Geforce NV50 Canceled [Inq]

[Dave Baumann]

Its gonna be a hell of a small market at the beginning then. Its relevance on the market at the time of release is going to be quite limited, IMO.

The ramp will bear many parallels to PCIe as the OEM's will start shipping Longhorn / WGF systems very quickly when it start shipping, probably more agresively in the smaller OEM/SI space (but they may not necessarily take the full hardware for WGF2.0). Retail users are likely to be less wary as, unlike PCIe they don't need to paln major upgrades in one go (i.e. buy the software now, get the hardware a little later).

 

[Briareus]

It seems pretty rational that 3d hardware schedules are getting moved around. I bet ATI's is as well. It would have been 2007-2008 before Longhorn shipped if they hadn't cut back on the features.

Nv50 could have come out in H1 06 and been fine but after getting a good look at Longhorn beta, it seems like MS can keep its new schedule.
Which means what would have been NV60 (DXNext) needs to be pulled forward so Nvidia doesn't miss out on longhorn sales.

So will we hear about ATI ditching their projects next week or after Christmas?

 

[Dave Baumann]

Well, ATI's roadmap would already indicate that their Longhorn architecture would be scheduled for mid to late '06, dependant on how long 520 lasts. ATI are already saying that, as far as they are concerned SM3.0 is just a stepping stone to SM4.0, which isn't a surprise given the xbox2 part. But then they had to do some product cancellation with R400 to get in this position.

 

[kemosabe]

Well, ATI's roadmap would already indicate that their Longhorn architecture would be scheduled for mid to late '06, dependant on how long 520 lasts. ATI are already saying that, as far as they are concerned SM3.0 is just a stepping stone to SM4.0, which isn't a surprise given the xbox2 part. But then they had to do some product cancellation with R400 to get in this position.

Which would essentially mean that the 12-month product cycle will have been alive and well between 2004 and 2006 - just after they claimed it would be prolonged.

 

[gordon]

Which would essentially mean that the 12-month product cycle will have been alive and well between 2004 and 2006 - just after they claimed it would be prolonged.

That's what I'm noticing. Maybe nVidias plans had hinged on the probability that ATI would, like them, be on a more prolonged development cycle. Maybe the rumors that r520 taped out were true and the fact that parts of r600 are already materializing had nVidia worried about the timings of their nv50 and especially nv60 product lines. Could be they canned nv50, replaced it with a souped up nv40, and are instead going to focus on nv60 as I doubt they want ATI to pull another r300.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Well, R420 doesn't really sit as an architectural cycle, IMO, more of a set of products based on an architectural refresh. R520 will build on the same foundations, but should be a much larger change in terms of architectural capabilities than R300->R420.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Well, R420 doesn't really sit as an architectural cycle, IMO, more of a set of products based on an architectural refresh. R520 will build on the same foundations, but should be a much larger change in terms of architectural capabilities than R300->R420.

So the R520 is going to be a souped-up R420 the same way an R420 is a souped-up R300? :|

 

[hovz]

Well, R420 doesn't really sit as an architectural cycle, IMO, more of a set of products based on an architectural refresh. R520 will build on the same foundations, but should be a much larger change in terms of architectural capabilities than R300->R420.

So the R520 is going to be a souped-up R420 the same way an R420 is a souped-up R300? :|

depend how big of a change u think sm 3.0 with fp32 is.

 

[Briareus]

Well, ATI's roadmap would already indicate that their Longhorn architecture would be scheduled for mid to late '06, dependant on how long 520 lasts. ATI are already saying that, as far as they are concerned SM3.0 is just a stepping stone to SM4.0, which isn't a surprise given the xbox2 part. But then they had to do some product cancellation with R400 to get in this position.

I'm confused. Are there any major differences in the xbox2 and ATI's future Longhorn chip?

 

[Megadrive1988]

from what Dave Orton said some months ago, and DaveB you said even this could likely have changed by now, the R500/Xbox2, R600 and R700 will be the same base architecture like R300, R420 and R520 are the same base. then R800 will be another clean slate architecture. but roadmaps always change.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I'm confused. Are there any major differences in the xbox2 and ATI's future Longhorn chip?

