Nv40 16 full pipelines- The Inq.

Edit: Double post??!

 

The R420 will have a silent NDA ridden launch at CeBIT also.

http://69.56.255.194/?article=14433

If ATi can get strong enough yields I wouldn't be surprised if they try and beat nvidia to launch.

Another interesting thing from that article:

This is becoming more and more apparent that nvidia has a monster that actually has 16 full pipelines, I'm counting the hours til CeBIT to see what the deal with this card actually is.

On paper:

• 
  1( 16 Pipelines
  2( 500 / 550mhz core
  3( 800mhz ram

This seems like a winner to me.

 

Anything causing Rev to curse must be good!

 

Well that Inq article explains a few things re CeBIT - R420/R423 behind closed doors.

I don't think the NV40 NDA is up until the middle of April. If ATi did have serious worries about how R420 might stack up they would probably try and launch promptly, because AFAIK, they have a big advantage in terms of launch-readiness.

I don't think many people are under a full R420 NDA, to be honest (at least not on the journo-side of things). If they were we'd probably know a lot more about it than we currently do.

MuFu.

 

This

combined with

looks promising... Anybody else want to get on the quotes list? Plenty of space...

 

Looks exactly like the overhype started before nV30's lauch in my opinion. Just wait the realese and GOOD reviews.

 

Those core and clock speeds are incredibly inflated. Try 400 and 475 for core and 600Mhz DDR2.

 

Soudss promising, sure. But well, i think that i will wait until i'm really impressed. Seems that around the Cebit we will have some more informations, at least on rhe R420 8)

 

Well, to put things in perspective, I thought the NV30 paper specs (which is what I know of NV40, on paper that is) sounded awesome too.

On another note, I really need an ATI insider just to balance things up (or avoid being accused of being "pro-NVIDIA", as they like to put it) 8)

 

That's a question I am interested in having answered. There seems to be a lot of people who have first hand knowledge of NV40 under NDA and think it is impressive (not withstanding how falsely impressed we all were at the NV30 launch and NV's Dawn), but how many people have also seen the R420 and can compare the two?

It seems to me that this time around, ATI is playing its cards much closer to it's chest, while Nvidia is running hype behind the scenes. We all know that NV3x wouldn't have appeared so bad had R3x0 not been so good in comparison.

Until someone can compare the two cards, we could have the same situation where Nvidia has a more impressive demonstration at launch (more Hollywood animation houses anyone?), and then ATI still has better performance, especially where it matters - in actual games.

 

Don't we need to compare them before we know if ATI has better performance ?

 

I just don't see how the second statement there is a possibility. The transistors haven't even been doubled. How in the world could the pipelines have been improved and quadrupled at the same time?

I suspect that if it is capable of 16 full pixels per clock, then each pixel pipeline has been made less capable (in terms of processing power, not functionality).

 

Yes of course - that is what I am saying. We have people saying that NV40 is "impressive", but it might not be so impressive by comparison with the competition. If those same people have not also seen R420, how do we know whether NV40 is really that good or just an also-ran strangled by low memory bandwidth, and absurdly high power/heat/noise requirements?

Is there anyone here that can even put their hands up and say that they have seen official specs on both cards (for what the paper specs are worth anyway)?

 

Perhaps he was referring to NV30's ability to become an 8x0 rather than its 2 TMU nature. I think that's the only way to interpret what Dave said; having a 16x2 makes, say, no sense whatsoever given the transistor counts we have (unless NVIDIA is run by magical elves now).

 

No, most people are saying that it SEEMS or LOOKS impressive...

 

8x1, 16x0? Is it carved in stone that the first NV40s will use DDR2? I'm pretty sure ATi is going to use DDR3...that'd be weird for ATi to have the faster memory for a change.

I am not discounting anything at this point, although I think perhaps you've been mixing OTC cough syrups to try and get rid of that dry cough a bit too much.

 

That's the best question I've seen asked throughout this thread.

I presume there are very, very few people who have seen the "official PR paper specs" of R420, though that appears will be changed at CeBit.

It looks like once CeBit arrives, we will get our first legitimate "This is how I think things will pan out, based on the official PR paper specs"...though of course that won't tell us much either.

 

Don't forget that ATI had better memory utilisation in R300 due to the 256 bit bus. Nvidia stuck with 128 bit and it crippled NV30, despite the raw mhz advantage.

Is it possible that Nvidia will be making the same mistake again if they launch with DDR2 while ATI thinks that GDDR3 is *required* for this generation? Especially given the likelihood that ATI's memory clockspeeds will be every bit as good as Nvidia's this time around.

 

Yes, but should we just shut up until then? Whats the fun in that?

BTW, notice the sure sign of reliable, first hand information right at the topic - The Inq...
Surely accurate information doesn't belong to THIS topic...

 

Nah...we shouldn't shut up...but we shouldn't be taking everything so seriously either.

Indeed. 8)