nonamer said:
The problem is that I did give a rationale for it. Nvidia said the XGPU2 was too expensive but ATI said it was not a problem.
That's not a rationale. That's just more guess work. Unless you have a source that says nVidia claims the XGPU2 was "too expensive."
Since they both have roughly equal development capacity in terms of GPU development, these contradiction statements make no sense, and I made a guess as to why.
Even if it is true, why wouldn't it make sense? Every company has their own risk tolerances.
Instead of debating my guess, you simply criticize me.
Again, give some creditble basis, and it can be debated.
nonamer said:
The 350 engineers nVidia had to use probably came mostly from the development of the audio chip, motherboard, and custom features in the NV2a not found in the NV2x series, hence they had to design the Xbox chip pretty much in parallel to their PC GPUs. It looks like ATI will simply design a R500 or R600 with the PC in mind and then simply upgrade/modify for the Xbox2 a la R350 and/or R420 afterwards. This could save a lot of money, but it could also be weak on power.
This just makes no credible sense. You say that nVidia was "tied up" spoending money on all sorts of non-graphcis stuff...and then say that ATI might not be doind those things (hence cheaper)...but only doing graphics. And from that you conclude the GPU might be short on power?
Forget for the moment that we have no idea what exactly ATI is designing, or that the X_box1 GPU is essentailly the NV2x core (PC part) tweaked for the x-box.
And you do this regardless of what we already know to be a fact: that ATI's model (royalties) is vastly different than nVidia's current "part supplier", and can directly account for reduced costs.
It will take time for the modifications to be done, whereas a mostly custom designed chip could use that extra time to make something really impressive. That's what nVidia is did for the Xbox 1, and the costs where so great that they're now reluctant to do it again.
Wrong. The NV2a (x-box GPU) has so much in common with the NV2x cores, it's not even a question....the x-box GPU is no more a "custom" GPU that we're speculating might be for x-box 2.
So I suppose for Microsoft choosing ATI is choosing the cheaper one but less powerful, and choosing nVidia is the more expensive but more powerful. I suspect that MS wants the more powerful, thus I call the idea that ATI has won the GPU contract for Xbox"2" into question.
1) Your supposition that nVidia's x-box 2 "design" is more "powerful" than ATI's x-box2 design, is baseless. See above. (Not that the X-box 1 GPU has anything to do with the X-box2 GPU in the first place.)
2) Any assumption that MS wants more power over lower cost is also baseless. I'm sure what MS wants is the most power, for a given price point.
3) Your calling into question this relationship as a "ruse" is 100% baseless due to 1 and 2 above.
Well since NV2A did drain Nvidia of 350 engineers something must have been "special" to require so much.
The
graphics core of NV2a did not require all those engineers.
You outlined a bunch of things above...motherboard design, northbridge, sound, etc.
I assumed that it is because of all the other stuff they did around the NV2A such as the audio chip and motherboard that required so much work.
Um....this is one of your problems. You claim nVidia spend all this engineering power on the NV2a....and then claim they spent their engineering power on the other stuff...
The NV2A did come out before the NV25 but I suggest that ATI's X2-GPU will come out later than the R500/R600 that it derived from.
Why?...again, no basis for this.
Forcing someone to accelerate their product line 6 months faster like in Nvidia's case should be more draining than doing it the other way around.
??
AFAIK, the IP is the software equivalent of the chip layout itself.
Doesn't have to be at all. It can be all the
pre chip layout - route and trace stuff. That is, basically a software description of the chip's functions...not the chip design itself. Microsoft would choose the partner to take that software design, and turn it into a chip....doing all the place and route, and handling the majority of the chip debugging.
The isn't any real difference between ATI licensing a chip to Microsoft and letting the licensee manufacture it and ATI manufacturing the chip and then selling it to Microsoft when the GPU is outsourced to a foundry for production.
Wrong...there there can be a huge difference. The thing is, we don't know the exact nature of the licensing agreement. It's possible it might be along your lines (ATI essentially designs the chip), and it's just as possible that ATI goes the other way. (Which is along the lines of what ARTX did.)
