NVIDIA GF100 & Friends speculation

[RecessionCone]

That's not a fair comparison, cost/mm^2 does not scale in a linear fashion. The two 340mm^2 chips probably come in at just 10% more than a single 520mm^2 chip because of increased yields for smaller less complex dies.

Cost is a closely guarded secret, and the devil's in the details - it's hard to say anything about it from the outside.

But I wasn't actually talking about cost, I was talking about architectural efficiency. I feel like people are trying to have it both ways: they laud the 5870's perf/mm^2 compared with the 580, but then turn around and laud the 5970's absolute performance. I think to be consistent, if you like the 5970's performance, you should not criticize Nvidia for their perf/mm^2. If you like the 5870's perf/mm^2, you shouldn't be too proud of the 5970's performance crown.

 

[Alexko]

Cost is a closely guarded secret, and the devil's in the details - it's hard to say anything about it from the outside.

But I wasn't actually talking about cost, I was talking about architectural efficiency. I feel like people are trying to have it both ways: they laud the 5870's perf/mm^2 compared with the 580, but then turn around and laud the 5970's absolute performance. I think to be consistent, if you like the 5970's performance, you should not criticize Nvidia for their perf/mm^2. If you like the 5870's perf/mm^2, you shouldn't be too proud of the 5970's performance crown.

I think it just goes to show how versatile Cypress is…


Besides, you're comparing a Q4'09 chip to a Q4'10 one.

 

[RecessionCone]

I think it just goes to show how versatile Cypress is…


Besides, you're comparing a Q4'09 chip to a Q4'10 one.

Sure. But you have to agree the 5970 is a poor use of a Cypress.
Substitute GTX 480 for 580 and my comments remain essentially the same.

 

[Jawed]

But you have to agree the 5970 is a poor use of a Cypress.

In the end Cypress was a poor use of 40nm wafer capacity a year ago. Barts hints at how it should have been done. Cypress could have been perhaps 15% smaller for essentially the same gaming performance, i.e. with less cores but the same bandwidth.

 

[mczak]

Sure. But you have to agree the 5970 is a poor use of a Cypress.

HD 5970 is not good value today alright. Unless you absolutely must have a single card, just get two HD 6850 CF. Cheaper, faster, similar power draw, and yes (Jawed mentioned it) less die size. The HD 5970 should just die, though I wonder if it will really be available until Antilles arrives (for some reason, all Cypress based cards still seem to be easily available even after HD68xx are widely available).

 

[caveman-jim]

thats only true if you ignore the fact that the 5970 was built for overclocking. at 850/1200 (Cypress XT clocks, just use the included volt tool and bump the overdrive sliders) a 5970 put's a fair bit of distance between it and 6850 Crossfire. More core voltage on the 5970 makes 900+ doable.

You don't buy an original MSRP $599 card designed for overclocking and run stock.

 

[Alexko]

Sure. But you have to agree the 5970 is a poor use of a Cypress.

That's a matter of point of view. In terms of perf/mm², yes, it's a rather poor card. But it's (still to this day) the fastest on the market. That kind a halo is often worth making a few compromises, from the IHV's point of view.

That said, the HD 5970 never really managed to display a significant performance advantage over a "mere" Crossfire of HD 5850s, so in that respect, it wasn't very good either.

Substitute GTX 480 for 580 and my comments remain essentially the same.

Sort of. The 5970 is 20~25% faster than the GTX 480, for ~26% more silicon.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

HD 5970 is not good value today alright. Unless you absolutely must have a single card, just get two HD 6850 CF. Cheaper, faster, similar power draw, and yes (Jawed mentioned it) less die size. The HD 5970 should just die, though I wonder if it will really be available until Antilles arrives (for some reason, all Cypress based cards still seem to be easily available even after HD68xx are widely available).

And a good thing to, as 5870 is far superior to 6870 in all ways (except perhaps tesselation) even with the 40 USD price premium.

Hell, I'd even recommend a 5850 before a 6870 in most cases.

The 68xx series is just a horrible product overall, IMO. It should have been named 67xx where its price and performance would have been a natural progression of the 57xx. It would have earned almost universal acclaim had AMD done that.

As to 5970 it's as good a value as any dual GPU card has ever been from both Nvidia and ATI. Built for one purpose and one purpose only, to allow either Nvidia or AMD to lay claim to fastest single card available.

As such it serves its purpose quite admirably as Nvidia has still not been able to come up with a proper counter to it.

What I find most amusing is that Nvidia fans who supported Nvidia's dual GPU cards as fastest cards available are some of the most vocal opponents of AMD's dual GPU cards being used in the exact same manner. Hypocrites of the most laughable order. BTW - that wasn't aimed at you mczak.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

I remember ATI brass saying at the beginning of the year that they'd have the fastest card through most of 2010. At the time it was interesting to speculate if that would be true and how it would occur.

It turns out it was true without any 5890, 6xxx, or other shenanigans needed, the simple 5970 retained the crown all year.

 

[Sxotty]

thats only true if you ignore the fact that the 5970 was built for overclocking. at 850/1200 (Cypress XT clocks, just use the included volt tool and bump the overdrive sliders) a 5970 put's a fair bit of distance between it and 6850 Crossfire. More core voltage on the 5970 makes 900+ doable.

You don't buy an original MSRP $599 card designed for overclocking and run stock.

You may not, but I do believe some do. Is there any data on overclocking? Does the steam survey have that granularity? It would be interesting.

 

[mczak]

You don't buy an original MSRP $599 card designed for overclocking and run stock.

Well, once you overvolt you will be over the pcie 300W limit by quite a bit. Now, that shouldn't really be a problem, but I'd suspect if you increase power draw by another 100W or so the effect this will have on fan noise won't be quite positive, and it's not the most quiet card to begin with...
And fwiw the 6850 overclocks to similar levels (granted that's still less OC potential as the base clock is higher). (And a small correction HD 6850 CF is not really faster than HD5970 depends a bit it's pretty much same performance on average, but still cheaper.)

 

[TKK]

Well, once you overvolt you will be over the pcie 300W limit by quite a bit. Now, that shouldn't really be a problem, but I'd suspect if you increase power draw by another 100W or so the effect this will have on fan noise won't be quite positive, and it's not the most quiet card to begin with...

Also, I have my doubts wether it's really good for the longevity of a card if the power rails and PCB have to handle that much additional juice. The 4870 X2 violated PCIe specs quite a bit, and its failure rates were by far the highest of all 4K series SKUs, afaik.

 

[nate240]

So we've got the 580 and 570, when does the 560 show up? Any estimates on price/performance/power?

 

[Alexko]

So we've got the 580 and 570, when does the 560 show up? Any estimates on price/performance/power?

I'd say Q1'11, and something like $240/~GTX470/200W, respectively.

 

[Subtlesnake]

Hell, I'd even recommend a 5850 before a 6870 in most cases.

Why?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Why?

Because he doesn't like 6870's name, or one number in it actually, seemingly that is the only thing that matters.

 

[-The_Mask-]

I'd say Q1'11

I say January 24

 

[silent_guy]

What I find most amusing is that Nvidia fans who supported Nvidia's dual GPU cards as fastest cards available are some of the most vocal opponents of AMD's dual GPU cards being used in the exact same manner. Hypocrites of the most laughable order.

If ever there was a reason to eagerly await a performance topping Nvidia dual GPU card, this must be it: the spectacle of you slamming those damn AMD hypocrites!

 

[Sxotty]

It will flip the other way as well if ever Nvidia is relying on a dual gpu card to outdo a single gpu card from AMD. Once dual GPUs work as well as single gpus all the time then wake me until then I will just snore my way through sli, xfire, and voodoo err I mean whatever nv and amd want to call their monstrosity models.

 

[Kaotik]

It will flip the other way as well if ever Nvidia is relying on a dual gpu card to outdo a single gpu card from AMD. Once dual GPUs work as well as single gpus all the time then wake me until then I will just snore my way through sli, xfire, and voodoo err I mean whatever nv and amd want to call their monstrosity models.

But they already did that before ATI had even made their first dual-GPU card?