Do you see any difference between "now" and "eventually"?Funny.
Few years ago someone was claiming that altho ATi has low and mid cards on smaller chips and process, still NV can compete because of using proven less expensive process.
Do you see any difference between "now" and "eventually"?Funny.
Few years ago someone was claiming that altho ATi has low and mid cards on smaller chips and process, still NV can compete because of using proven less expensive process.
Charlie, you're obviously right that NVIDIA is still at a disadvantage here. Mind you, their disadvantage is much smaller than AMD's was in the R5xx timeframe or what NVIDIA had in the NV3x timeframe, so the financial consequences should not be exagerrated (of course, you could argue that NVIDIA would have been hit much harder were it not for NV33, aka the chip nobody ever heard about on the quarter-node process that barely exists but still generated the majority of NV's revenues in 2004 - still let's not get ahead of ourselves).Nvidia has no competitive parts at all right now. Zero. Their die size make it impossible to compete.
Oh that small? I thought it would be bigger (merely because GT220 is already ~100mm²). Well I guess in this case it's quite a ok chip for the die size, not really surprising it can't compete with rv740 then, maybe it'll be priced accordingly eventually.(GT215s (~125mm²) die-size competitor is clearly RV740
G92 is able to compete with 4850, why do you think that GT215 won't be able to compete with RV740?Oh that small? I thought it would be bigger (merely because GT220 is already ~100mm²). Well I guess in this case it's quite a ok chip for the die size, not really surprising it can't compete with rv740 then, maybe it'll be priced accordingly eventually.
G92: 16 ROPs, 64 TMUs, 128SPs@ up to 1.8GHzG92 is able to compete with 4850, why do you think that GT215 won't be able to compete with RV740?
and 128-bit Juniper (~180?).
It supports GDDR5. Why would they support GDDR5 an not have enough ROPs to utilise it?GT215: 8 ROPs (a bit improved)
The whole GT21x clocks thing is a bit mysterious to me right now because most of cards overclocks like hell (+30% and more than 1 GHz for ROPs in some cases). I don't understand why would NV set such low reference frequencies.96SPs(a bit improved)@ up to 1.6GHz?
Thanks, but I tend not to believe anything that comes from a PR department.And if you believe charlie NVs GDDR5 efficiency is a disaster...
And according to Hexus authors who actually have it measured it's 12x15=180 mm^2.according to anandtech Juniper is around 166mm². So half of that would mean Redwood is <100mm²
Because the hd4770 is nearly as fast as hd4850, while clearly these early benchmarks indicate gt215 isn't close to gts 250 even in its presumably fastest configuration and overclocked. Though that's only 3dmark for now, actual games remain to be seen, but I'd be surprised if things would change a lot. Clocks are suspiciously low though so maybe there's some room for improvements. Memory isn't exactly very fast neither, but since it appears to have only 8 rops faster memory might actually not help (the difference between the gddr5 version and the gddr3 version (with half the bandwidth) is already quite small).G92 is able to compete with 4850, why do you think that GT215 won't be able to compete with RV740?
Measuring the packaged die is not the same as measuring the chip. 0.5mm of packaging appears to be the norm, 11.5x14.5mm = 167mm².And according to Hexus authors who actually have it measured it's 12x15=180 mm^2.
And according to Hexus authors who actually have it measured it's 12x15=180 mm^2.
G92: 16 ROPs, 64 TMUs, 128SPs@ up to 1.8GHz
GT215: 8 ROPs (a bit improved), 32 TMUs, 96SPs(a bit improved)@ up to 1.6GHz?
Should do - depends on whether the dimensions are as stated by NVidia or as measured by a reviewer including the packaging.Jawed, mboeller, does the same rule apply to GT218/216/215 die measurements? If yes then you have to adjust them by 0.5x0.5 too?
Turns out that its somewhere inbetween - the 166mm² quote was actually a pre-silicon number; the final "official" size is 170mm².So 166 mm² is imho the correct die size of the RV840.
It seem to be only 8 ROPs, else it would not be slower than 9600 GT.
With 55nm wafers @ ~80% costs of 40nm ones and probably higher yields on 55n, I see no real advantage for:
GT216 100mm² vs RV730 140mm²
GT218 57mm² vs RV710 71mm²
(GT215s (~125mm²) die-size competitor is clearly RV740(
According to Anandtech Juniper is 166mm², so Redwood @~100mm² could be a 400SPs part and Cedar migth have the chance to be a bit faster than RV710 while be in GT218s range.
G92 gets close to the 4850 for the same reason that it competes with the GTX 260. The latter two are cut down parts with lower clocks and/or fewer SPs. RV740 is a bit faster than a GTS250, which is substantially faster than GT215, judging by the info that has leaked out so far.G92 is able to compete with 4850, why do you think that GT215 won't be able to compete with RV740?
Another question here is what will Redwood be as that chip looks to be the one that will compete with GT215 for some time. If that's half-Juniper then that's 400 SPs/20 TUs against GT215 which should be able to reach 640 SPs/32 TUs level of RV740.
'Eventually' is a big problem, because right now ATI has successful parts that are not only mature, but are also going to be discounted when going EOL to make way for new Evergreens.What should be undeniable here is that all the GT21x parts will eventually cost less to produce than previous G9x parts and AMD's current RV7x0 low-cost parts. And while their timing / performance / features compared to competition may be bad I don't really see how their introduction instead of G9x GPUs and against EG 40G low-end GPUs is bad for NV in the long run.
Something about Vantage has always given GT2xx a marked advantage over G9x. It may be that the shaders need more registers, thus reducing the latency hiding ability and efficiency of G9x.But I don't like the Vantage scores (GT240 vs GT250) something is fishy...
Something about Vantage has always given GT2xx a marked advantage over G9x. It may be that the shaders need more registers, thus reducing the latency hiding ability and efficiency of G9x.
However, you are ignoring three things. First of all, GT216/GT2178 are more competitive in the low-end than NV's previous chips would have been for the Winter cycle and AMD hasn't refreshed that part of their portfolio yet, so NV's situation actually improved there in the last 6 months (even if it's still far from ideal to say the least)
Secondly, Fermi derivatives will come faster than you think (no, they haven't taped-out yet) and they'll be slightly more area-efficient than GF100. GT215 will probably turn out to be a fairly short-lived chip. And yes, free to come back to this post in a couple of months if I'm wrong; I'm all for accountability.
Thirdly, stopping GT200 production was a conscious move because you are right: they couldn't sell them without losing money anymore. They didn't want to repeat the fiasco that happened when RV670/G92 launched and they had too much G80 inventory. That made them lose truckloads of money. It's bad that they are in such a situation but amongst the awful strategic choices available to them, it's still (amongst) the best.
I doubt that's the right metric to use. 3DMark Vantage isn't solely SP limited - not by a long shot.Probably, but this difference is huge.
If we compare:
a GTX260 216 (1242MHz 216SP)
or a GTX275 (1404MHz 240SP)
with a GTS250 (1836MHz 128SP)
in 3DMark Vantage (Performance) scores we will see that the GT2XX has only +15% advantage per MHz*SP.