NV40 to have 16 pipe design

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EdHunter

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article from the inquirer says NV40 will own R420:

NVIDIA REALLY needed to pull the cat out of the bag in the next round of its increasingly epic battle with ATI Technologies and from where we’re sitting we’d be more than surprised if the next round isn’t, now, a foregone conclusion.
US sources close to Nvidia have confirmed that their next generation GPU will feature a full sixteen pipelines – not as previously speculated an 8x2 arrangement - and this is reflected in the increased transistor count of circa 205-210 million, up from a previously speculated 175 million.

In very recent times ATI have been extremely confident in saying that their R420 - set to launch not long after, Nvidia show their hand – would, immaterial of architecture, thoroughly outgun the NV40.

Indeed today, Richard Huddy - ATI's European Developer Relations Manager maintained that their expectation was for ATi’s R420 to be, faster, on balance, across a suite of 10 common games than Nvidia NV40.

However we think that ATI's earlier confidence was based on internal intelligence that Nvidia’s NV40 feature set would be limited to an architecture built on 175 million transistors and that Nvidia would deliver, as anticipated, on the first day of CeBIT in March.

Nvidia's launch date for NV40 seems to have shifted backwards, but even a month or so is not going to give ATi enough time for a hardware response.

Knowing what we know now about NV40 having a full sixteen pipelines, we sensed that despite some fighting talk, and indeed some intelligent and rationalised arguments, ATi are now hoping, at best for a close fight…

NV40 0wnage of ATi R420 coming soon to a store near you?

We sure think so… µ
 
And so the war continues. We'll just have to see when these cards hit what's the 9700 Pro and what's the 5200FX of this era .:p
 
I see this as being the same as their current "8 pipe design" which is mostly a lie... Yeah, it can pump out 8 pixel Z-buffer opterations per cycle, but that doesn't put pixels on the screen. It can ACTUALLY do 4 pixels of honest-to-god texture work, or the same for pixel shader work.

So this "new" design is going to be 16 pipes? Yeah, I'm sure :p 16x0 if doing Z-tests, very likely (and believeable) 8x1 for texture ops, and maybe if they're lucky, still doing 8x1 for shader ops too.
 
Keep in mind this is all RUMOR until something official from NVIDIA is announced.

Treat it as such.

Though it is fun to sepculate sometimes isn't it.
 
That should mean that DX7 and 8 games are going to fly, its going to be much faster than a 5900Ultra.

I'm not totally sure how much more speed we need in DX 7 & 8, but Nvidia appears to be doing it.

Over 200 million transistors though, so it will probably run a fair bit hotter than a 5900Ultra too. But personally I'd wait for a prototype board first before making too many conclusions. Nvidia did have to move back to TSMC for manufacturing because the IBM plant is pathetic (I guessed that was going to happen the day they announced it)

On paper, it should be faster than a R420. But even attempting 16 raw pipelines with greater than 200 transistore is a pretty impressive feat. ATi definitely went the safe path this time, Nvidia is taking a risk (the proposed NV40 architecture is a risky one to manufacture)
 
Originally posted by Brent

Though it is fun to sepculate sometimes isn't it.
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yes it is, but then again some people get excited with all these speculations and when official stuff comes, there is disappointment and flaming ( I think)

We should wait and see:)
 
Loking at those 200 tr. it could very well be true 16 pipe design. On the other hand this thing is gona be extremely hot and expensive and could end up at 300Mhz.
 
could end up at 300Mhz
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Exactly, you got it right on the nose. If those are the specs, and given Nvidia's recent manufacturing history, the clockspeed could suffer... If you go *too* wide, sometimes you have to cut the clockspeed if you don't get it right, the best example of this is the Itanium.
 
I'm all about rampant speculation, baby! Yeah! ;)

Holy damn though, I didn't read the 200m transistor part. Dunno WTF they are using all that transistor logic for, but OK. I kinda have to agree with the folks above: a transistor count that high on NVIDIA's current track record? That suggests a pretty low operating frequency to me.

That, and something ridiculous like a 130w thermal rating :D
 
Well, If we are talking rampant speculation, I'll throw in a edumucated guesstimate number:

80 watts if Nvidia sticks with regular DDR. Less than a P4, but keep in mind the power consumption is across the entire videoboard and not just for the GPU.

Edumucated guess on why they need 200 million plus transistors: 16-way Cache coherency and adequate buffering so that instructions are not out of order when they are recombined (a difficult problem to solve even with two hardware pipelines)
 
I'd love to see a 16-pipe card...even if is it 8x2. It would still be impressive.

however, I would not like to be paying for such a feat...especially if you have to mount a Zalman hsf on the damned thing to cool it.

almost like a prescott for the video card...there may be a significant performance boost at higher speeds but the heat output could cook your dinner...
 
Here are some facts: Nv30 was supposed to be 6x2. It didnt work. The Nv30 ended up being a 4x2 part.
If they cant do 6x2 it doesnt bode particularily well for a 16x1 monster now does it.
I'll be happy if Nvidia manages a true 8x1 card, its not particularily easy to do you know, takes a lot of intense GPU management programming.
 
they really need to come up with a new cooling solution for cards.
even with something that looks like a CPU cooler like the 5950 cooler, it still gets above 70C.
 
maybe for the last year theyve been busting a** and developed it after the dissapointment of the fx series so far.
 
Originally posted by crimsonghost
maybe for the last year theyve been busting a** and developed it after the dissapointment of the fx series so far.
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Sure, that or they're lying. I remember than even two weeks before nv30's nda's were up, sources were claiming that it would have a 8*1 design with a 256 bit wide bus. We all know what came out of that:rolleyes: . Strategice marketing leaks should be ignored. I'm dissapointed with the inq for buying into it.
 
