ELSA hints GT206 and GT212
- Thread starter AnarchX
- Start date
You are right. The difference between NV25 and NV30 was much bigger than GT212 between GT200 wille be.
And you are right, too, that Nvidia will do 32 SP per cluster by GT212. But this is not the only one, who is change. It is definetly a bigger step than G80 to G92.
That'd be one of the things amendable with 40nm technology.
Since I am no chip production/design expert: Isn't it the case, that you usually get a better shrinkage the more logic and cache, i.e. digital ICs, you have on a chip? Perfect target: Large Dies.
DegustatoR
Legend
I completely agree -- and that's almost exactly what happened to GT200 which probably is the only real example of NV choosing the wrong process since the NV30/130nm fiasco.
Another problem lies in the low transistor density of 65/55 NV GPUs -- G92b is bigger than RV770 on the same 55nm process while having 160M less transistors. I think that's the real problem for NV in 65/55nm generation -- simply put NVs 65/55 process usage sucks and they need to improve it considerably on 40nm node.
Exactly. And that's why it's pretty pointless to try and 'guess' die production cost from it's size alone. And that's why being "slow" to smaller TSMC nodes doesn't mean paying more for the GPUs. Especially when we're talking about node -> half-node transitions.
That's a valid theory =)
GT206 MCP77 iGT206 MCP79 iGT209
So iGT209 is killed too? 8)
55nm RV670 went against 65nm G92 (although it's worth to mention that NV's tactical mistake here made them do it -- they should've put G94 ahead of G92 and against RV670 instead).
As for RV770 -- NVs roadmap was in such a mess at the point of RV770 launch that it doesn't really matter wether they used 65 or 55nm for GT200 -- it would look worse than RV770 anyway. For NV it would be wise to use 55nm/256-bit GDDR5 of course but they've originally planned to launch GT200 when there were neither (well, 55nm was available since autumn'07 but migrating to 55nm with such a complex chip as GT200 probably wasn't an option).
I don't think it's 'conservative', i think it's 'strategical'. They first 'try' the process with a simple chip and then transit a more complex ones. This 'simple chip' from NV for the most part was available as soon as the process allowed it to be. So it's not like they're waiting for half a year before switching to a new process, they simply beginning the switch in the low end segment (for which nobody cares here anyway). And this strategy mostly paid off.
If you think about it, NV was never that late with process transitions compared to ATI/AMD:
Code:
130 - NV31/1Q03 - RV360/4Q03
110 - RV370/2Q04 - NV43/3Q04
90 - R520/4Q05 - G7(1/2/3)/1Q06
80 - RV535/3Q06 - G86/2Q07
65 - RV630/2Q07 - G92/4Q07
55 - RV670/4Q07 - G92b/2Q08Plus you have to consider that RV670 turned out to be good in it's first revision -- and that's a rare thing. If they would need another spin then RV670 would show up at retail at the end of 1Q08 with G92b launching at the end of 2Q08.
Yeah, exactly -- and we all see how that turned out.
G94 would've been a much better competitor to RV670 and -- who knows? -- maybe they would have had a better luck with 65nm transition with a simplier and smaller G94? I hope they learn on their mistakes from the previous generation.
If it's a straight GT200 shrink, yes.
But it's most likely quite a bit more than GT200 (12 or 15 32/8 TPCs, 256-bit GDDR5 bus, DX10.1 support maybe?). Plus it looks like G92 role in this cycle will be performed by 55nm GT200b.
I'm pretty sure GT212 is the last one of the GT21x series to tape out too.
I'm starting to think about something... When both I and possibly other sites heard about GT214, it certainly hadn't taped-out. Assuming they left the possibility open until the end depending on market conditions, which is a big if, maybe they did switch to GDDR5 for GT214 and that LinkedIn entry means more than I thought (not that it really reveals much either way)
After all, this would be a quite impressive roadmap:
GT218: 64-bit GDDR3 [~15GB/s]
GT216: 192-bit GDDR3 [~60GB/s]
GT214: 192-bit GDDR5 [~110GB/s]
GT212: 384-bit GDDR5 [~240GB/s]
GT300: 512-bit GDDR5 [~320GB/s]
Nothing AMD couldn't counter of course, but it'd make for a more exciting competition that this one (in retrospect, that is; of course when you don't know what's going to happen it can always be exciting...)
j/k* - more seriously, expect them to be much more aggressive on 40nm.
You also forgot G73b, so NVIDIA wasn't that late to 80nm in fact.
After all, this would be a quite impressive roadmap:
GT218: 64-bit GDDR3 [~15GB/s]
GT216: 192-bit GDDR3 [~60GB/s]
GT214: 192-bit GDDR5 [~110GB/s]
GT212: 384-bit GDDR5 [~240GB/s]
GT300: 512-bit GDDR5 [~320GB/s]
Nothing AMD couldn't counter of course, but it'd make for a more exciting competition that this one (in retrospect, that is; of course when you don't know what's going to happen it can always be exciting...)
