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Funny thing is I don't normally rag on the Inquirer like a lot of people do but I used to have (and may still) an E-Mail from Fuad back before the FX5800 (the hair dryer card) came out. In it he said that he guaranteed that it would be at least double the speed of the 9700 PRO.
I'm still laughing at that one :)
Warden
Inquirer reported last month that ATI had already started shipping R420 silicon to branders, which would indicate that the architecture should already be set...
nVidia and ATI will probably debut the cards at CeBIT in mid-March, so hopefully they will hit stores sometime in April.
I read all this and it's nice and all, but I can't help but have the follwoing questions:Quote:
Originally posted by shrae
Inquirer reported last month that ATI had already started shipping R420 silicon to branders, which would indicate that the architecture should already be set...
nVidia and ATI will probably debut the cards at CeBIT in mid-March, so hopefully they will hit stores sometime in April.
Will a good Socket 939 AMD board be out by then and will it have PCIX?
How long will it take for PCIX to be refined?
Just how soon is PCIX gonna hit?
What the heck is up with DDRII?
Will the NV40 and R420 be both AGP and PCIX, and will I sacrifice performance or force myself into obsolesence by going with an AGP one?
Thats alot of questions that we don't have firm answers for. I'm thinking my current rig is gonna be with me until some firm standards get implemented in released hardware.
Honestly, I think this is just about the worst year yet for hardware format changes. Too many at one time.
we will have to see how good yields ati and nvidia will be able to squeeze out of the 130nm process. even though nvidia has some expirience with complex 130nm design in mass production already, i think atis decision to keep the number of transistors at "only" 175m is smarter.
with a 210m transistor chip you get around 200 gpus per 300mm wafer if the yield is 100% while a 175 m transistor chip will result in 250 chips as a 100% yield.
nvidias gpu design is more complex, but they have a little more expierience with 130nm process so id say those + and - weight each other up. so lets say ati and nvidia get the same yield of 70%, then nvidia ends up with 140 functional gpus while ati gets 175. ati will pay ~20% less for each gpu and can sell them cheaper.
210m transistors is a LOT, since nvidia already had problems with power leakage nv40 will probably need a lot more juice than r420 wich means a more complex and expensive pcb+ more complex and expensive power voltage circuicity and since it will leak a lot of power it will run very hot.
basically it sounds like nvidia is about to make the same mistake they made with nv30. too complex and thereby too expensive.
only that this time their card might be the performence king. but i think they overestimate the effect of having the fastest card on the market on the sells of their mainstream products.
after all atis success in the last year was more related to the great price performence ratio of their mainstream cards and not the 9800xt beeing the fastest card out. its the nv36 aka 5700 that saved nvidia from loosing further market share and money, not the nv35, the performence king of the nvidia cards.
nv36 is a diferent design, a cut down version of the nv35, it has less transistors =smaller =higher yield =cheaper. whil ati keeps the transistor count small and can afford to sell the same sized cores in performence and mainstream products nvidia will again have to redesign the gpu to be able to introduce a mainstream card with good price/performence ratio.
what is your guess on the next gen card performence btw? i guess a r420/nv40 will pull around 27-28K stock in 2k1 with an a64 3200+ at stock speeds, cant wait to go to the cebit and see those cards :D
Lets not forget the source... Jut because the Inq. says its 16x1 does NOT at all mean its true. :D
Wait for banchies, and Image quality comparisons before buying.
Nvidia, is quite well known for their lying lately, to boost sales.
"what is your guess on the next gen card performence btw? i guess a r420/nv40 will pull around 27-28K stock in 2k1 with an a64 3200+ at stock speeds, cant wait to go to the cebit and see those cards"
know whats funny and sad? I get flamed for those predictions and guesses, they seem to like toying with me, how immature! anyway thats a bit high for stock, seeing stock on a 9800xt is not even 21k! we may be seeing stock scores of more like 24k or so with the r420. socket 939 and 3700+ may be more like 27k stock however and low 30k overclocked
Quote:
Originally posted by Hollywood
I read all this and it's nice and all, but I can't help but have the follwoing questions:
Will a good Socket 939 AMD board be out by then and will it have PCIX?
How long will it take for PCIX to be refined?
Just how soon is PCIX gonna hit?
What the heck is up with DDRII?
Will the NV40 and R420 be both AGP and PCIX, and will I sacrifice performance or force myself into obsolesence by going with an AGP one?
Thats alot of questions that we don't have firm answers for. I'm thinking my current rig is gonna be with me until some firm standards get implemented in released hardware.
Honestly, I think this is just about the worst year yet for hardware format changes. Too many at one time.
yes and no, only limited quantities:(Quote:
Will a good Socket 939 AMD board be out by then and will it have PCIX?
vias 939 chipset supports both, agp and pci-x and there will even be boards with BOTH slots :)
atis cards support both agp and pci-x natively. nvidias cards will have a bridge chip on the card that translates agp to pci-x (bottleneck, but agp rates dont really matter anyways) nv45 will have native pci-x support.Quote:
How long will it take for PCIX to be refined?
most next gen mobos will be pci-x, like 80%+Quote:
Just how soon is PCIX gonna hit?
intel delayed the intro of ddr2 boards because of too high prices for the memory and "performence issues" because of the bad timings. while intels next gen chipsets support ddr1 and ddr2 most mobo manufacturers didnt want to mess with pcb designs and just worked on ddr2 designs. now intel wants them to release ddr1 boards because ddr2 performs too bad and costs too much, so they delayed the intro of ddr2 and their new chipsets.Quote:
What the heck is up with DDRII?
nv40=native agp r420=native agp later nvidia will start to sell nv40 cards with the agp->pci-x bridge chips to make them pci compatible and ati will release its r423 with native pci-x support. agp rates dont really mean anything, the diference in performence will be 1% or less i guess.Quote:
Will the NV40 and R420 be both AGP and PCIX, and will I sacrifice performance or force myself into obsolesence by going with an AGP one?
