Originally posted by: Paratus
My My My,
Some thoughts of mine on the new cards:
So ATI releases a midrange $199 card and suddenly NV is forced to:
- Release "magic" faster drivers
- Drop the price of the 9800GTX to $199 (has this happened yet?)
- Paper Launch (that's right Paper Launch) a possibly faster card 9800GTX+
Seems to me NV got caught a bit flat footed.
I actually think NV is going to rocked twice more due to them positioning themselves on a larger process with huge monolithic die. Even if they shrink to 55nm the die are is still going to be 50% larger than the RV770.
From preliminary results it looks like the the 4870 is going to be competitive with the GTX 260 for $100 less but I think the real GTX 200 killer is going to be the R700 4870X2.
I see one of three things happening with the 4870X2 assuming some or all of the rumors are true, i.e. shared RAM, and new proprietary GPU to GPU interconnect (lets face it the only reason to do away with CF comm is to remove it's limitations.
- Low End: Due to thermals and or issues with GPU to GPU communications we get the following:
Slower cores than the 4870
Xfire like communications between the GPUs
Shared Ram gives a bit of an efficiency boost
Ends up being a bit faster than the GTX 280 but only between 4850 CF and 4870CF
- Medium: Decent thermals and or no issues with the new GPU to GPU communications
Same core speed as the 4870
More efficient communications between the GPUs
Shared Ram gives a bit of an efficiency boost but now 2 GPUs are sharing 1 256bit DDR5 bus
Looks completely like a single card and acts like it
Ends up being faster than the GTX 280 and 4850 CF, Basically 4870CF on single card without some of the CF limitations
- High End: Excellent thermals and or no issues with the newGPU to GPU communications plus a 512bit memory bus
Faster core speed then the 4870 (ala 3870X2 vs 3870)
More efficient communications between the GPUs
Shared Ram gives a bit of an efficiency boost but now 2 GPUs are sharing a 512bit DDR5 Monster bus
Looks completely like a single card and acts like it
Ends up being faster than the GTX 280 and 4850 CF, and 4870CF on single card without some of the CF limitations
If ATI could pull off the last one, we'd have a single card with 1.9 billion transistors, with a total die area 10% smaller than the GTX280, that could calculate more than 2.5 TeraFlops, with a ~230GB bus. I don't think even a die shrunk overclocked GTX 280 could beat that.
NV should start being very afraid.......