Who gives a crap about pretty numbers [unless they are FPS numbers ;) ], I'll take whatever bitch slaps D3.
 
well it may be strategic marketing but my money goes to performance if its true and it pwns ill buy it if not hello ati. None of us will really know untill april sometime, maybe well know more after cebit.
 
I agree with Vagrant Zero. There are minute aspects of the CPU design that many of us can't even understand that effect the performance of a graphics card, or any processor. It really boils down to good, old fashioned frames per second. We'll see how these cards perform, and this time let's hope the battle is far more heated that the current ATI domination we have right now.
 
...but we don't have those numbers in front of us. We can make educated guesses by using these "minute" architectural features and comparing them to what we already know from the R300 and NV30 series cores. All we're doing is speculating, and don't think for a second that framerates and output quality aren't more important to any of us.
 
Originally posted by Aztlan
yes it is, but then again some people get excited with all these speculations and when official stuff comes, there is disappointment and flaming ( I think)

We should wait and see:)
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indeed, it never fails does it?:rolleyes:

I'm saving up to buy a new card...i was going to buy a 9800 pro..but by the time i get up the money for that the new stuff will come rolling out..so i might as well just keep saving and buy a newer card. :D
 
I like when the marketing juggernauts get going and the FUD starts flying, I think it's all very entertaining, and when the performance race is over I got $500 for the winner :)
 
Hmm 16 eh? Well it should be fast as all get out, but do they still look like crap? I've had ATI's since the catylst driver came about, and plan to stay there UNLESS nV does something for visual quality instead of just frame rate
 
i agree with 101 on that one, i'll let them battle it out, and i'll just buy whoever comes out on top. I'm no fanboy when it comes to video cards. But if it's a tie, i'm going for Nvidia..because of their 64-bit drivers....i assume windows xp 64-bit is coming out sometime soon so i'll need the drivers. ATi has yet to show me any 64-bit drivers (that I know of anyway)..but i'm sure they'll come out with some when the next card rolls out.
 
I dont think the number of transistors should be too much of a probelm for this card's thermal rating. They are designing it upon a 110nm (.11 micron) transistor design, and that SHOULD deal with some of the heaty problems they could have. Although it might not, *looks at prescott*. :D
 
I've decided to never believe anything until a quality reviewer gets a real working production card. I'll let Brent tell me if it plays games well, and the fine folks at B3D can tell me about all the architecture details. Don't trust marketing, because most if not all companies spell "honesty" as "p-r-o-f-i-t".
 
hmm, I will bet this is the chip being made on the TSMC .11 micron process. Nvidia announced that already, if it was .13 the core would be massive, bigger than the hammer core.
 
I can't wait for NVidia to duplicate their prior success and assimilate ATI as a Corporation while their pants are down. The best part of this aside from ATI going into Chapter 11 and so forth would be me and every other NVidia fan thats had to deal with the temporary glory that ATI has experienced and the influx of fan boys backing them. Hows that for a argumentative.
 
Originally posted by angrybusdriver
Let's hope these power wars turn into price wars :D
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Yeha it would be nice if the performance was so close that the only thing they could fight on is price. That would truly be the best outcome.
 
Originally posted by f0de
I can't wait for NVidia to duplicate their prior success and assimilate ATI as a Corporation while their pants are down. The best part of this aside from ATI going into Chapter 11 and so forth would be me and every other NVidia fan thats had to deal with the temporary glory that ATI has experienced and the influx of fan boys backing them. Hows that for a argumentative.
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oh god :rolleyes:
 
Sheesh, why does everyone listen to the Inquirer? I mean nearly every damn artical they make is a lie!


I wonder if they own Toms Hardware ;)
 
Originally posted by KINgGh0sT
Sheesh, why does everyone listen to the Inquirer? I mean nearly every damn artical they make is a lie!


I wonder if they own Toms Hardware ;)
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No intelligent person take Inquirer rumors as fact, but no open-minded person ignores what The Inquirer passes along. As long as you take The Inquirer's stories with some skepticism, you'll be fine, because you know The Inq themselves probably don't believe half of what they report on. For the record, they more often than not tell accurate stories.
 
I really wish ATI and their partner companies would pick up their bundles. They're just starting to show signs of having a decent one, but i've always been more of a fan of Nvidia's bundles. Well, it's a double bladed sword actually..considering those bundles only add to the heafty price tag.

nevermind i said anything....go OEM kids! :D
 
Originally posted by KINgGh0sT
Sheesh, why does everyone listen to the Inquirer? I mean nearly every damn artical they make is a lie!


I wonder if they own Toms Hardware ;)
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Take it with a grain of salt man, that's what it's all about really.
 
supprisingly, the inq tends to be right more often than not, their articles just seem unrealistic at the time they are published, becuause they tend to show only a peice of the truth, and the lack of supporting evidence hurts the credibility.
 
Originally posted by Merlin45
hmm, I will bet this is the chip being made on the TSMC .11 micron process. Nvidia announced that already, if it was .13 the core would be massive, bigger than the hammer core.
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TSMC's 110 nanometer process isn't production ready. Just recently they said that they won't be producing 110 nanometer production-ready silicon until late 2004/early 2005...rightly so. NVIDIA can't afford to shoot themselves in the foot with an extreme design like this. Upwards of 200 million transistors AND the 110 nanometer process? Forgive my skepticism. I think NVIDIA will drop the 16 pipe design or clock their first cores low, in anticipation for a late 2004 second wind (possibly with the 0.11 micron process).
 
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