I wonder if it's a G80 based part. Wouldn't it be cheaper to tape out another chip with 64 shaders?
Considering the additional need for NVIO if they went with a G80-based part, I'm inclined to agree.
I wonder if it's a G80 based part. Wouldn't it be cheaper to tape out another chip with 64 shaders?
Pray for single slot, non-monster cooler block...What are the chances?
Apparently someone made a mistake, because it makes absolutely no sense.
Why is that? You think 64GB/s is too much bandwidth for the GTS? I tend to agree - since the 8800GTS makes do with 64GB/s it would be strange if they provided the same amount of bandwidth to the 8600GTS. Unless they are bumping up bandwidth for the entire line......
Why is that? You think 64GB/s is too much bandwidth for the GTS?
Or killing the 8800 GTS altogether...
Remember the 6800 GS vs 6800 GT situation ?
Both cards had the same bandwidth, and it was believed that the extra 4 pixel shaders and 1 vertex shader would give it the upper hand against the newer GS, but this last one had an extra 125MHz on the core, effectively cutting any real world performance advantage of the 6800 GT.
Yeah but the 8800GTS is a full 3x the configuration of the 8600GTS (ignoring the clock differential) - the 6800GS was a lot closer to the 6800GT and it was much easier to regain that performance by bumping up the clockspeed.
Exactly.Yeah but the 8800GTS is a full 3x the configuration of the 8600GTS (ignoring the clock differential) - the 6800GS was a lot closer to the 6800GT and it was much easier to regain that performance by bumping up the clockspeed.
I am more inclined to believe in a 8800GS (when the time comes; 64SP/192-bit) rather than a 256-bit G84.
Because the G80 being as large as it is, I expect there to be a significant amount of borked dies. Its been in production for almost six months now and we have seen only the 75% borked dies (8800GTS) and not the 50% ones yet. Think of an 6800XT in the Geforce8 series. I'm not sure what % of the dies will be not fully functional for one wafer of G80, maybe Arun would be a better person to even take a guess on that figure.I'm curious, why would you believe that it would be 64sp/192 bit vs something else with 256 bit? Because that would be effectively 1/2 an 8800 GTX in those areas? That is certainly plausible. However, note that a 192 bit bus would mean that they would have significantly different amount of on-board RAM vs a 256 bit variant: 192MB or 384MB RAM vs 256MB or 512MB RAM. I think it would be smarter for NVIDIA to go with the 256 bit bus variant in this price range, so that they don't get one upped in the frame buffer size and in bandwith.
I think the 320GTS's market is $299-349 ($100 less) than the 640MB one. MSRP wise Nvidia doesnt have an SKU in the $249-299 range. Looking at the (rather) large performance delta between the 8800GTS & 8600GTS, they shouldnt have a problem slotting another borked GPU in there rather than designing one from the ground up.One thing is for sure: NVIDIA has already set the expectation of 8800 GTS 320MB performance at the $250 price point. The problem is that the margins will not be so great with an 8800 GTS selling at this price point. So in order to have a successful transition, they will need to try to come up with a part that performs very similarly to the 8800 GTS 320MB, but one that is less costly to produce. Anything short of that will bring back bad memories of 9500 Pro getting axed in favor of the lower performing 9600 Pro. I think they could easily get there with a hypothetical "8700 GTS-type" 80nm card that has 64 sp's, higher clocked shader domain and memory than the 8800 GTS, 256 bit bus, and either 256MB or 512MB RAM.
256bit !
And four ROP partitions?
Isn't there a crossbar between the ROPs and memory controllers? Why are 4 ROP clusters necessary for a 256-bit bus? Or is the memory controller built into the ROP cluster?
One thing is for sure: NVIDIA has already set the expectation of 8800 GTS 320MB performance at the $250 price point. The problem is that the margins will not be so great with an 8800 GTS selling at this price point.
ROP and MC are tied together 1:1. There's a crossbar with the ROPs/MCs on one side and the shader units on the other. ROPs are doing RMW operations (blending, depth/stencil test+update) where latency to memory is critical since fragments affecting the same pixel have to be serialized.