Meet Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, the man who plans to make the CPU obsolete - 2002

[_xxx_]

Riiight. All they would have to do is to make a new product out of nowhere, compatible to the competition but better. While the competition has been refining their stuff for decades.

You mean just like entering the gfx or chipset business?

History: Riva128 was an instant success in the low-mid end and RivaTNT killed the competition and made them market leader in the high-end. NForce1 was a good midrange product, while nForce2 killed the competition and made them market leader in the high-end. Need I go on? See a pattern? Impossible is nothing...

 

[trinibwoy]

CPU's are maybe hand-tuned, but no way hand-crafted. Try to layout 100+ mio. trannies by hand, I'll buy you a house if you succeed. Well, if you should need one in some 50 years when you're finished

Tuned, tweaked, crafted - there's still a lot more hand in there

I think there should be quite a few overlaps tech-wise, but I'm not really in the know. Anyone?

Well for one, today's CPU's are out-of-order, serial, CISC scalar processors and GPU's are widely parallel pseudo-RISC vector processors.

I'm not sure if today's GPU's are completely in-order. Xenos/R5xx can juggle threads but can they process shader instructions in a single thread out-of-order if the data is available?

One of Nvidia's recent patents described an instruction window analagous to what a CPU would have - do current GPU's have anything similar?

 

[_xxx_]

Well for one, today's CPU's are out-of-order, serial, CISC scalar processors and GPU's are widely parallel pseudo-RISC vector processors.

I'm not sure if today's GPU's are completely in-order. Xenos/R5xx can juggle threads but can they process shader instructions in a single thread out-of-order if the data is available?

One of Nvidia's recent patents described an instruction window analagous to what a CPU would have - do current GPU's have anything similar?

Oh, you meant that. I was just about low-level silicon tech in itself, not the higher-level microarchitecture. But the chip devs surely posess the knowledge about different processor architectures, I think that wouldn't be a huge obstacle. And they can always buy a few devs from Intel/AMD/Via/Transmeta/whatever if they should miss something.

But now I'll stop, it's a pipe-dream anyway

 

[trinibwoy]

See a pattern?

I don't - the CPU business is a lot more mature now than the 3D or enthusiast chipset business was when Nvidia joined. Not saying it's impossible but I don't see a correlation between entering the GPU market back in 1995 (and they almost failed miserably - Riva128 was not their first GPU) and entering the CPU market now.

 

[trinibwoy]

But now I'll stop, it's a pipe-dream anyway

I'm sure Jen-Hsun would want you to keep the dream alive

 

[Geo]

I don't see the risk being worth the reward, either --as the reward is unlikely to be dominance of that market. Getting to be #2 would be a hell of an accomplishment even. And to play well there, they'd need fabs, etc too.

Just don't see it.

 

[_xxx_]

I don't - the CPU business is a lot more mature now than the 3D or enthusiast chipset business was when Nvidia joined. Not saying it's impossible but I don't see a correlation between entering the GPU market back in 1995 (and they almost failed miserably - Riva128 was not their first GPU) and entering the CPU market now.

I know Riva was not their first GPU, but at least their first with triangle-based rendering

Did NV1 ever make it to the market? And NV2 was pretty much vapourware AFAICR, at least I can't remember seeing one anywhere in stores back then.

EDIT:

I don't see the risk being worth the reward, either --as the reward is unlikely to be dominance of that market. Getting to be #2 would be a hell of an accomplishment even. And to play well there, they'd need fabs, etc too.

Just don't see it.

Yup, they'd really need huge resources and also lots of luck to pull it off. But I think they should do it. Just because I say so!

 

[Geo]

Did NV1 ever make it to the market?

Diamond Edge3D: http://www.beyond3d.com/misc/chipcomp/?view=boarddetails&id=211

Still a few around if you look carefully. . .I know of at least two people around here who've picked one up in the last two years. . .and the third, Wavey's, he apparently had since the beginning (poor bastige!).

 

[_xxx_]

Cool, never saw one before! I really forgot about the existance of this part, getting older I guess...

 

[trinibwoy]

Nice to see what $199 bought (or didn't buy) 10 years ago

 

[Geo]

Nice to see what $199 bought (or didn't buy) 10 years ago

And you got sound and modem with that too! Heckuvadeal.

 

[the maddman]

And you got sound and modem with that too! Heckuvadeal.

And don't forget the Sega Saturn joystick ports!

I have a NV1 at home, but it kicked the bucket years ago. It's not a Diamond either, so I have still held on to it. If they were a little faster at accelerating windows, they wouldn't be to bad. It's actually a good sound card.

 

[Sunrise]

It's actually a good sound card.

Yes, it was. Actually i always found the sound part to be better than it´s graphics part, to be honest. You couldn´t do much with it at all, except playing the games that came bundled with it and having some fun with it´s other additions, which were kinda "half-assed". I already had owned a Roland SCC-1 (MIDI), a SB16 ASP and a Matrox Millennium back then, so it never came as close to be a serious "buying choice" for me. 3DFX made the NV1 obsolete quite early after it´s introduction, so that also tourned out to be a very wise choice.

 

[Geo]

It's actually a good sound card.

Apparently. That's how I acquired one for a friend recently for a song --fella thot it was just an old sound card that he'd used until recently. . . I told him he could keep the old Adaptec speakers he was selling with it. . .

 

[PenguinJim]

If they were a little faster at accelerating windows, they wouldn't be to bad.

They weren't too bad at Windows 95® acceleration... it was the DOS performance that made my teeth grate. Moving away from any half-decent 2D card (like a Grafixstar 600 or Millenium) produced an almost unbearable judder in almost anything DOSsy.

Oh, what's that over there? Gosh, I think I have a Diamond Edge 3D! With a couple of Saturn controllers and the original games/drivers, for full effect.

Shame Windows XP won't even install on the damn thing. I should dig out Windows 98 and use this spare hard disk to run some benchmarks. I wonder how it compares to a 7800GT? In, say, Far Cry? Oooh, and I'd love to see a modern game support both polygons and quadratic texture maps.

 

[Geo]

And don't forget the Sega Saturn joystick ports!

I have a NV1 at home, but it kicked the bucket years ago. It's not a Diamond either, so I have still held on to it. If they were a little faster at accelerating windows, they wouldn't be to bad. It's actually a good sound card.

Now that we've turned this into an NV1 thread. . . I'd like to hear more about this non-Diamond Edge3d NV1. . .I've heard there were others, but no details. . .

 

[PenguinJim]

Yeah, I vaguely remember following the exciting chip from a company called 'Nvidia' quite closely, and only heard of Diamond using the chip. Did nVidia have the manufacturing resource to create a bunch of reference cards, too?

 

[Dave Baumann]

Wavey's, he apparently had since the beginning (poor bastige!).

And Jen-Hsun has personally thanked me for buying it.

 

[Geo]

And Jen-Hsun has personally thanked me for buying it.

Not out of the question you were the only thing between them and no diet coke in the fridge that week! And we know what a disaster that would have been. . .

 

[lopri]

Umm.. CPU business is, in very cruel terms, more about manufacturing than technology. NV don't even have their fabs..

I'd rather say Samsung would do better than NV if both jumped into the CPU business.