R500 (Xbox2) and R600 (Longhorn / DirectX10 / DirectX Next / WGF 2.0? with SM 4.0) should be somewhat similar. same or similar base architecture. but R600 should have some improvements and additonal features. the 2 chips might be as different as R300 and R420 or R420 and R520. but I couldn't say for sure since I don't really know. merely guesssing.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I'm confused. Are there any major differences in the xbox2 and ATI's future Longhorn chip?

Well, one difference, for certain, is that XBox2's requirements will have been there long before WGF2.0 was/will be finalised, so there will be changes. As it stands now, my understanding is that XBox2 graphics will have some limitations that will mean that is will never be fully SM4.0 / WGF2.0 capable (instruction length limitations), but will serve as the fundamental basis for their future WGF2.0 architectures in that the XBox2 part will be a unified shader architecture which would then be the basis for the WGF2.0 parts.

R520 will draw on some of the XBox2's design, but will largely be an extension of the R300 architecture (such that this encompasses all the DX9 generation) without unified shaders.

And Digi, note the wording of my previous post.

 

[rwolf]

I suspect that Nvidia will bring NV40 to IBM's more mature 90nm process. I don't think they needed a 110nm part because the 90nm part will be ready to go in the near future. Perhaps a version of the part with more pipes on 90nm negated the need for the NV50 and now they can do something different.

 

[Geo]

Well, one difference, for certain, is that XBox2's requirements will have been there long before WGF2.0 was/will be finalised, so there will be changes. As it stands now, my understanding is that XBox2 graphics will have some limitations that will mean that is will never be fully SM4.0 / WGF2.0 capable (instruction length limitations), but will serve as the fundamental basis for their future WGF2.0 architectures in that the XBox2 part will be a unified shader architecture which would then be the basis for the WGF2.0 parts.

So, nice large field test for quasi-WGF2.0 for ati to learn from for the real deal. And, where developers crossover, some oportunity to evangelize, educate, hearts-and-minds, etc.

 

[Megadrive1988]

hey imagine this for a knockout Nvidia unvieling. sometime between Feb and April 2006, Nvidia does a 30fps demo of Toy Story running on an SLI setup of their newest GPU, be it SLI NV50, SLI NV55, SLI NV60 or SLI NVwhatever. Nvidia seems to always aspire to 'Toy Story' in realtime. maybe Nvidia is gonna go for broke and try to bury ATI. not that it will happen. just thinking that might be Nvidia gameplan.

 

[kemosabe]

R520 will draw on some of the XBox2's design, but will largely be an extension of the R300 architecture (such that this encompasses all the DX9 generation) without unified shaders.

If you were to speculate, Dave, what kind of architectural enhancements would you look for in R520 other than SM3.0 and FP32? So far I haven't seen mention of any other specific features that would suggest a much larger leap than R300 ---> R420, which I concede was mainly about brute fps force.

 

[Maintank]

Ill be really surprised if they axed the product.

Maybe they will rehash the NV40 arch with a few bells and whistles for NV50 and push the NV50 off and rename it the NV60.

I really doubt the NV47 if it exists will be anything more than a higher clocked NV45. I dont remember the last time Nvidia slapped more pipes on a chip that was part of the same family.

Not impossible but it seems silly. Why not save yourself the marketing problems and name it a new generation?

 

[Sage]

R520 will have new memory architecture i suspect

 

[Domell]

Nvidia didn`t slap more pipes in the same GPU family because they didn`t have to do it.....
But now is different situation because ATI will push r520 on May/June and Nvidia must have competitor against new radeon because as we know their next chip will be released in the end of 2005.....
I think when NV will release 24-pipes NV47 against r520 and it wlill be made in 0,09 micron technology they can clock it above 550mhz and it can be as fast as r520 or only slightly less.....

 

[Domell]

sorry for threee messages in row..but my computer goes insane