:eleph: :eleph: :YIPPIE: :eleph: :eleph: ...:rolleyes:Quote:
Originally posted by EnJoY
Rumors leave ATI R420 @ 8x6 architecture. nVidia NV40 @ 16x1 for now, but might be 16x2 or higher.
heheh, yeah i still remeber the 8x1 architecture discussion :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally posted by retrospooty
Lets not forget the source... Jut because the Inq. says its 16x1 does NOT at all mean its true. :D
Wait for banchies, and Image quality comparisons before buying.
Nvidia, is quite well known for their lying lately, to boost sales.
Does anybody ACTUALLY know that its PCI-EXPRESS and not PCIX, PCIX is an old standard and is on hundreds upon hundreds of workstation motherboards....its PCIe .... GET USED TO SAYING IT PEOPLE
PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe get it?
Bit of a dumb question here...16x1 pipelines...how is that different from 8x2? Is that 16 single pipelines vs. 8 parallel lines(ie one for data going and one for coming)? Or what?
last i heard was nv40 was going to be 8x1 and 16x0 in some situations
didn't fuad say his 9800xt with a 505core was the fastest 9800 out there?
wildcard, i know :D but pci-x(press) sounds better than pci-e :D
first number is the pipelines second the number of texture units
fastest stock... but even that is not true i guess, im sure some dude dripped his xt into ln2 without a vmod and got a higher oc.Quote:
Originally posted by b0bd0le
didn't fuad say his 9800xt with a 505core was the fastest 9800 out there?
No, no no....Quote:
Originally posted by WildKard
Does anybody ACTUALLY know that its PCI-EXPRESS and not PCIX, PCIX is an old standard and is on hundreds upon hundreds of workstation motherboards....its PCIe .... GET USED TO SAYING IT PEOPLE
PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe get it?
PCX, PCX, PCX.....get it?
I think I'd rather wait till I see the benchmarks than speculate on the spec. All I'm worried about is whether Futuremarks credibility is tarnished any further when the losing manufacturer starts trying to fudge the figures in 3Dmark2005.
hm, 16x1 sounds reaaaally good, but you never know what ATI meant by saying the r420 sports "extreme" pipelines :D
Cool info (seen it before) and all, but why on earth is this in Xtreme Overclocking?
With 5000+ posts I'd know where to put a thread. :rolleyes:
as cool as ati reacted to the release of the nv40 specs they seem to have at least an 8x2 design.
Yeah. Cool on the outside. Inward at ATI it's totalt panic :D
you were doing it two months ago, when there was no information out, and in every thread. Its a little more appropriate now, but I still must say its damn near impossible to predict.. just wait for benchies.. remember nv30.Quote:
Originally posted by Geforce4ti4200
"what is your guess on the next gen card performence btw? i guess a r420/nv40 will pull around 27-28K stock in 2k1 with an a64 3200+ at stock speeds, cant wait to go to the cebit and see those cards"
know whats funny and sad? I get flamed for those predictions and guesses, they seem to like toying with me, how immature! anyway thats a bit high for stock, seeing stock on a 9800xt is not even 21k! we may be seeing stock scores of more like 24k or so with the r420. socket 939 and 3700+ may be more like 27k stock however and low 30k overclocked
the way I see it is this should be the last AGP upgrade before the obligatory x16 upgrade, all those DDR2 questions wont be resolved when these cards drop anyway, so why not settle for a much faster AGP card you'll probably use for a while.Quote:
Originally posted by Hollywood
Will a good Socket 939 AMD board be out by then and will it have PCIX?
How long will it take for PCIX to be refined?
Just how soon is PCIX gonna hit?
What the heck is up with DDRII?
I do know that the 423 is x16 version of it, and is a native solution...
I know the difference...PCIX is easier to type. I use the X for Express like we use the X for Xtreme.Quote:
Originally posted by WildKard
Does anybody ACTUALLY know that its PCI-EXPRESS and not PCIX, PCIX is an old standard and is on hundreds upon hundreds of workstation motherboards....its PCIe .... GET USED TO SAYING IT PEOPLE
PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe -PCIe - PCIe get it?
PCI-X was a server and workstation-based solution for higher data bandwidth while retaining full backward PCI compatability. However...since it's deader than JFK, when someone is talking about PCIX in Feb of 2004, we generally get what they're talking about. ;)
Hence the term PCX I read somewhere....
Ironically enough I read about the architecture/pipelines from The Inquirer and Xbit Labs.
Why don't the companies ever get cool on us and simply dub an technology by a name. Why does everything have to be an acronym anyhow??
Simply call it "Express."