The NV40 has taped-out

[noko]

Sounds like Nvidia hit a Home Run with the NV34. I see them everywhere now in stores, even Wal-Mart. They appear to be selling well at Walmart, in one weeks time I would say 15 where sold here in old St Augustine. While the Radeon 9000 (top ATI card sold their) looked like at best two. The FX5200 series are usually sold out as well at Wal-Mart. There just ain't no BestBuy, CompUSA, Circuit City etc. etc. in this town.

Looks like Nvidia earned a good reputation and most people don't really know about all the junk Nvidia has been doing lately. Basically Nvidia has a good chance of riding out their many mistakes. I hope ATI gets their lower line cards in order, that is the void that is allowing Nvidia to recover if not to continue to grow.

Oh, the Ment to be played thingy from Nvidia tells all these people who buy games what card to buy doesn't it? Most people who buy video cards probably don't go to too many hardware sites except maybe some of the major ones as in Tom's Hardware and HardOCP (cough cough). Of course see the Ment to be played just encourages to no end to buy something that will work. Nvidia is head and shoulders over ATI in marketing. I just hate their tactics.

 

[Arun]

Yep - the NV30 wasn't quite a home run, but the NV34 certainly is.

And that's quite telling, really: it easily shows the NV3x is simply, well, incompatible with 0.13u. Bad yields at 0.13u, good yields at 0.15u - so good that they can even put the GF4MX down a notch, eh.

Ultimately, I wouldn't be surprised if in than a year, that is late H1 2004, nVidia's lineup was:

$29: GF4 MX 420 AGP 4X or maybe 8X
$39: GF4 MX 440 AGP 8X
$49: NV34 Refresh - Regular ( one of the many NV33s probably )
$59: NV34 Refresh - Ultra ( no longer produced rather fast )
$79: NV43 Regular
$119: NV43 Ultra
$129: NV42 Regular
$169: NV42 Ultra
$199: NV41 Regular
$299: NV41 Ultra
$399: NV40 Regular
$499: NV40 Ultra

Would be an excellent lineup IMO. NV2x would definitively be no where to be seen.

So, what do you think of that speculative lineup?


Uttar

 

[nyt]

Uttar,
what about NV31 instead of GF4 MX? All DX9 parts

 

[Arun]

Uttar,
what about NV31 instead of GF4 MX? All DX9 parts

NV31 is more expensive than NV34, so that's completely out of the question.
And I'm not really aware of any NV3x with less transistors than the NV34...


Uttar

 

[DegustatoR]

Uttar

That's too many cards for such a small market

I _think_ it'll be something like this:

sub $50 - NV34 (or maybe a die-shrink to 0.13 when they figure out where things are f*cked up in NV30/31/35)
NV44 ($50-130)
NV41 ($130-250)
NV45 ($250-400)

But this is more possibly for 2H 2004. As for the 1H, i'd say:

NV34 ($50-100)
NV36 ($100-200)
NV38 ($200-350)
NV40 ($350-400)

 

[surfhurleydude]

Well, NV x5 is always a refresh of NV x0, so your first list is incorrect... Uttar's list seems pretty reasonable, with the NV45 either replacing the NV40, or simply knocking every card down a notch with the NV45 taking the NV40's previous spot.

 

[KimB]

Uttar

That's too many cards for such a small market

Small market? nVidia is currently producing and selling a similar number of video card products. The only questionable one would, therefore, be his suggestion of an NV42.

 

[KimB]

Or so I thought.

Etoys....
Compaq...
TDFX....

Lessons learned during the .com bust. How much did you lose?

Well, it does all have to be taken in context. I suppose always shouldn't really ever be used. But, regardless, I just did some looking. NVDA is up today, if only by a small amount. At no point today was the price lower than Friday's close (at the time of this post).

 

[Arun]

The following products DO exist:
- NV40
- NV41
- NV43
- NV45

The following is very, very likely to exist:
- NV42

The following is highly unlikely to exist, or at least not at this stage:
- NV44 ( never heard of it, and the other chips seem to fill the market fairly well )

All NV4x but NV40 and NV43 are 0.11u.

