The Fermi Thread - Part 3

[tajoh111]

This is nice manipulation with facts, you know? If you say Fermi is completely new, than you must say Evergreen is completely new architeture, too. AMD did the major changes with RV7x0 generation (memory hub and other stuff), NVIDIA with GF10x (cache and other stuff).

But the truth is, the shaders and other parts which have direct impact on 3D performance are the same till R600/G80. So this talk about "hard to make drivers especially for GF100" is total nonsense.

If they want to make special driver, nobody is holding 'em. It is so easy to name the DLL libraries differently and copy the different ones if GF100 is detected, isn't it?

Evergreen is completely new? You can't be serious, even AMD says their completely new generation of cards comes after r8xx. I don't think anyone here will agree with you that the changes from g200 to fermi are vastly greater than the changes from r7xx to r8xx.

Evergreen is more of a testiment to the scalability of r6xx architecture. They use similar ways to obtain performance, hence, why AMD dropped support for new driver of anything pre r600 last year. The recent improvements that came with drivers 10.3 also improved r7xx performance as well show this.

Fermi shaders are far different than g80 tech. Its their first fold into directx11 from mostly a directx 10. The jump from direct x 10.1 to 11 is alot less steep compared to 10 to 11.

So you are saying Nvidia had working GF100 silicon in May? I'm a Charlie supporter when his sources/rumors seem to support info I heard from a different source. Nothing more or less. If you want to look back, I actually disagreed with Charlie quite a few times over the last year or so.

You also missed what I am trying to say... Evergreen is a new architecture, in the sense of drivers, the same Fermi is. Did AMD/ATi have working silicon before their Sept launch, more than likely, did Nvidia have working silicon before the end of 2009, more than likely, I never said any different. The point is, to say that AMD/ATi should have already optimized the performance from Evergreen before it's launch, or shortly therefore after, is wrong. It will take months to correct and optimize, sort of like how it took +6 months for G80 to get stable drivers in certain games(though not the same).

I think the SLI driver performance shows how much time Nvidia really had to prepare GF100. The performance scaling is quite good and somewhat surprising, though that might be only my opinion.

So Nvidia dropping supporting for pre-G200 is of no consequence to you? We will see...

Man you didn't get my point and your original point did not address my first post at all, hence my explanation.

I will make it as simple as possible because we are honestly agreeing on the same thing. You are saying that it can take alot of work to get optimizations and performance out of a new card and it is not easy. Right? R8xx has substantial changes that might take months to take advantage of, hence the recent driver improvements which bring up performance.

I am saying the same thing. It takes time to bring out performance from new hardware.

So I will makes make this as clear and as streamlined as possible.

R8xx is a new card with some architecture changes to make it directx 11. The most important part of directx 11, a tesselation engine part of their previous architecture was already there. This is not a new architecture however, something AMD has already admitted.

But other changes that make it directx 11 requires a few changes, hence, the added work needed for driver to allow the card to perform at optimum levels. Hence the 6 months of work that has payed off to get performance to current levels.

Lets look at NV situation.

gf100 is completely new, working silicon was made in late 2009 and has vast changes over g80-g200 based architecture. This is officially NV new architecture.

Making drivers that perform well with this new architecture requires working silicon, hence NV has only had 4 month to work on this project.

The starting point to get to that final point(optimized drivers) is alot farther back because the current drivers they have are for previous architecture that was for something alot different. As a result, it will take more time and effort compared to the AMD situation.

This leads to my point towards adaivjev
It will take longer than 4 months to get good drivers out of fermi, if it takes 6 months to get optimized drivers from evergreen.

Especially when you take into consider the following points.
Fermi is a totally new architecture, evergreen is not.
AMD likely had working silicon longer than NV for their latest and greatest.
Driver optimizations towards fermi are likely to be more dentrimental to pre fermi hardware, which NV can't ignore because it is the vast majoritity of its current base.

Additionally to clarify my objective and alliances, I do not plan on getting a fermi based card at the present time. To justify the power consumption, they need atleast 15 percent more performance than what we currently see. This might come with later drivers, but I do not make purchases based on potential future driver performance. However the likelyhood of these improvements are high given the newness of fermi and the time given to prepare the current drivers.

I did not get a 5xxx card because 40-50 percent improvement over the previous generation is not enough to justify an upgrade in cards just over a year old, especially since I don't game that much. Additionally, I am not a graphic snob with a superiority complex over consoles. With my current solution, I would need to purchase dual 5870s as even a 5970 really doesn't add much to the performance equation(although likely more consistency) which doesn't make sense considering the cost and how much I game(honestly no one games enough to justify 900(even more because i watercool) dollars on graphic card every years(good games that have great graphics just don't appear often enough).

Fermi with say an extra 20% performance along with its current lead would mean a card that is 80 percent faster than previous gen. Something that might justify an upgrade, but at the present time, no, not even close, especially with the power consumption.