report from event

I'm curious, when was the FP standard changed to FP32 as minimum for SM 3.0 ?

Cause i thought that it was verified that it was FP24 .
 
One of the demo system of MSI is using a 6800 but it had only one dvi(maybe because they don't use reference Dual dvi). Interesting thing about the card was that it used a dual slot cooling that exhausted the hot air to outside of the casing, pretty much like the 5950 ultra.
 
here is another review of the nv40 from fiingsquad found it at nvnews forum

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the 15,000 3dmark03 score was run at 800X600, instead of the default 1024 X 768. when run with the latter rez, it scores 12,000.

edit-here's the link: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware...ltra/page10.asp

but anyway, DAMN, 6800ultra is fast!

I must say, nvidia's done a good job with this card so far
 
NVIDIA went straight into production from A01 silicon, indicating NVIDIA and IBM have a knack for getting their design right the first time
Click to expand...

Perhaps the "move" to IBM was a good one.
 
Its hard to hear sound, since there were so many people talking, huge crowd. I couldn't even talk on my cell phone.

I think ATI is going to have an edge in AA still, but the lead will go down in future drivers I bet (I'm talking IQ), but ultimately, NVidia won't be able to match ATI's sparse 6x mode, and 4x will have a slight edge. Most people probably won't be able to notice except in zoomed shotties.

Also, dynamic branches in shaders probably will have a penalty except in select cases (that is, only use them if you know what you are doing)

But in general, I expect the cards to be much closer in IQ/Performance than last gen.

Once thing I noticed with early previews is that most of the benchmarks seem to be CPU limited.

Finally, some synethetic 3dmark03 fillrate numbers are going to lead some people to conclude NV40 has 8 pipes, not 16, but they will be wrong.

NVidia's video acceleration rocks. I always thought I would put nothing less than an ATI AIW card in my HTPC, but their new 2d core makes it a no brainer now.
 
Bambers said:
I am slighy disappointed on the AA, I wasn't expecting gamma correction but I was thinking that they may go for an 8x multisampling mode. Still 4x is finally rgaa and thats the most important issue.
Click to expand...
I'm surprised we didn't see NVIDIA's "Oh, oh, GC is bad! It's not really accurate! It's only a hack! Wait till our next gen to see the REAL thing" comedy yet - maybe they're reserving that for the R420 launch ;)

Although I seriously don't see what you mean above - NVIDIA *does* support 8x MSAA in the NV40. BTW, does anyone know if 8x MSAA is RG or not? I've only seen 4x RGMSAA patterns in NVIDIA's docs right now, so that's kind of suspicious in my book, hehe.


Uttar
 
No video of FarCry. My camcorder was low on battery so I saved it for Unreal3. I had no idea the FarCry SM3.0 demo would be so cool. Couldn't whip out the video camera in time to catch it.
 
Thanks, DC & Gunmetal......
I'm very interested to see how much heat the 6800U dumped into the box.... although knowing that at least one manufacturer has a version that vents out the back is a very good thing...... well, not for me, I'm water cooled!

Also glad to hear it's not exruciatingly loud - again, not a real problem for me.

Color me impressed. I'd have no problem with an ultra in my gaming box. Now let's see what ATI has up their sleeve......

One question (I think we all know the answer to this one ;) ) notice that the synthetic benchmarks are way higher than ingame from the first reviews.

Now, if the gamemakers would just let me increase the text size when going above 1024x768........ even on my 21" Trinitron I can't see so good! Age has it's drawbacks......
 
Uttar said:
Although I seriously don't see what you mean above - NVIDIA *does* support 8x MSAA in the NV40. BTW, does anyone know if 8x MSAA is RG or not? I've only seen 4x RGMSAA patterns in NVIDIA's docs right now, so that's kind of suspicious in my book, hehe.
Click to expand...


I'd assumed from the hardocp shots leaked that the 8xAA was a mixed mode which is why it didn't have as good edge smoothing (for near horizontal/vertical anyway) as r360 6xAA.

Would seem a bit odd to have a 8xMS and not have it as a sparse pattern after making 4x one. unless the grid they can position within the pixel is only 4x4.
 
I don't think >4x MSAA is supported. 8x and 16x modes of course are possible just like on NV30, but the result of RGMS + OGSS is likely to be better, so 8x (4xRG + 2xSS) might have better results than 8xS on NV3x. 4xRG + 4xSS would combine the best of both worlds of course, but with a massive hit, but on old games and a 256-512mb card, it would probably be playable. Any shader dependent game or new fillrate hungry game would probably not be a 16x candidate.
 
xslynux

The exceptionally low score on Aquamark3 for the 9800XT is because they didn't install the AGP northbridge chipset driver before they installed Directx 9.0b.

If they were to do a

1. Re-Install AGP chipset driver
2. Re-install Directx 9.0b
3. Re-install Catalyst 4.4

You would expect a score around 50K or higher on that rig.

My little 2.2GHz Athlon and 9800 Pro scores around 44.5K on Win2000 in AM3. A regular 5950U scores around 55K as it uses _pp to lower the workload alot relative to a 9800 Pro / XT chip - so don't be fooled into thinging its a straight apples vs apples comparision. The 5950U scores would be 40% lower it it were forced to use high precision mode like teh ATi cards.
 
Bjorn said:
Perhaps the "move" to IBM was a good one.
Click to expand...
Around August, one of my ex-sources, now in another technology sector (which is, amusingly, twice as lucrative as the GPU one, looking at his new salary hehe) told me NV36 was the smoothest chip in all of NVIDIA's history. The tape-out went great, yields were pretty good, and they managed to beat ALL records when it comes to how little time they needed to get it up & running in Q3 debug (barely took them a few hours to get it running after they got the silicon back from IBM!!!)

As to whether yields were good in the long run, and whether NV40 yields are good, I've got no clue, frankly.


Uttar
 
epicstruggle said:
Rican said:
just saw thin at nvnews forum

Re: The NV40 Launch Thread

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Dont know if this has been posted here yet. Too tired to read the whole thread. But if you seen this than plz disregard.

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1708.1/

1st actual review I've seen
Click to expand...
their estimating the cost to be 600 dollars :oops: :oops:
epic
Click to expand...

They've revised the price down to $500 -- from the conclusion:

"If you can afford it, as suggested retail pricing is around $500, you’ve got yourself a graphics card that’ll chew up anything you throw at it with performance to spare." ;)

Pharma
 
pharma said:
epicstruggle said:
Rican said:
just saw thin at nvnews forum

Re: The NV40 Launch Thread

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dont know if this has been posted here yet. Too tired to read the whole thread. But if you seen this than plz disregard.

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1708.1/

1st actual review I've seen
Click to expand...
their estimating the cost to be 600 dollars :oops: :oops:
epic
Click to expand...

They've revised the price down to $500 -- from the conclusion:

"If you can afford it, as suggested retail pricing is around $500, you?ve got yourself a graphics card that?ll chew up anything you throw at it with performance to spare." ;)

Pharma
Click to expand...
thanks for the heads up, 600 dollars would have made it a helluva expensive card. ;)
later,
epic
 
$500 is still hella expensive for a card for some of us! ;)

Thanks again DemoCoder for the excellent event coverage and goodies, it was faboo! Thanks to everyone for the mirrors and contributions to the thread, it was a great way to wake up and get right back into the swing of things.

Now that I got me appetite all wetted, I'm gonna go read me a few of those reviews. 8)

Sounds like the 6800U is delivering on a lot of nVidia's promises, this is going to be a fun match-up! :D
 
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