GF100 evaluation thread

[DavidGraham]

GF104 Tapesout

GF104 tapes out :
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/04/05/new-nvidia-code-names-pop/

And there is a new code name too , GF119 AKA possibly Fermi 2 !

Finally from the article :

For GF104, likely called the GTS450 or GTS460, word on the street is that it will be cut in half from 512 theoretical shaders to 256. The real open question is what will the 'uncore' or non-shader section of the chip end up as, half of GF100 or the full uncore? GF100 is horribly weak in pixel ops. It has only 64 ROPs (Render Output Units), and that lack of pixel power shows up at higher resolutions.

Is this a joke ?

 

[ShaidarHaran]

No joke, seems Charlie confused TMUs with ROPs, though.

 

[trinibwoy]

That's just sad. I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he did it for the lolz (and the clicks).

 

[DavidGraham]

That's just sad. I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he did it for the lolz (and the clicks).

it's kind of hard to do that , when Cypress has 32 ROPs , it is the one that is at a disadvantage here , I am sure Charlie should have known that by now , he even gave a wiki link for it !!

And since when do TMUs affect pixel fill rate directly ?

Personally , I think this is one of his fabricated bits .

 

[gongo]

4870 was bad ?

Yes what they said, heat, power, noise. Those factors are more important today. Looking at where Nvidia stands now, i see their kickass mainstream/perf 46x series fermi will be a long way off (time and competitiveness), AMD R800 refresh which probably will bring 5850 class perf at 5770 prices/heat will counter it easily. Bad times for Nvidia, serves them right for their self serving attitude....keke.

 

[KimB]

Bad times for Nvidia, serves them right for their self serving attitude....keke.

Self serving attitude? The purpose of any company is to make money. If they stopped doing this, they would cease to exist. ATI/AMD is every bit as self-serving as nVidia.

 

[Xentropy]

Self serving attitude? The purpose of any company is to make money. If they stopped doing this, they would cease to exist. ATI/AMD is every bit as self-serving as nVidia.

Luckily for AMD, Nvidia has an extremely short-sighted self-serving attitude which is coming back to bite them. Between what they did to the 3dfx shareholders (promising them stock which they renegged on), to bumpgate, to the current Fermi debacle, they are losing mindshare rather quickly.

 

[KimB]

Luckily for AMD, Nvidia has an extremely short-sighted self-serving attitude which is coming back to bite them. Between what they did to the 3dfx shareholders (promising them stock which they renegged on), to bumpgate, to the current Fermi debacle, they are losing mindshare rather quickly.

None of this has anything whatsoever to do with engineering, which is the only real difficulty with Fermi.

And if you have a problem with a business having a "self-serving attitude", then you simply do not understand the reality of business.

 

[Doomtrooper]

Duping the consumer to sell a shitty product is 'not the way to do business', no different than the Toyota gas peddle sticking fiasco (they knew about the issue but chose not to tell the public). Nvidia is far more famous as the 'lets rip off the public with our superior marketing' than any other, or do we forget 5800 era. I don't own Nvidia stock, but Nvidia reminds me very much like Intel and they way that company operates or attempts the ever famous market abuse.

Making money selling good products is 'good' for the consumer, selling products that are inferior and branding them superior, optimizing for benchmarks, hand picking reviewers is NOT good for duping consumers. If I was a Nvidia stock holder I would be concerned, win your wars on the battlefield without relying on devious marketing. Although NV40 is not horrible, it is not going to be a money maker either.

 

[thatdude90210]

Between what they did to the 3dfx shareholders (promising them stock which they renegged on), to bumpgate, to the current Fermi debacle, they are losing mindshare rather quickly.

Sorry for getting OT, but... I had a few shares of 3dfx at the time, I didn't remember being promised Nv shares. I sold them for nothing. Was that an insider thing?

 

[DemoCoder]

NV3x was shitty. Nothing NVidia's shipped since then can really be called shitty. From a performance perspective, Nvidia is beating AMD by an average of 15% with Fermi on GPU that costs 25% more, and they're doing it with a non-ideal manufactured version with 7% less SMs and lower clocks.

You cannot compare this to the "sudden acceleration" problems (which have NEVER been replicated, other than the mat problems), because "sudden acceleration" is an example of something that doesn't work as advertised, whereas the fact that NVidia's chips cost more to manufacture than you would like, or run hotter, is not false advertising.

Anymore than the fact that some car companies have higher labor costs than others and worse fuel efficiency.

Ripping off the consumer is selling people less value for their money or what they thought they were buying. Unless the GTX480 cards have a super high failure rate, no one's getting ripped off, despite your aesthetic preferences for a quieter card.

If I buy an American muscle car, I know what I'm getting, and I'm not being ripped off because a Lotus Elise is more "elegant" from your point of view.

