The next NVIDIA's high end, GT212

[sourthings]

Originally posted by: shangshang
And why are people comparing a single GPU to a multi-GPU solution??? If you put enough of the slower and less optimized x86 cores together (eg, Lararbee), then you'll eventually beat a single GPU too. So I guess if we put like 100 x86 cores together and do raytracing, then we'll eventually get a "revolutionary" design too.

Because when you talk about a single card solution, ie; a card that fits in one slot of your motherboard, and then the top performer in that position. Well, with ATI they can put two GPUs on one board, and then they have the fastest video card on the market. Fastest GPU, as in a single chip, goes to nvidia, but the caveat is that they can only put one on a video card, so they don't have the fastest video card.

That's why they are compared, because a 4870X2 is a single video card and is faster than a 280. The 280 cannot be made into a 280GX2 because it's too big, and too hot to be put into that sort of configuration.

The comparison is a single video vs a single video card, one just happens to be multi-gpu on a single card.

And the whole g92 die shrink thing is just that, a g92 is basically a g80 with a 256bit memory bus, other than that, at least when you are talking about the 9800gtx or 8800gts 512, it's a g80 on a smaller process with a 256 bit bus. The 280 is also similar but there are some more stark differences in increased shaders etc.

The cards were named 8800gt to start with, they are a g80 derivative and were marketed as such, the 9800 moniker was just a marketing label, it was just an 8800gts 512. When these cards came out, has everyone forgotten all the reviews and discussions and such all essentially stating it's a g80 on a smaller process with a smaller memory bus ?

The 8800gt was a great card, I bought a 8800gts512 for a second pc, and had an 8800gtx for a well over a year. The 280 was a letdown, it was touted as being a brand new refresh and did not deliver on performance. In my opinion, it was disappointing.

And the fact they tried to sell it for $650 when it was first released just compounded it. Why not buy a 9800GX2 for $300 which for the most part was faster than the 280. It should of debuted at $400, poor play on their part. Then the 4870 hit at $300 with 80-85% of the performance of the 280 and it just highlighted the gouging and poor performance of nvidia's latest 'flagship' gpu.

 

[taltamir]

so if the change the bus size and add video decode features its "the same thing"?
but if they add a few more shaders its suddenly "stark changes"?

That is not making any sense. The G92 is a different core, meant to drastically reduce price while maintaining performance level.

And yes, the 4870x2 is a single slot... but it is multiple GPUs. meaning it has insane power consumption, head production, and runs on crossfire drivers which sometimes don't scale at all leading to WORSE performance then a single 4870. Show me where a 4850 beats a 4870 in performance? it will not because it is a faster single GPU. Also, the GTX280 costs 400$, the GTX260 costs 230$, and the 4870x2 costs 550$
two GTX260 in SLI cost less. And multi slot mobos are common nowadays, you are limited to either 2 x 9800GX2, 3x any single core nvidia GPU, or 2x4870x2. And the fourth GPU generally provides no benefit... even the 3rd GPU provides very little...

That is not to say that the 4870x2 isn't something to be proud of though. It is a very good card. But it is a multi GPU card. Although my policy has always been to compare the cost in money.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Did we myocardia? 2 8800gt's in SLI still beat a gtx280 in most cases. That's 2 year old tech for you. Maybe thats because the old tech rocks, and still does rock. But all we really saw was a HUGE increase in die size, with more shaders, rops, tmu's and bandwith cramped into it. And they didn't come cheap, at all. I want something revolutionary again like the 8800gtx which really blew the 7 series out of the water...

G92 cores have been on the market two years already? Wow, time flies.

he probably meant 8800gtx. nov. 06

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: JTsyo

Originally posted by: apoppin
it doesn't say GT212 is q1 09
- more likely q2 09

Nvidia wishes
- this is best case scenario they present to their partners

The 55nm transition will bring some improvements in Q3; probably 212 is just another speed bump or refinement in 09
.. the transition to 45nm or lower will probably take longer and we should see it just before AMD transitions to its own 40nm process

the next DX11 GPUs .. the new architecture ... should roll out with the New Vista OS replacement .. 2010?

From what I saw in an article about Nvision 2008. DX11 will be out for Vista.

http://www.extremetech.com/art.../0,2845,2329314,00.asp

What probably wasn't mentioned in the article is that DX11 will be out for Vista... when it's released with Windows 7 (as Microsoft has already committed to). Hence DX11 = 2010 at the earliest.

