NV30 Sampling in October
- Thread starter CMKRNL
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I would not call that a fact. The source of this claim was actually a post here in the B3D forums, the nVNews post just paraphrased some information a person posted in there. Without knowing that this person truly is in the know, this can hardly be considered a reliable source IMO. No offence intended towards the poster of said information, but pretty much anyone could have made that post up ...
I mean no disrespect to NVNEWS or Reactor Critical, but if you taking that "gut feeling" as "we know the NV30 has beta boards" in opposition to what the CEO said; how would you feel if I posted on Rage3D about a source that told me ATi will be making a dual chip R200 with 256MB DDR RAM (When ATi have said before they don't intend to do so with the R200, much like NVIDIA's CEO comments) -- hell I'll even throw in that I've got a "gut feeling," would you then parade around that "we know" there will be a R200 Maxx.
I've got a gut feeling too. But I think it has to do with the sprouts I had for lunch...
That is the whole point then isn't it? He said he works for Leadtek, but saying that is an easy thing, finding out wether its true is an entirely different matter (and even if it is true, only very few people at Leadtek would probably be fully briefed on the latest NV30 status). IMO such forum rumors should only be posted on the frontpage of a popular news site, if the source is known to be at least somewhat trustworthy (like a longtime member with a history of inside knowledge or contacts), yet in this case it was a quite new member IIRC. Now I don't know wether the nVnews staff has checked back with the poster to back up his claims before posting the news bit, maybe they did and there actually is something to the comments, without that knowledge its only reasonable to have doubts though.
Like Althornin said, no disrepect intended towards nVnews nor to the original poster, but IMO the validity of these comments remains ... fishy ... at best, at least for now.
Like Althornin said, no disrepect intended towards nVnews nor to the original poster, but IMO the validity of these comments remains ... fishy ... at best, at least for now.
What's so hard to believe about this?
Wasn't the R300 running DOOM3 demoed around the May-June timeframe? That's a good 2-3 months before the final release.
Accoding to the CEO of nVidia, we're at a similar point in the NV30's production, so why wouldn't there be beta boards out now?
After all, haven't we already considered that nVidia should have put many chips through the fabs for NV30 production by now? They just haven't put a final design through yet.
I mean, a "metal rev" is there to fix errata, right? What if the beta board tested just wasn't based on a complete design?
Wasn't the R300 running DOOM3 demoed around the May-June timeframe? That's a good 2-3 months before the final release.
Accoding to the CEO of nVidia, we're at a similar point in the NV30's production, so why wouldn't there be beta boards out now?
After all, haven't we already considered that nVidia should have put many chips through the fabs for NV30 production by now? They just haven't put a final design through yet.
I mean, a "metal rev" is there to fix errata, right? What if the beta board tested just wasn't based on a complete design?
Chalnoth said:
Yeah, but wasn't the R300 'taped-out' in Q1 (Jan/Feb/Mar) of this year? Two or three months to bring the card upto the beta that demoed Doom III and there was at least another rev. to fix an issue with the memory subsystem before the chip was finalled. So five months from tape out to retail seems about right.
Apparantly the RV250 was fully complete by this point too. ATI just didn't want to cut into the sales of the R200.
Chalnoth said:
If you're going by that chart that somebody had, I don't believe that was from tape out to retail, but tapeout to verification, or something. 120 days is not nearly long enough to go from tape out to product on the shelves.
On normal status with a relatively empty fab, a .18 wafer takes approximately 8 weeks to make it through the fab. So...
8 weeks for initial silicon
8 weeks for production silicon
Already, thats approximately 4 months. Not including any metal revs or giving the customer time to build up and ship and get to the shelves.
Again, given those numbers in the chart, it looks like a reasonable time table for initial tapeout to final revision tapeout, not initial tapeout to quantity parts to sell to customers.
Chalnoth said:
But they've never built such a complex chipset on such an immature and problem-riddled process before either.
And five months from tape-out to final doesn't take into account that ATI had beta boards up and running well enough to demo Doom 3 within about 3 months. Another couple of months on top of this to do the final rev. get drivers polished, prepare marketing, get packaging designs finished, get reference boards to OEMs and actually manufacture the final chips doesn't sound too out-of-this-world. I think out of both of the manufacturers, ATI have a lot more to prove with the R300 and probably took their sweet time making sure it was functioning to spec.
Let's not forget, both manufacturers are really pushing the limits this time around. ATI with the massive amount of transistors they are packing into the .15um process and NV dipping their toe into .13um. It's likely even ATI had some issues (power seems to be the biggest one), but we don't know about them because of ATI's typical tight-lipped nature. NV have really placed themselves in a terrible position by on one hand claiming the chip was taped-out, then another person saying that it wasn't, third parties saying that beta boards exist, others saying that there are no chips yet.
The only thing that you can really guarantee in all this is that no-one outside NV and a few select OEM's really know what is happening, not even Anand and certainly not Reactor Critical!! Any info they do get will likely be filtered through the PR machine.
And a few people on this board need to get out in the sun for a while and take a trip to Disneyland or something. Chill out, have your photo taken with Mickey, have an ice cream. GFX chips are not the be all and end all. There will always be something better, faster and more expensive just around the corner!!
Qroach said:
Where did this number come from, and why is it interesting?
Seriously. Assuming driver's aren't the issue, there's nothing there that really depends on NVIDIA. Fabricate? Not in their hands. Testing? This is written by NVIDIA prior to getting production siliocn back, and then its a test house's issue. Package? Again, an outside house. Ship to customer...still not NVIDIA.
So why should we really care that it takes 100 days from final silicon to retail?
nooneyouknow
Newcomer
Chalnoth et al,
If the CEO of Nvidia tells investors and the world that it has not taped out, then it hasn't taped out. Plain and simple. It would be, and is, illegal to say otherwise since the mis-information would affect the stock price. SEC would smack them real hard.
If he mis-spoke, like you say he might have, the Nvidia PR would have corrected it the next day to avoid SEC lawsuits. They did not.
So please, optimism is not a problem, but being blind is. Face the facts.
I am not saying they will miss x-mas ship, etc. This is purely regarding the issue of tapeout. IT HAS NOT!
If the CEO of Nvidia tells investors and the world that it has not taped out, then it hasn't taped out. Plain and simple. It would be, and is, illegal to say otherwise since the mis-information would affect the stock price. SEC would smack them real hard.
If he mis-spoke, like you say he might have, the Nvidia PR would have corrected it the next day to avoid SEC lawsuits. They did not.
So please, optimism is not a problem, but being blind is. Face the facts.
I am not saying they will miss x-mas ship, etc. This is purely regarding the issue of tapeout. IT HAS NOT!
Qroach said:
Well guess what, I work for Microsoft. For that matter, I'm Bill Gates. Do you guys want some indepth information about X-Box sales and how much Nvidia is getting per chip?
How about some info on the new Terminator movie, since I'm Ah-nold, I guess I ought to know firsthand!