I'm unsure about the exact position of the NV42 & NV43. The NV43 might just be an emergency NV42 replacement if the capacity for 0.11u isn't there yet...

Also, I don't think the NV34 will be ported to 0.13u so soon, since it will be ported to 0.14u in the future AFAIK. Unlikely nVidia would mention it publicly though, since the clocks most likely wouldn't be modified.

Your proposition of nVidia keeping the NV38 when they'll launch the NV40 is perfectly reasonable though IMO Putting it down a bit would be perfectly sufficent to keep it selling since the R420 won't be released yet then...


Uttar

 

[DemoCoder]

Or so I thought.

Etoys....
Compaq...
TDFX....

Lessons learned during the .com bust. How much did you lose?

Well, it does all have to be taken in context. I suppose always shouldn't really ever be used. But, regardless, I just did some looking. NVDA is up today, if only by a small amount. At no point today was the price lower than Friday's close (at the time of this post).

I bought NVidia at $12 and sold at over $70 (pre-split). The stock is still 2x the IPO price (split adjusted). In fact, it's current price if you discount the splits is $32 which isn't that bad.

The companies that lost big the .dot era where companies without any fundamentals: crappy business idea, bad implementation (negative margins), no customers, no profit. I can understand why furniture.com and pets.com went out of business. eToys was stupid management. TDFX was bad management.

NVidia, Intel, ATI, AMD, Cisco, et al, are not run like ".com" companies, although their business did get impacted by the drop in investment spending (e.g. buying new PCs, servers, business desktops, etc) as I'm sure Herman Miller is doing worse now that Aeron chairs aren't being bought by every startup flush with cash.

 

[DegustatoR]

surfhurleydude

Well, NV x5 is always a refresh of NV x0

And where did i say something different?

NV45 will replace NV40 on the market. NV41 and 43 will come out with or slightly before NV45, imo. So there won't be a long period of having NV40 and NV41/43 in the one lineup.

I may be wrong of course

Chalnoth

Small market? nVidia is currently producing and selling a similar number of video card products.

And that's too many from my point of view I'd prefer only TWO new chips (Hi and Mid) with three or even two core/mem clock variations, but with more distinguishable difference between them (both in terms of price and performance).

Uttar

The following is highly unlikely to exist, or at least not at this stage: - NV44

It was an extrapolation based on NV3x lineup By NV44 in my previous post i meant "NV34-like chip based on NV4x architecture". Apply this to my "NV41" too please

All NV4x but NV40 and NV43 are 0.11u.

That's strange. I've never heard of such process in TSMC or IBM fabs... Only some DDR2-memory from Hynix, i think...

 

[PaulS]

I knew about the NV45, but the NV41 being 0.11 is news to me. Infact... hmm. I have my reservations, but i'll presume Uttar is right for now.

 

[KimB]

And that's too many from my point of view I'd prefer only TWO new chips (Hi and Mid) with three or even two core/mem clock variations, but with more distinguishable difference between them (both in terms of price and performance).

But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The mainstream is the most lucrative part of the market (by mainstream, I mean low-end, or sub-$100).

And just because you want an easier choice doesn't mean it's going to happen. nVidia puts out multiple products in order to sell more. They don't want any piece of the market covered by their competitors (i.e. they don't want a particular niche where a competitor's product is clearly the best choice, they want a product to meet each and every one of their competitors' products). Putting out more products to canvas a larger portion of the market is one of the means that nVidia is implementing to make use of their larger amount of cash.

Regardless, while the video cards that sell with PCs, which are typically low-end cards, make up the largest part of the graphics market, the retail portion is also very significant, and is large enough to handle as many products as nVidia is throwing out.

Finally, you should be somewhat happy about it. It means that frequently, there is an older product that is beign phased out that ends up being quite a bit cheaper than its performance warrants. An example was pointed out earlier, where one was able to buy a GeForce FX 5800 non-Ultra for $10 more than a GeForce FX 5600 Ultra.

 

[Doomtrooper]

An example was pointed out earlier, where one was able to buy a GeForce FX 5800 non-Ultra for $10 more than a GeForce FX 5600 Ultra.

