Next NV Infomania

Is it impossible by nature to shrink the pad size or is it not feasable just now? What if there is a future technology and people start to fit more pads on the same die area? I am complete layman. Just asking.

 

Heh, nV pimps up the AA to 16x!
Here: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2442

 

Well, considering that the wires can only come out of the chip at its edges, this limitation is a natural one. You want the wires coming out of the chip to be low-resistance (so they can't get too narrow: the smaller a wire is, the higher its resistance), and you need them to be far enough apart to prevent crosstalk, so there are physical limits to how many wires you can connect to the chip based on its size.

 

phenix,
Of course there have been (and there will be) massive improvements in packaging technology. Like going from wirebond (where pads were only at the edges of the die) to flip-chip (where the pads can cover the whole die surface). But decreasing the size of a solder bump grid is apparently much more difficult than decreasing the size of on-die elements in the nm Range

Chalnoth, I think you should have a look at flip-chip packaging. It's not restricted to pads at the edges.

 

Hrm, I thought I remembered flip chip packaging as being more of a heat transfer optimization? Well, anyway, could do some looking back...

Edit:
Google is nice:
http://www.amkor.com/enablingtechnologies/FlipChip/index.cfm

Looks like the typical size of the dots on flip chip are around 100um, so it should be relatively easy to see how that would be a limitation. Since the technology to make objects on that size is pretty darned good today, it is unlikely that the size of the dots will be shrunk much at all in the coming years.

 

lol

OLD!!

 

Yeah, I also had a good laugh. ATI does 14x, so nV has to do more! Because more is t3h betterer!11!1!!!one1

 

yeah, problem is, they can't demonstrate it, they don't have the drivers etc. it's even a more paper launch than crossfire..

 

What is? 16x AA? It's been possible to enable that via tweakers for a long while.

 

It's not official yet.. nV are still working out the bugs (according to them)

 

Install quadro drivers and you'll see.
So you aknowledge that crossfire was a paper launch?

 

That's interesting since I can enable 16x on my GT right now yet I can't go out and buy a Crossfire motherboard or master card......

 

More likely they're waiting for the release of their next product first. There's really not a whole lot of possibility for bugs here. The only differences between 16x and the other AA modes would be related to sample position choices.

 

I can also buy a phase change cooling system, plug it onto an x850xt and beat both 7800GTX and 7800Ultra.

nV does not implement it in their drivers, you need third party tools.

I can triple buffer d3d and ogl games, can you?

 

Probably for the same reason as Valve is waiting with lost coast

 

You are arguing nonsense. If it was not implemented in their drivers then how the hell am I using it. I think you mean the option is not exposed in their control panel. Point is, it's available so your analogy to crossfire does not work.

And WTF does expensive phase change cooling, beating a 7800 or triple buffering have to do with 16xAA already being available on shipping Nvidia cards?

 

Pre-orders popping up everywhere now, and this webshop posted the product info thingy for Sparkle 7800 GTX. http://www.sbs.o.se/default.asp?artnr=7800GTXspakle

Not sure if there's any new info though.
I'm to tired and lazy to read it all.

16x Aniso? Thats something i didn't know at least.

 

I found this snippet interesting: