NVIDIA GF100 & Friends speculation

bah I don't see what all the bitching is about anyway.. iirc, the original argument was that the consumer product (Geforce) and the Professional (Tesla/Quadro) were 2 distinctly different products. This comes down how you define a product.. do you define it as the physical manifestation (say the GPU) or what it allows you to do (professional content creation vs gaming) and the support offered. I'd say it's similar to Comcast Cable vs Comcast Business, they both use the same hardware, the same modems, the same physical lines to provide content BUT.. with business class you get added benefit of unlimited downloads, symmetric uploads and 24 hour turnaround.. of course the "home user" might complain they are getting ripped off because they don't get the same support though they are using the same exact hardware.

Do the products physically differ.. no not so much
Do the products differ in support and intended use .. yes very much so.

Sure as $h!t you CAN use a modded Geforce/Radeon in place of a Quadro/FirePro but don't expect to be able to call up NV/ATI and get support when you have a problem. If you are a small business/student what ever .. and you can live with that then by all means use an ATI/NV consumer product in place of the professional one and save 1250-3750 dollar and be happy.

 

I dunno , how much money did it cost nvidia to disable or cripple the features ?

I bought a card. I should be able to use all thefeatures of a card correct ?

Yes I have. Are we talking about FireGL at the moment ? No we are not.



I was just explaining to XMAN that the chips in the geforce and quadro are the same gpus with the same performance. Its only that nvidia chooses to cripple performance on the geforce parts.

 

So the millions of dollars in software development should be handed over to the professional market in the form of dirt cheap Geforce cards? Why?

 

I don't think that they should cripple the hardware.


I dunno , I guess my money doesn't matter to them.


I don't see why they can't just recoup the costs with other services they provide and bundle with the quadro cards.


Its like buying a geforce 260 for $200 bucks and not being able to get fsaa cause nvidia spend millions in development for that feature and you have to buy a geforce 280 for it.

 

You're not buying a chip, you're buying a product. That product doesn't come with professional features and you knew that when you bought it. Corporations pay extra for those professional features. You're basically demanding they sell you something for $200 that they can sell to people who actually need it for $2000. Common sense should kick in any moment now.....

 

Last I check , drivers are not the only thing that come with that higher price point.


I already gave you an example that would fit with exactly what your saying , but you choose to ignore.

 

The point being is that the hardware vendors are designing one product. The only difference between a consumer and a business internet connection using volume hardware (DSL/Cable) is the SLAs. The hardware isn't different for either of them, its the exact same hardware designed for one specific purpose, high speed data. The difference are in the services around the hardware. The point being that as far as the hardware part is concerned, its one product, what comcast/att/etc does with it is their business. Same with GT200/G100, its one part, it supports the exact same feature set regardless if its sold as a Geforce or a Quadro, except in the geforce case they specifically nerf the performance of some features in the driver.

 

Are you unable to use the features of the card you bought? No? If you want the professional features, then pay for them. I don't hear people bitching about auto manufacturers who sell the same engine (or car!) in different configurations.

-FUDie

 

I like all the armchair MBAs here who just know (from their guts) how NVIDIA should runs its business.

 

I'd love to read more on this , do you have any links ?

I wouldn't buy the card or would complain if a feature was crippled or removed just so the vendor could make more money.

Which is why i don't by quadros or firegl's



Like I said , I don't see why they cripple te devices. A huge company like say pixar would gladly pay the full retail price of a quadro if it meant getting the support that comes with the price tag. Joe Smuck editing home videos or doing a fun product in their free time would hardly care about the support.

 

nvidia can run thier busniess however they want. They can run it into the ground or make it a sucess.

I'm just pointing out my likes or dislikes about something they do. I'm sure you've done it about a company in the past before.


Although all these things are getting side tracked from the main thread and I've said my peace and am done. Others can continue to argue but i'm not.

Installing dragon age again after a hardrive died. So I'm going to go off and play that soon.

 

You're ignoring the massive amount of testing and tuning they do to the drivers for specific software applications as well... If you ever look at Quadro drivers they have a massive list of professional applications you can choose from to get extra performance in that software and fix any glitchy problems that may exist due to legacy software design.

Go look up certified drivers from my experience they make a HUGE difference and many of the large software vendors like Dassault and Autodesk won't give you support if your not running a certified system.

If you're paying an engineering $200 an hour and he needs to get something done in a certain time frame or manufacturing may get pushed back that can have millions of $$$ worth of impact spending some extra coin on hardware and drivers that has been extensively tested by both Nvidia and the software vendor is a no brainier...

 

And what part of "they are not crippling the product" are you not getting. They have 2 products based on the same hardware. 1, the Geforce, is design, marketed and sold as a consumer product that plays games, render videos, it can help in video editing you just need the consumer(AKA CHEAP) software to go with it that supports it and is sold relatively cheap. But it is not marketed as a professional card that can run professional apps. Product 2 is the Quadro, it is marketed and designed for professional apps such as 3DMax, Maya, AutoCAD and PROFESSIONAL Video editing softare. It carries a high price tag, comes with HUGE perks with said price tag. But it is NOT marketed as a consumer based card that can play games.

Incase you have never noticed. The Geforce cards play games very well, help with video editing/encoding/decoding fairly well but sucks at professional apps. Quadros on the other hand EXCELL at professional apps and video editing, do ok at encoding and decoding video but suck royally at playing games. To be honest with you, those who buy the professional cards should be pissed because they can't enjoy a good game when they want to take a break.

 

The real IRONY .. NVidia Quadros did very well from the beginning based upon their low cost in comparison to 3DLabs, Intergraph and E&S and in fact many knowingly exploited fact that "cheap" geforces could be used as quadros with simply qualified drivers. IIRC, the Quadro (GF256) SDR ran about $600 USD at a time when their competition was running $2000-3000. NV just stopped short of openly supporting "soft" (driver) mods in order to swamp the professional market, Elsa was the main benefactor at the time.

Oh my how have the times changed..

 

So now Fermi will be available in Q2 and not Q1 as previously stated it seems, according to xbitlabs news story. So we're likely to able to get them easily around May-June. At this rate Northern Ireland from AMD will be out just after it

 

This is all part of JHH's master plan. I already told you guys about the bar bet, but apparently you didn't believe me. JHH will do another reveal soon which will tide over the market for another 2-3 months. At this rate he'll win the bar bet that he can just do continuous reveals and stem the tide.

 

Well it's definitely a quite colourful thread; it went from whether Fermi's colour will match anyone's purse to car engine capabilities. I wonder what's next

 

I must have missed it. Care to post a link?

 

Does that imply that the Towncar is a salvage car?

Edit: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/...e_Pull_Stride_Next_Quarter_CEO_of_Nvidia.html

 

I think most of us suspected this. Extremely limited launch quanitys with real avaliblity a few months down the line.


Look like ati may have gotten themselves a 8-10 month lead on dx 11 this time around.