First photographs from NV40

[swaaye]

Looks like they took a design cue from the Parhelia with that memory layout.

The board looks cool Just wonder what that little chunk of silicon will be able to do....

 

[Unit01]

The board looks "clean". Not many things on the visible side. And i don't think they can put that much on the back if we look at the image the card is touching the table it's placed on.

But then again my knowledge in this area is very limited :/

 

[anaqer]

Looks like they took a design cue from the Parhelia with that memory layout.

Nay.

The RAM chips on the Parhelia are in a symmetrical layout, whereas those on the red board are not. It's the same old NV35 memory layout.

 

[Vegetto-eX]

I believe 205-210M was the final count.
A 175M part definitively did tape-out; whether it was ever meant for retail avaibility, I've got no clue though. And there also were designs of a 150M NV40; again, whether this part was just experimental or not, I've got no clue.

Uttar

Then what are the differences between these revisions besides the trans count?

The 16x1 pipelines made it reach 210~215M

 

[incurable]

Anyone with the know how to estimate the size of the chip from those pics ?

I'd guesstimate the die size to be roughly 20-by-20 or even 22-by-22.

At around 400 mm², this thing's larger than Gallatin4M!

cu

incurable, wondering about the loss nVidia'll take per card sold.

 

[AAlcHemY]

Anyone with the know how to estimate the size of the chip from those pics ?

When looking at the AGP 1.0 specs, the length from pin 1 to pin 58 is 68.68mm. Then the core would be about 20mm wide. The height shoud be around 10% smaller, so thats about 18mm.

Total of: about 360mm²

 

[volt]

Here is another shot if anyone cares. Notice the blacked out revision number. Came from some german site.

 

[Richthofen]

Anyone with the know how to estimate the size of the chip from those pics ?

I'd guesstimate the die size to be roughly 20-by-20 or even 22-by-22.

At around 400 mm², this thing's larger than Gallatin4M!

cu

incurable, wondering about the loss nVidia'll take per card sold.

you can be sure that they won't take a loss. Prices of high end parts are rather high. There is always enough headroom to compensate the one or another cost factor.
Further on big companies like Nvidia tend to put pressure on component suppliers to lower prices.

Nvidia's management predicts that margins will improve on the NV4x line compared to NV3x.
Even after the introduction of a rather complex FX5900XT sold in the mainstream price range Nvidia managed to improve their margins.
In this case i think 2004 will be a lot better for them even if NV40 has 16 pipelines.

 

[MuFu]

That's one good-looking graphics card. Shame most of it is going to be covered up by a mofo heatsink.

 

[Guden Oden]

MuFu:

Look at the silk screen lines on the image just a little above your post... Jesus, that'll be some heatsink/fan combo!! The fan/blower looks to be of at least Radeon 9800XT dimensions, wonder if it'll be two slots high too? If so, it'll make some major racket I guess.

 

[incurable]

MuFu:

Look at the silk screen lines on the image just a little above your post... Jesus, that'll be some heatsink/fan combo!! The fan/blower looks to be of at least Radeon 9800XT dimensions, wonder if it'll be two slots high too? If so, it'll make some major racket I guess.

Judging from those lines, it'll employ an NV38-style cooler, probably using a refined heatsink on the core itself.

cu

incurable

 

[volt]

MuFu:

Look at the silk screen lines on the image just a little above your post... Jesus, that'll be some heatsink/fan combo!! The fan/blower looks to be of at least Radeon 9800XT dimensions, wonder if it'll be two slots high too? If so, it'll make some major racket I guess.

I can see multiple solutions for this particular board -- more freedom for AIBs anyone?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

MuFu:

Look at the silk screen lines on the image just a little above your post... Jesus, that'll be some heatsink/fan combo!! The fan/blower looks to be of at least Radeon 9800XT dimensions, wonder if it'll be two slots high too? If so, it'll make some major racket I guess.

If it is the rumoured 100+ watts that's a *lot* of heat to get off the chip and out of the case. Another dustbuster will kill the product, so I hope Nvidia have something clever (and quiet) in mind.

 

[MuFu]

That PCB is screened for a HS+fan and Gainward/Innovatek CoolFX I reckon.

 

[incurable]

That PCB is screened for a HS+fan and Gainward/Innovatek CoolFX I reckon.

I only see the standard NV38 outlines (pictures of the NV38 cooling assembly at http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/gffx/nv38-36.html/nv38-36.html), though CoolFX aint deviating much from it anyway.

I wonder wether a non-ultra version would also require this rather complex cooling solution?

cu

incurable

 

[WaltC]

you can be sure that they won't take a loss. Prices of high end parts are rather high. There is always enough headroom to compensate the one or another cost factor.

I agree--they won't take losses, they'll do an nV30-style product cancellation before that happens...

Nvidia's management predicts that margins will improve on the NV4x line compared to NV3x.
Even after the introduction of a rather complex FX5900XT sold in the mainstream price range Nvidia managed to improve their margins.
In this case i think 2004 will be a lot better for them even if NV40 has 16 pipelines.

Well, if they can go from poor-to-below average yields on .13 nV35/38's with 4 pixel pipelines in 2003 from both TMSC and IBM, to good-to-excellent yields on a .13 nV40 with 16 pixel pipelines in 2004 from TSMC, they'll deserve whatever success they can get, and my hat's off to 'em...

But you know what they say about the true size of the word "if"...

 

[JCLW]

Anyone with the know how to estimate the size of the chip from those pics ?

I'd guesstimate the die size to be roughly 20-by-20 or even 22-by-22.

At around 400 mm², this thing's larger than Gallatin4M!

cu

incurable, wondering about the loss nVidia'll take per card sold.

Wasn't there talk of nVidia artificially increasing the die size on some cores to improve heat transfer to the heatsink? Is that even a viable option?

 

[Guden Oden]

I only see the standard NV38 outlines (pictures of the NV38 cooling assembly

The space allocated to the off-center-mounted fan looks larger than what NV3x cards use.

 

[gunblade]

Reading the guru3d hint, it seems nv40 does have the hardware MPEG 2/4 encoding capabilities. I think that is definitely a plus for people needing the vivo and covert VHS to DVD.

I suppose the philips chip on the card is the vivo chip. Right ?

 

[Sunrise]

Well, if they can go from poor-to-below average yields on .13 nV35/38's with 4 pixel pipelines in 2003 from both TMSC and IBM, to good-to-excellent yields on a .13 nV40 with 16 pixel pipelines in 2004 from TSMC, they'll deserve whatever success they can get, and my hat's off to 'em...

It is been manufactured in the East-Fishkill FAB at IBM, not at TSMC. Also that sample board (A01) has 500MHZ GDDR3 (K4J55323QF-GC20), which either is just a very early sample, or this card resembles the non-ultra version.