GeFX canned?

Brent has been the only one to really have time to play with the card in that way, you might ask him.

 

Looks like the original Inquirer story had more cred than some people gave it. I just heard it on the grapevine and must admit I am a bit shocked. Wa'gwaan?

 

Actually, you could take the Kyle approach...

Cry about not getting one online, until you get a response. Of course, in playing this out to the end, you would also then have to show unfair bias against the Company for not hooking you up.

 

Type, It has to do with site traffic not whining...

Nvnews doesnt even have 5 percent of the traffic hardocp does.

 

Ouch I bet that hurts.... hexus.net in the UK got one and me sure that NVNEWS gets more traffic than them.

 

they didn't get one to the extent that Kyle got his.

also the review by hexus was horrible compared to [H]'s.

 

Yes..

 

Kyle, I commend you on posting it. No doubt you absolutely believe it to be accurate as I'm sure you'd have never posted otherwise. As others have pointed out, PNY has dropped the Ultra from its product description pages and the only thing there now is info on the 5800, with reduced specifications. I know that the Ultra was the only one featured on the site at first, with its appropriate specs, so this definitely serves to underscore the validity of your report.

I'd like to know your opinion on something--and this is not in any way a "trick" question or anything like that--I'd genuinely like to know what you think...Some people have expressed their opinions that nVidia is guilty of a sort of "bait 'n switch" tactic which it accomplished by sending out a few proptotype Ultras and allowing reviews to be made with them while premeditatedly planning to pull the Ultra the whole time. At first I disagreed with that opinion, and I guess I still do (since reviewers were also given non-Ultras to review at the same time), but after considering it I'm just not as sure that the Ultra's cancellation was unplanned at the time you guys got the reference cards. What's your gut feeling about that? (If you don't want to say--no problem.)

 

It seems like Anand may have had a good idea this was coming, it seemed a little odd at the time that he'd include Gf FX scores at 400/800, but now it makes a little more sense.

 

It's not odd.

Some sites did the same with 9700 Pro and 9700.

 

lol, absolutely none of that was proof. just because you can site your speculation, doesn't make it any more than speculation.

1. you cannot confirm that 400mhz DDRI dissipates less heat than 400mhz DDRII.

2. you cannot show me a "spec sheet" or anything of the sort that shows the latency of samsungs GDDRII OR the latencies of DDRI at 400mhz (as it doesn't even exist on a product yet).

3. you cannot tell me one reason why slightly higher latency would have any sort of negative impact on the GeForceFX. It DOES NOT access memory in the same patterns as a CPU and the comparission cannot be made.

4. I'm not making this "personal" and never said you "jumped on" me, you said that. I'm simply asking you to prove something, anything, before constantly spouting off in every thread. (oh and the fact that I actually read these threads and you also post in them doesn't mean I'm "following" you. Get over yourself )

 

Discussing with you is fruitless..... you refuse to even consider anything that doesn't agree with you.

 

Anand didn't downclock the 9700pro to 9700 levels in his review of the card. Therefore him downclocking the GF FX to 400/800 levels is relevant, and does suggest he had some knowledge that this move might be coming.
My original point stands.

 

Except that this is a decision that can and will be reported as hard news, and very embarrassing news. No Ultras at retail; all further Ultra production cancelled. Whereas if it was just a matter of Ultras being very rare in retail, probably very few people would notice and those that did wouldn't make a big deal of it. I mean, 9500 Pros are said to be very rare in retail, but no one doubts that's a real part or "shouldn't count" when discussing ATI's lineup.

My only guess is that perhaps Nvidia wanted to keep this quiet and thought they could get away with it...?

It'd be interesting to know exactly what happens when a correctly functioning card is returned at retail. Presumably the store sends it back to the card OEM and the OEM swallows almost all of the cost. But do they then test the card and, if it passes, put it in a new box and sell it again? Or at least try to sell it as a refurb? If not, I bet there's some provision in their contracts for Nvidia to share part of the cost of returns.

Because it will be a collector's item? Seriously, though, I think this is more to do with meeting their existing obligations to people who've already made pre-orders rather than selling more at this point.

I'm not suggesting ATI will delay R350 shipping by a single day. Only that they will delay the R350 product reviews until closer to shipping than they might have otherwise. No reason to encourage anyone to wait for R350 when they would only be buying a 9700 Pro otherwise.

I just don't buy the "someone suddenly woke up" theory. Nvidia has had months to think about the ramifications of the FXFlow; there must have been some catalyst to make them change their minds. I can think of the following:

• The benchmark theory: Nvidia never planned on really selling the Ultra, but only "released it" (to the extent they did) to be able to claim the performance crown vs. 9700 Pro
• Poor yields on the 500 MHz speed bin
• Poor yields or higher than expected cost on 500 MHz DDR-II
• Weren't able to reduce FXFlow noise as much as they thought they could
• Consumer testing revealed retail customers wouldn't accept FXFlow

 

I think the consumer response played a large role in determining the fate of the Ultra. Let's face it, there are very few people that would have accepted that ridiculous amount of noise in their system. Maybe...just maybe...if it proved to double the performance of the 9700...or something else extreme. But when it yielded such little advantage, I strongly believe that nVidia just came to the conclusion that there was very little to gain in continuing on with the Dustbuster approach.

Of course, there could have been a variety of other problems as well...But I do think what the consumer had to say played a large role.

 

Low yields?

It's more likely that it's simply impossible for that chip architecture on that specific process to attain 500MHz without extravagant cooling.

 

Actually I am quite glad that you brought this up as we were at NVIDIA's offices in Cali last week and we discussed exactly this instance you are mentioning.

While yourself, will say anything you can publicly to discredit me and the site I own and operate, hit the nail on the head and the card manufacturers out there know this now.

The [H] Litmus test: If a comapny has a retail 3D card and they will not send us one for review, it's gonna "suck" for the masses. Bottom line, if we are not reviewing it, then you will not want it in your box for gaming.

 

You are wrong and you are right here. If NVNews was still a "fan site", they would have very likely gotten a card by now. I am sure that posting fanciful Matrox reviews and stellar 9700 reviews takes them right out of that fansite genre'.

As for traffic, you are correct, it is all about who can give it the most exposure to the community.

 

Hexus did not get their directly from NVIDIA, I think theirs came from a distriubutor. I might be wrong on this though. In any event, different PR groups handle Europe and America.

 

At this point, if I end up being "wrong" on this, it will be because NV changed direction on this issue and I have not found out yet. Always a possibility, but highly unlikely in this situation IMO.


Gut feeling on bait and switch? I think this theory is WAY OFF and have heard enough from behind the scenes to know that my opinion on this is very close to solid fact...although I have no proof on that.