[neliz]

Originally Posted by w0mbat

That would be a hughe, negative, surprise. I see GF100 ahead or minimum on par with HD5870 X2.

KonKorT has his doubts too
http://www.hardware-infos.com/news.php?news=3222

There are other reasonable doubt that the Nvidia chip purely "perform AMD's dual solution is able to keep up. Sicher scheint jedoch, dass der Abstand kleiner ausfallen wird als noch zwischen HD 4870 X2 und GTX 285 und dass der GT300 im direkten Vergleich deutlich weniger Energie benötigen wird. Sure seems that the gap is smaller than it was canceled between HD 4870 X2 and GTX 285 and that the GT300 will require significantly less energy in a direct comparison.

[Razor1]

well that would be pretty impressive if they do that.

[flynn]

Originally Posted by apoppin

that is not what i meant

i believe we will see much more improvement in parallel processing; Nvidia's direction away from pure gaming

How big is the market for that? I know about DirectCompute but I'm wondering how much is Microsoft is willing to invest on that to have software vendors adopt it. I'd rather they had adopted OpenCL instead of pushing their proprietary and incompatible version, though.

[ShaidarHaran]

Originally Posted by w0mbat

I think 2.5*GT200 was the main goal.

I've heard that number as well, but honestly no one outside the design team really knows if that was the internal goal. Also, 2.5x specs doesn't lead to 2.5x performance gain, as RV770->RV870 has shown us.

[Razor1]

not the same thing as doubling units the gf100 is different.

Is it me or is anyone else see that the forums are going very slow when posting?

[Arty]

Well anything short of CypressX2 would be disappointing, according to the same folks who are 'dissappointed' by Cypress.

Personally anything over 40% (average) faster than Cypress makes me feel funny inside.

[MfA]

Originally Posted by mmendez

How big is the market for that?

Also, what does it do for me ... I don't need office to run any faster and I don't do video encoding ... so unless it can make porn look a whole lot better the only thing it can do for me is run games.

[jaredpace]

Anyone have a guess at the GF100 die area? If transistor density increases by 1.75x (as for ati going 55nm -> 40nm), then nv's 3.0bln 40nm tran = 575mm^2 and 3.2bln = 615mm^2.

[dnavas]

Originally Posted by nAo

No, I am not arguing for that.

So by "less regular computations" you were referring not to, specifically, instruction set (which your reference to MADD seemed to indicate), but rather to the diversity of problems that need to be adequately tackled (MADD being pretty specifically targeted, and hence a flop rating that relied on it being increasingly unuseful)?

I am curious where you think the instruction architecture is going, though. Dedicated simple ALUs with VLIW front-ends, or fewer, more complicated ALUs? Vector/SIMD vs. MIMD? Fixed/managed on-chip memory, or relatively flexible, coherent caches?

[MfA]

They are probably both already VLIW+SIMD at this point (well NVIDIA is more LIW+SIMD but same difference). Whatever else happens VLIW is there to stay for a while yet IMO.

[Ailuros]

Originally Posted by ShaidarHaran

I've heard that number as well, but honestly no one outside the design team really knows if that was the internal goal. Also, 2.5x specs doesn't lead to 2.5x performance gain, as RV770->RV870 has shown us.

That's absolutely true; however the deeper the architectural changes the more the chances for achieving higher efficiency.

[DegustatoR]

Originally Posted by apoppin

that is not what i meant

i believe we will see much more improvement in parallel processing; Nvidia's direction away from pure gaming

I understand. But it looks to me like that "pure gaming" you're speaking about is moving towards parallel processing fast.

Originally Posted by w0mbat

That would be a hughe, negative, surprise. I see GF100 ahead or minimum on par with HD5870 X2.

Why would a chip with +50% complexity be "minimum on par" with dual HD5870?..
If anything it should be approximately +50% to Cypress and Hemlock will probably be around +70% to Cypress. Of course it can end up being +20% as GT200 compared to RV770 did or +70% which will put it against Hemlock. But I don't see any reason to expect Hemlock performance level as a minimum.

[seahawk]

-20% on average in the typical benchmarks to the competitions best X2 card is a clear victory as it would dominate the X2 in the worst case scenarios. Getting a draw to the X2 would be domination.

