NVIDIA G92 : Pre-review bits and pieces

2600/8600 series have hit the $100 level, except for the GTS. I dont see a 256MB 8800GT hitting that level any time soon.

Nvidia has to have the 256MB 8800GT out and in huge quantities so that the price levels drop to what they promised initially (>$200). Until then the 3850's main competitor will be the 8600GTS.

 

nvidia doesn't save money on the PCB, so those savings don't improve G92 margins (assuming G92 is the chip used).

-FUDie

 

Uhm, of course it does. It tends to be a good idea not to claim such things before thinking it through...

A given price segment has a target bill of materials which includes the chip, the memory, the PCB, and so on. If you can make your reference design's PCB and memory cost less for a given price segment (i.e. without having to reduce the price of your final product) then you can ask more for your chip to compensate. Any money that doesn't go to Samsung/Hynix/Foxconn/Flextronics/etc. is money that goes to NVIDIA or ATI.

 

You know, I thought I posted something about this in relation to your previous post:

I wasn't initially sure you meant more reduntant blocks ie a 6C/192bit G92 ASIC or more built-in redundancy ie 8C/512bit.

I also wrote something like a 6x512Mbit SKU would be cost competitive against an 8x256Mbit SKU, esp given notional PCB level savings too.

 

For the PCB, there should be transparent price pass through from eg Flextronics to eg XFX. Bundling skews the price advantage toward the IHVs, so NV/AMD can capture a price wedge there too. The AIBs/OEMs, etc, don't like that much...

Edit:

Gee, don't tell that to the AIB, OEM, re-marketer, reseller, retailer chain...

 

Tough spot that. Most of their customers probably aren't likely to get better pricing on their own, but those who might are the ones likely to order most. At the same time you want to enable your board partners to make money, yet you don't want your component specs to be lax enough so that that a single sub-par manifestation from one AIB (looking to save a few bucks) can blemish your brand name and impact the business of your other partners.

Off topic:

Spoiler

I have a feeling AMD might adopt a pragmatic stance in this regard this time around, giving some concessions/flexibility to their board partners with the 3850 and/or the 3870.

 

Yep. That's the IHV's stated goal. Volume component purchase & bundling enables price savings & guards against SKU sub-component supply shortages/volatility. The Q is, does an AIB with their own production line necessarily gain by outsourcing PCB production/assembly...? Maybe yes, maybe no. I do know they don't like not having the option to endogenize costs...

 

As a note: partners will be building Radeon HD 3850's with 512MB of memory. They will obviously slot inbetween 3850 256MB and 3870 prices.

 

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=204269

Should be a pretty fast card if those specs are correct.

 

No question about it, but still...
With Crysis, Bioshock and Call of Duty 4 out, having no true new high-end cards (with corresponding memory bandwidth) during the holiday season seems like a missed opportunity for both Nvidia and AMD.

In the end, i doubt this new "full G92" is much faster in the real world than either the GTX or the Ultra at true high-end resolutions with filters enabled -where it "hurts"-, and those products deserved a proper replacement at their price-points after a full year (no, those SLI and Crossfire on-a-stick solutions don't count in my book ).

 

I was struck by this week's CompUSA flyer advertising an 8800GT for $270 and an 8800GTS 640 for $450. Sorry for stating the obvious, but progress is good.

 

IIRC G8x/G9x's ROP partitions are each assigned to a 64-bit MC channel, so 256-bit memory interface = 16 ROPs.

 

I think the 8 extra TMU's and 16 Scalar Processors (when comparing the 8800 GTS 512 to the 8800 GT 512) should be much more important to the overall performance than the amount of ROP's and memory bandwidth.
Of course, the small increases in clockspeeds should give it a nice boost as well.

 

Well, from reviews I've read so far the biggest performance gains in most games come from o/c'ing the SPs & RAM, so you're half-right.

 

Humm...:





Taken from eVGA's website, apparently.
Is the cat out of the bag, or is it just a typo ?

Source.

 

Argh stop teasing! Need new card(s) now...

 

Looks like they covered all their bases .. 8900GTX, 8850GX2 and 9800GTX ...

 

In this database you can design your own card...
http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=205365

 

Ok, looks like someone can actually add their own GPU name in the configuration details fields in that specific page, so i'd call it bogus..., for now.

edit
AnarchX beat me to it.

 

Someone posted on a forum I frequent. Can't say if it's real though.

US