16 pipes for R420 too?

It would be rather interesting if Nvidia was only talking FUD about the NV40, and it is an 8x2/16x0 design. And ATI will have brought out their big guns against a much weaker opponent than they thought.

 

That implying that the 5900 is "better" than the 5800.

ATI always markets the "XT" as "better than" a pro or non pro. As long as performance of the XT is faster than the same model pro and non pro (who cares how many piplines or clock rates), how could anyone possibly be deceived or mislead?

 

Can't wait until next week when the Dual NV40 solution is revealed

 

I gotcha... I'd say whether or not they release a halved version of the R420 may depend on how well the value chip is coming along?

Hrm... I can't decide whether I would or would not yet. I'm getting pretty excited over the speculation for new AA and AF methods that the R420 is offering, and a .11u R360 would seem a lot less appealing than a R420 based derivative offering virtually the same speed as a .11u R360, but with the featureset of the R420... or was I reading it wrong and that's what you were trying to say in the first place?

 

What happened to the 8 Extreme pipes then ?

Anyway, great news. The more pipes, the merrier

 

No, that just means he heard one of us say it!

 

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1966

That's why i asked.......

 

Anyone seen this pic before? Fake?



From Hard OCP

 

That's a genuine marketing pic, AFAIK.

I meant the discussion as to whether it was a 12 pipe design with "spare" functionality to account for yield shortcomings (and hence could only ever work with <4 quad-pipes enabled, pending a redesign) or potentially a full 16-pipe architecture in the case of good dice. The issue's moot now, of course.

Re. dustbuster 2, there are samples floating about with VERY noisy cooling solutions. There were a few HS/fan designs in the works though (as always) so I have no idea whether it will ship in tinnitus-inducing form or not. Still waiting for the 1kg "copper sandwich" to appear.

 

What if 12pipe configuration of R420 is competitive with NV40 but Ati realised they have to minimise the fact they don't have PS3.0 support?
"hey, we haven't got shaders 3.0 - so what? - we are faster!"

 

I believe that is the picture that was going around to IHV's last week to show what the "original" cooler on it was going to look like...I think that's the picture my friend was telling me about that made him talk so highly about the nV40's cooling, 'til the actual reference boards went out this morning with loud dustbusters on 'em!

 

There is those two molex connectors again....

 

Yes, at least in part. Though I'd say that ATI never planned on having a 8 pipeline "value" part to be available at the same time as R420 launch. So it would be more accurate to charaterisze my viewpoint as "Whether or not they release a halved version of the R420 depends primarily on the stock situation of R350/R360, and if that stock would last until the new 8 pipe part is ready."

Well, sure, we'd all prefer (as consumers) the latest tech at every price point. At sub $200 price points though, I personally wouldn't care too much to quibble over AA and Aniso modes above and beyond that which R3xx already supports, which is damn good.

The big question in my mind for this market, is if ATI and / or nVidia will introduce a 256 bit memory bus part at sub $200 MSRP.

 

At least it's got Dual DVI. I hope both ATI and nVidia start to make this standard on at last their high end offerings.

 

Considering how much of a shame it would be to have the NV40 ship with another dustbuster, I'm going to just be optimistic and say that nVidia might just be having problems with cooling units, while the actual cards themselves are coming along just fine, and in order to appease review sites (I guess they're the ones getting the boards?), the cards were shipped on time, just with an interim cooling solution.

 

That could be, and I hope you're right just for the poor hardware's sake!

Don't you think they would have mentioned that to the people they're giving the dustbuster2s to though? I sure would say something like, "BTW, that isn't the final cooling solution...it's just a temp so you can see the card" to make sure no icky rumors got started.

 

With retail availability supposedly a mere 2.5 weeks away, that's being awfully optimistic IMO.

 

Sounds like we're getting set-up for NV30 reduex:

Every single preview on the planet will have a similar statemet: "nVidia tells us these these are early engineering samples...they promise the shipping products will have tweaked solutions that will be quieter. Honest."

 

Well, let's just both hope I'm right and not even think about the second paragraph you wrote. In fact, I'm going to forget I even read it

 

Or, everyone in the cooling design department are already hearing impaired from the last time.