[KonKort]

Originally Posted by neliz

KonKorT has his doubts too
http://www.hardware-infos.com/news.php?news=3222

Yes, I have got my doubts, but as I say: The performance difference between Geforce 380 and Radeon HD 5870 X2 will be much smaller than Geforce GTX 285 and Radeon HD 4870 X2 and I will not exclude that Geforce 380 is even faster.
Let's look to the worst case: HD 5870 X2 is 20% faster than Geforce 380. Then you must ask you for which price, because Geforce 380 is a Single-GPU (no Multi-core profiles, no micro stuttering etc.), who will not consume more energy than GTX 280. If I look to HD 5870 X2, I hope it will consume under 275 watts.

[Kaotik]

Originally Posted by KonKort

Yes, I have got my doubts, but as I say: The performance difference between Geforce 380 and Radeon HD 5870 X2 will be much smaller than Geforce GTX 285 and Radeon HD 4870 X2 and I will not exclude that Geforce 380 is even faster.
Let's look to the worst case: HD 5870 X2 is 20% faster than Geforce 380. Then you must ask you for which price, because Geforce 380 is a Single-GPU (no Multi-core profiles, no micro stuttering etc.), who will not consume more energy than GTX 280. If I look to HD 5870 X2, I hope it will consume under 275 watts.

Worst case? For all we know, it could be another NV30-case, the worst case is much, much worse than that

[trinibwoy]

Hmmm in the course of a day we've gone from GT300 showing up in 6 months to GF100 being as fast as RV870X2. Can't wait to see where we end up tomorrow

[AlStrong]

To nFinity and beyond of course.

[KonKort]

Originally Posted by Kaotik

Worst case? For all we know, it could be another NV30-case, the worst case is much, much worse than that

Why are you so skeptical about the chip? If this is your opinion, you will be surprised in the next months.

[-The_Mask-]

Originally Posted by KonKort

Let's look to the worst case: HD 5870 X2 is 20% faster than Geforce 380. Then you must ask you for which price, because Geforce 380 is a Single-GPU (no Multi-core profiles, no micro stuttering etc.), who will not consume more energy than GTX 280. If I look to HD 5870 X2, I hope it will consume under 275 watts.

Impossible if you ask me.

[dnavas]

Originally Posted by MfA

They are probably both already VLIW+SIMD at this point (well NVIDIA is more LIW+SIMD but same difference). Whatever else happens VLIW is there to stay for a while yet IMO.

Sure. Those weren't necessarily either/or scenarios....

I like VLIW's chances better if it can build an "IW" using work from multiple threads. [My understanding of HP's foray into VLIW was that it was less successful than hoped for.] Mind you, there are probably easier ways of thinking of that kind of architecture than VLIW.... Simultaneous Asymmetric Dispatch or something with less of a, err, sad acronym.

I'm also wondering if the way that DP works affected the thinking of how MADD might work. Instead of single-cycle MADD, maybe it makes more sense to have two units working on the same piece of data, across two cycles, the results of one feeding the other. Across enough work, it's basically the same speed, but it seems like less work has to happen within a cycle (fewer gates, allowing for higher clocks), and it would seem easier to expand your LIW repertoire. Of course, maybe that's how MADD works now anyway :shrug:

[SirPauly]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Hmmm in the course of a day we've gone from GT300 showing up in 6 months to GF100 being as fast as RV870X2. Can't wait to see where we end up tomorrow

The beauty of forum conjecture at times!

[Kaotik]

Originally Posted by KonKort

Why are you so skeptical about the chip? If this is your opinion, you will be surprised in the next months.

Chips being late month(s) haven't had a good track record usually
But I don't have any real opinions on how it will perform, just keeping that as a possibility too.
I'd say that in a good scenario from nVs point is that it's as much faster than Cypress as GT200 was faster than RV770

[MfA]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Hmmm in the course of a day we've gone from GT300 showing up in 6 months to GF100 being as fast as RV870X2. Can't wait to see where we end up tomorrow

I still don't think it will ship this year ... hell, I don't think we will get a clear shipping date when the first official information is released.

[KonKort]

Originally Posted by Kaotik

Chips being late month(s) haven't had a good track record usually

Why is GF100 late? How can you judge in this direction? I reported in January that Nvidia's next generation chip will come in Q4/2009. So where do you see a delay?

You cannot say that GF100 has delayed only because of the fact that AMD has got first DirectX 11-chips few weeks before.
But I will not deny that Nvidia's chip has got some problems in the summer and could be already in the market.

[Slappi]

Originally Posted by MfA

I still don't think it will ship this year ... hell, I don't think we will get a clear shipping date when the first official information is released.

It will be ready for Christmas builds.

If you are lucky you will get one before Thanksgiving.