It's a known problem, expect it to be fixed in a firmware revision... *waits for VR-Zone, Expreview, and/or Fudzilla to link to this
j/k* - more seriously, expect them to be much more aggressive on 40nm.Maybe; if it was a 55nm product, nearly certainly. If it's 40nm, nearly certainly not.
You forgot RV350; of course everyone seems to always forget that one and how smoothly it went, poor ATI!
You also forgot G73b, so NVIDIA wasn't that late to 80nm in fact.The cost benefit is likely to be smaller for small chips if they include a lot of I/O or analogue (i.e. this doesn't apply to handheld chips in the same way etc.) - however very big chips are riskier and will suffer from yield problems. This is not just catastrophic defects like coarse redundancy would partially prevent; it's also variability among other things. Chips like GT216/RV740 in the 120-150mm² range are likely to be a relatively good compromise, IMO.
DegustatoR
Legend
I think you should consider inserting GDDR3-based GT212 solution (a la 4850) in there. And that kinda kills the idea of having GDDR5-based 192-bit solution (especially if GT212 is using 256-bit bus as i expect).
Plus -- do we really need 4 chips again after G98/96 fiasco? I always thought that having 4 chips for 0-400 price range is a bit too much.
So the question is -- what's faster -- GT216 or GT214? That LinkedIn thingie was about two chips -- G96 and GT214. Maybe we should consider the possibility of a GT214->GT216->GT212 three-chip line-up?
But if it's GT216->GT214->GT212, then GT212 will most probably have 15 32/8 TPCs and 384-bit bus, yes, GT216 -- something like 7 24/8 TPCs -- and GT214 is starting to look like GT200@40nm with 256-bit GDDR5...
Well i sure hope they will be -- for their own sake.
Sorry, i was using B3D 3D Tables time line 8)You forgot RV350; of course everyone seems to always forget that one and how smoothly it went, poor ATI!
New option to force ambient occlusion? Wonder how that works. Seems like a very application specific thing.
Pic stolen from http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1380556
Pic stolen from http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1380556
Jawed
Legend
Ooh, interesting, wonder if they're doing screen space ambient occlusion? That could be quite widely applicable - erm, though my understanding of the algorithm is not exactly in-depth
Jawed
Cookie Monster
Newcomer
Intriguing... Hadn't heard those before.
Think the first is the mobile version of GT200 hence the D10M2-30. The latter sounds like some sort of a bridge chip? nVIDIA... Hydra IC??
Ooh, interesting, wonder if they're doing screen space ambient occlusion? That could be quite widely applicable - erm, though my understanding of the algorithm is not exactly in-depth
Jawed
Supported games:
Games supported by AO:
Assassin Creed
Bioshock
COD4
COD:WAW
CS:Source
Company of heroes
crysis (warhead not suported)
devil may cry 4
Fallout 3
Far Cry 2
Half-life 2: Episode Two (only!!)
Left 4 Dead
Lost Planet
Mirror's Edge
The Call of Juarez
World in conflict
World Of Warcraft
Neeyik did some testing over at FM forums
Crysis No AO - 19FPS
http://www.neeyik.info/pix/crysis with no driver AO.png
Crysis High AO - 9FPS
http://www.neeyik.info/pix/crysis with High AO.png
Bioshock no AO - 63 FPS
http://www.neeyik.info/pix/bioshocknoAO.png
Bioshock High AO - 14 FPS
http://www.neeyik.info/pix/bioshockHighAO.png
Fallout 3 no AO - 60 FPS
http://www.neeyik.info/pix/fallout3noAO.png
Fallout 3 High AO - 21 FPS
In short, 50-75% loss in FPS, but looks quite tasty gfx wise
It's most probably SSAO as a pure post process and just darkening (+maybe some gain to compensate), so goodbye specular etc. And if the games don't write everything (particles etc) to the zbuffer it would be a problem. But if it works with the game it's a quite obvious driver thing to do for maybe a better IQ/performance compromise. A bit funny that Crysis (which pioneered the SSAO technique and doing it already) is one the list.
The performance hit is surprisingly high, must be a pretty big filter.
It seems to be vista only btw, so couldn't investigate it yet.
The performance hit is surprisingly high, must be a pretty big filter.
It seems to be vista only btw, so couldn't investigate it yet.
What res was Crysis being played at? Was it 32 or 64bit? What game settings? What video card?
I run Vistau x64 with a eVGA GTX260 SC and get 40+ average @ 1680x1050 with game setting at high no AA in 64bit mode and 32 or so in 32bit mode with same settings. CPU is a Q6600@ 3.0 and 4GB ram.
I run Vistau x64 with a eVGA GTX260 SC and get 40+ average @ 1680x1050 with game setting at high no AA in 64bit mode and 32 or so in 32bit mode with same settings. CPU is a Q6600@ 3.0 and 4GB ram.
