make quad core CPUs widely available.
Now, we will just have to see if Microsoft will definitively favor one particular approach via DirectX 11 and if Ageia will eventually manage to launch a new PhysX capable of rivaling solutions from the three giants.
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 According to information obtained by HKEPC, the RV635 will also come in two versions. This is the successor of the RV630 which equips the Radeon HD 2600 Pro and XT.
The Radeon HD 3670’s GPU/memory frequencies will both be 800 MHz versus the 800/700 for the Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR3 and 800/1100 for the HD 2600 XT GDDR4. The Radeon HD 3650’s GPU will be set at 600 MHz like on the Radeon HD 2600 Pro; however, its memory will be increased to 500 MHz or 100 more. In both cases, the number of calculation and texturing units as well as ROPS remain unchanged. In short, we shouldn’t expect a revolution.
The interest for AMD is that the RV635 will be engraved in 55 nm versus 65 nm for the RV630. The chip is therefore smaller and allows lowering production costs. You may recall that previous information alluded to PCI-Express 2.0 interface and DirectX 10.1 support and the possible presence of a DisplayPort output. In terms of availability, the Radeon HD 3670 should arrive in January and the Radeon HD 3650 will be for the end of February.
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 It’s no secret that AMD is going through a tough time, at least financially. While the company managed to limit the damage in the third quarter, it needs a significant cash boost. Given its level of debt, it would be dangerous to see it grow even more.
It was in this delicate context that Hector Ruiz, President and CEO of AMD, declared that they proudly welcome Mubadala, a world class investor. The firm based in Abu Dhabi and owned by the United Arab Emirates’ government thus acquired 8.1% of AMD’s capital for a sum of $622 million. However, this will not give them the right to sit on the board of directors for the American company. While this is a considerable amount of money, we should keep in mind that the creator of the Athlon has registered total losses of $1,607 billion since the beginning of the year. |
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