 

[Davros]

And if you have a problem with a business having a "self-serving attitude", then you simply do not understand the reality of business.

Actually you have a problem with it too,
Imagine I fix your parents computer, now normally I would charge a fair price for the work ive done, but then I remember your wise words it's ok to be self serving, so I look at the house the car ect and i think to myself i'd normally charge £30 but I recon I can get these people to stump up £300 they wont be over the moon but they will pay.
when I tell you about it the next day Im sure you will congratulate me on my astute evelution of what the market will bare

you see you can be in business without being a cunt

 

[Florin]

Actually you have a problem with it too,
Imagine I fix your parents computer, now normally I would charge a fair price for the work ive done, but then I remember your wise words it's ok to be self serving, so I look at the house the car ect and i think to myself i'd normally charge £30 but I recon I can get these people to stump up £300 they wont be over the moon but they will pay.
when I tell you about it the next day Im sure you will congratulate me on my astute evelution of what the market will bare

you see you can be in business without being a cunt

Seriously, what does this have to do with Nvidia?

You know what their cards cost up front, and considering all of the repeat business and brand loyalty the company seems to have been having over the years, I don't think they've left everyone feeling cheated.

 

[DemoCoder]

There is no law, regulation, or principle that you should charge some minimum profit for a service. If you're in business, you charge what the market rate is, what's supportable. If you don't, you're not in business, you're in charity.

This is getting way off topic. The topic is Fermi/GF100, not the NV3x, not what offenses you've perceived NVidia to have done in the past, but what Fermi is.

 

[KimB]

Actually you have a problem with it too,
Imagine I fix your parents computer, now normally I would charge a fair price for the work ive done, but then I remember your wise words it's ok to be self serving, so I look at the house the car ect and i think to myself i'd normally charge £30 but I recon I can get these people to stump up £300 they wont be over the moon but they will pay.
when I tell you about it the next day Im sure you will congratulate me on my astute evelution of what the market will bare

you see you can be in business without being a cunt

And if you started charging them much more than it's worth, do you think they would ask you to do it again? Almost certainly not.

This is the basic issue with business. A business becomes successful not by being altruistic, not by being kind, but by earning a profit. If nVidia wasn't good at earning a profit, they simply wouldn't be around any longer. Same goes for every other business out there.

Now, obviously there are rules and regulations that businesses must follow to help prevent deceptive tactics, but it is simply the nature of the market that businesses are forced to come as close to that line as they possibly can (and occasionally step over it). If they don't come as close to that edge as they can, then they will be outclassed by businesses that are more ruthless. This is why regulation is important, and it's also why competition is even more important (because there are always ways to circumvent regulation, but competition makes at least some sorts of exploitation very difficult to do).

All that said, nobody has pointed out what "self serving attitude" they're talking about. Since this is a GF100 thread, I assume that somebody is pointing out some sort of fraudulent claim by nVidia in regards to the GF100.

 

[Squilliam]

All that said, nobody has pointed out what "self serving attitude" they're talking about. Since this is a GF100 thread, I assume that somebody is pointing out some sort of fraudulent claim by nVidia in regards to the GF100.

In this case, couldn't the TDP be considered a little... adventurous?

 

[KimB]

In this case, couldn't the TDP be considered a little... adventurous?

I would call that worrisome, but at the same time measured TDP is not necessarily equal to actual TDP. If there is a real problem with TDP, the card is likely to be rather unstable, in particular.

If these parts frequently have stability problems, then yes, there is likely to be an issue here.

 

[Kaotik]

I would call that worrisome, but at the same time measured TDP is not necessarily equal to actual TDP. If there is a real problem with TDP, the card is likely to be rather unstable, in particular.

If these parts frequently have stability problems, then yes, there is likely to be an issue here.

Well one thing about the GF100 TDP is sure - it's not using the same "formula" as gfx cards before have had, this one actually consumes the said TDP in games

 

[KimB]

Well one thing about the GF100 TDP is sure - it's not using the same "formula" as gfx cards before have had, this one actually consumes the said TDP in games

True enough.

 

[aaronspink]

Actually you have a problem with it too,
Imagine I fix your parents computer, now normally I would charge a fair price for the work ive done, but then I remember your wise words it's ok to be self serving, so I look at the house the car ect and i think to myself i'd normally charge £30 but I recon I can get these people to stump up £300 they wont be over the moon but they will pay.
when I tell you about it the next day Im sure you will congratulate me on my astute evelution of what the market will bare

you see you can be in business without being a cunt

That's funny, I know of several businesses that do IT support for VCs and the ultra rich. I know for a fact that charge more than most lawyers per hour. Why? Cause the clients are willing to pay it for the service they get.