However, this is not the case as Nvidia has stated that it would be too expensive whereas ATI said that it wasn't very expensive at all.
Again...sources?
Did nVidia say it was too expensive? Or too
risky?
I surmised that this is because Nvidia and ATI where planning on totally different design praxises for the development of the next Xbox GPU.
Unless you can som up with the source where nVidia said it was too expensive, then I guess your whole line of reasoning is flawed from the very beginning. (Vs. just being flawed from that point onward.)
On a side note, this licensing idea leads to an interesting thought: Microsoft is in no obligation to use what ATI licensed to them if the announcement is just a licensing deal, contrary to what some have said in the other thread about this.
Sigh....
No, I'm sure MS just loves the idea of funding the development of ATI's technology just for the hell of it.
In fact, MS is still totally free to choose whichever GPU they want for XB2. A whole host of possibilities if this is true.
Sure...as I said...as long as they're willing to kiss tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars goodbye...they can do whatever they want.
In fact....why...they could stop buying x-box GPUS from nVidia right now! I just thought of something...this deal is not only for future X-Box...but for X-Box 1!! nVidia not only lost the x-box 2 contract, but the x-box 1 as well. This is worse than I thought for nVidia....
This I can't really say for sure. I assumed that MS wants a GPU capable of going against Sony's PS3 and it's Cell computing.
I assume MS wants the best performance possible
for a given price, deliverable at a certain time.
If the R500 is 90nm, then it should be inadequate.
Again..more completely baseless bunk. It's no different than the x-box1 vs. PS2. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses, and I suspect it will be more of the same with the next generation.
If you are just going to get a derivative of a PC GPU, no matter how minor, it would still come up short or late,
Again, no basis...
I can't "know" about this, but this is my guess.
And we're telling you your guess is indeed baseless.
I can guess that cell will be so hard to program for effectively, that any DX10 level PC chip will be running circles around it from day 1.
From the speculation I made above and assuming that Nvidia was thinking of totally custom designing a 65nm GPU right from the start and ready by 2005/2006.
You keep pulling these "assumptions" out of your ass! That's the problem.
Here's one: I assume that nVidia was thinking of a totally non-custom GPU on 0.13, considering how costly their last part was.
...this is what I'm imagining is Nvidia's plan.... ATI plan seems to be....
Look, in all seriousness...you know nothing of EITHER ATI's or nVidia's plans. It's that simple. And making speculation BASED on assumptions that are purely guesswork....to support a "conspiracy theory"....is just ludicrous.
I believe that MS is still playing off one another.
And I believe you're trying to play us for fools.
Look, Nvidia's goal is to "power every pixel."
And so is ATIs...or hadn't you noticed their product portfolio?
They should be jumping on XBox2, not being so stoic about it.
Geezus....I agree that nVidia should be trying to get it...the thing is
only one of them can actually win the contract. And *duh*, the loser is going to downplay the significance, while the winner is going to trumpet it. Did you expect anything different?
My opinion is that MS wants Nvidia to make something that can match PS3,
WHY NVIDIA. My opinion is that MS wants SOMEONE to make whatever it is that is MS's vision for the next x-box. This includes a certain level of power, a certain price point, and perhaps some other abilities beyond "pure games", for all we know.
but on hearing the news J-h H nearly had a heart attack seeing how much resources that would require.
Probably not as large as the heart-attack he got after losing the contract. Perhaps J-h H shouldn't be so inefficient with his engineering.
Nvidia probably said no unless MS gave them a huge sum of money, big even for MS, and now MS is doing every trick in the book to try to get Nvidia to lower it, even going (maybe) to the competition to scare Nvidia to do. Pretty sinister in my book.
Pretty far fetched and idiodic in my book. This just doesn't happen
once the contract is signed. Before the partnership? Sure...playing one competitor against another is typical.
EDIT: The part where I mention that MS is not required to use ATI GPU is something I find so interesting that it deserves an additional topic.
Please...don't.
It puts a whole new spin on my speculations.
Decidedly, for the worse.
Basically, MS wants a