Why buy either ?? They are both inferior products by a longshot...oh wait...forget it.

 

[nonamer]

The following products DO exist:
- NV40
- NV41
- NV43
- NV45

The following is very, very likely to exist:
- NV42

The following is highly unlikely to exist, or at least not at this stage:
- NV44 ( never heard of it, and the other chips seem to fill the market fairly well )

All NV4x but NV40 and NV43 are 0.11u.

I'm unsure about the exact position of the NV42 & NV43. The NV43 might just be an emergency NV42 replacement if the capacity for 0.11u isn't there yet...

Also, I don't think the NV34 will be ported to 0.13u so soon, since it will be ported to 0.14u in the future AFAIK. Unlikely nVidia would mention it publicly though, since the clocks most likely wouldn't be modified.

Your proposition of nVidia keeping the NV38 when they'll launch the NV40 is perfectly reasonable though IMO Putting it down a bit would be perfectly sufficent to keep it selling since the R420 won't be released yet then...


Uttar

I find this a little surprising. Does even .11u and .14u exist (outside of RAM chips)?

 

[DegustatoR]

But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The mainstream is the most lucrative part of the market (by mainstream, I mean low-end, or sub-$100).

Right. And by overloading it with too many different products you'll simply get your potential buyers confused and not buying anything at all.

I don't like todays lineups of both companies. They are too overcrowded with products from current and previous generations. Process of phasing out R2x0 and NV2x/1x products is going much slower than it should.

Cards on NV34 are sssoooo confusing: you can get 64-bit memory bus, you can get a card with low memory clock, you even can get a card with lower than it should be core clock!

FX5600 and FX5200U already conflicting with each other, they cost almost the same here, in Russia. Then we get some really strange situations where FX5800 costs lower than FX5600U, and R9600Pro costs higher than R9700.

All this becoming really annoying. Too many chips on the market at the same time. And guess what? We'll see more of them in a couple of months. RV380, R380, NV36, NV38, NV40... They well may kill the whole market in such way. Who will buy NV38 if he has already bought NV35 a month earlier? Who will buy RV380? How will RV380 compare with R9800SE?

I have a R9800Pro installed now and next chips i am really interested in are NV40 and R420. And even then i highly doubt that i'll upgrade to one of these. I will more likely wait for a refresh (NV45 and something like "R450"). So why bother with R380/NV38?

 

[KimB]

Right. And by overloading it with too many different products you'll simply get your potential buyers confused and not buying anything at all.

I don't think that's the case. In most situations, the products are clearly labeled with various numbers, and price is usually a decent measuring stick on how high-performing a specific product is (though certainly not perfect).

Anyway, in most situations, people aren't going to be terribly picky anyway. Most people don't know much of anything about graphics cards. So, the way I see it, 10 or 100 different choices won't make a bit of difference.

And if you're an enthusiast, like most on this board are, you shouldn't care. It should be easy to sort through the large number of products.

 

[micron]

It should be easy to sort through the large number of products.

yep, the higher the number.....the better the card

 

[KimB]

yep, the higher the number.....the better the card

Frequently this is true within the same product family. I should hope that most buyers know enough not to compare the "9800" with the "5900" and automatically assume that the 9800 is better. There is much more to the comparison than that. However, it does remain pretty straightforward that "5200" is lower than "5600" is lower than "5800" and so on and so forth. There shouldn't be any confusion here, and certainly less than there used to be (with MX and whatnot in the names), though ATI's lineup is bound to be more prone to confusion than nVidia's at the moment (I'm referring to the 9000 and 9100 here...).

 

[Dave Baumann]

[quote="DegustatoR]I have a R9800Pro installed now and next chips i am really interested in are NV40 and R420. And even then i highly doubt that i'll upgrade to one of these. I will more likely wait for a refresh (NV45 and something like "R450"). So why bother with R380/NV38?[/quote]

Well, there's always the possability for sales. It isn't a given that if you have a 9800/5900 that you have to run out and buy an R360 or NV38 - but these new one may well offer a better upgrade from a, say 9700 (or below) when the 9800/5900 didn't.