 

[MarcVenice]

I didn't mean a 8800gtx. We all know g92 is basicaly a die shrink of g80, it's very much the same core, the shaders, tmu's, rop's, all are pretty much equal, and perform on pretty much the same level, given the same clockspeed. So yes, 2 year old tech. No denying that. And no, the 8800gtx didn't come cheap, at least it was a beast of a card, that outperformed ANYTHING nvidia or ati had to offer previous to the 8800gtx's release, by a big margin. I'm not 100% sure on this one, but I think a 8800gtx outperformed 2 7900gtx's in SLI? And, be it bad or good, a 8800gtx kicked ass for 2 years, and it's still kicking ass, with performance on par of the 9800gtx, which is still nvidia's midrange/high-end offering.

So, hopefully, the new nvidia generation will be something like the 8800gtx was 2 years ago...

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: taltamir
And yes, the 4870x2 is a single slot... but it runs on crossfire drivers which sometimes don't scale at all leading to WORSE performance then a single 4870.

I'd like to see examples of this. I sifted through plenty of reviews at launch and remember seeing Flight Sim X and Supreme Commander showing very little scaling. But other than that, performance was stellar across a great multitude of titles.

As for the "insane power consumption"... it's only about 20% more than the 280gtx. Granted, still high... hell, my PSU probably wouldn't run it. But if 4870x2 is insane, what is 280gtx-- borderline mentally deranged? Either way, that 20% more power translates into more than 20% more performance at high res with AA. My complaint is price. It costs a lot more than 20% higher than the 280gtx. I'd rather see the 4870x2 priced at $450ish or below. *Give* customers a reason to not just buy 2 4870s instead.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: sourthings

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Did we myocardia? 2 8800gt's in SLI still beat a gtx280 in most cases. That's 2 year old tech for you. Maybe thats because the old tech rocks, and still does rock. But all we really saw was a HUGE increase in die size, with more shaders, rops, tmu's and bandwith cramped into it. And they didn't come cheap, at all. I want something revolutionary again like the 8800gtx which really blew the 7 series out of the water...

G92 cores have been on the market two years already? Wow, time flies.

G92 was just a die shrink of G80, so yeah, it's two year old tech. I was excited for the 280s release, planned on getting two, then it released and was slower than 9800GX2 and 150% the performance of 8800GTX, a letdown.

It was a die shrink, but there were architectural changes/additions as well. Based on the same technology, sure.

 

[sourthings]

Originally posted by: taltamir
so if the change the bus size and add video decode features its "the same thing"?
but if they add a few more shaders its suddenly "stark changes"?

That is not making any sense. The G92 is a different core, meant to drastically reduce price while maintaining performance level.

And yes, the 4870x2 is a single slot... but it is multiple GPUs. meaning it has insane power consumption, head production, and runs on crossfire drivers which sometimes don't scale at all leading to WORSE performance then a single 4870. Show me where a 4850 beats a 4870 in performance? it will not because it is a faster single GPU. Also, the GTX280 costs 400$, the GTX260 costs 230$, and the 4870x2 costs 550$
two GTX260 in SLI cost less. And multi slot mobos are common nowadays, you are limited to either 2 x 9800GX2, 3x any single core nvidia GPU, or 2x4870x2. And the fourth GPU generally provides no benefit... even the 3rd GPU provides very little...

That is not to say that the 4870x2 isn't something to be proud of though. It is a very good card. But it is a multi GPU card. Although my policy has always been to compare the cost in money.

It is *essentially* the same thing, from a gaming perspective the video features are meaningless, other than that it just has a smaller memory bus, and is on a smaller process, which allowed the card to be cheaper. It's basically a g80. And there is more than just shaders to the gt200 cards, there are a lot of differences.

I'm not really sure what you mean with the show you where a 4850 is faster than a 4870 thing, I never said anything about that ? But, they're actually exactly the same, the 4870 just uses gddr5 which is where it gets it's performance over the 4850 from.

Yes 4870x2 is multi-gpu on one card, but it scales in almost all the titles you throw at it, and most of the ones where it does not scale, are games so old that you're still getting well over 60fps all the time, so it's a moot point. The only exception I can think of is WoW, where multi-gpu is useless. And to compare costs as you say etc, most of the time the X2 is faster than not only the 280, but 280sli as well, so it's a pretty good buy.

Some people prefer single-gpu, I used to, I never went sli with my 8800gtx because I didn't want to use an nvidia mb, and I didn't get a 9800gx2 because it choked at times at high resolutions. The X2 alleviated both those issues for me.

Anyways this is all off-topic now.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: deadseasquirrel

Originally posted by: taltamir
And yes, the 4870x2 is a single slot... but it runs on crossfire drivers which sometimes don't scale at all leading to WORSE performance then a single 4870.

I'd like to see examples of this. I sifted through plenty of reviews at launch and remember seeing Flight Sim X and Supreme Commander showing very little scaling. But other than that, performance was stellar across a great multitude of titles.

As for the "insane power consumption"... it's only about 20% more than the 280gtx. Granted, still high... hell, my PSU probably wouldn't run it. But if 4870x2 is insane, what is 280gtx-- borderline mentally deranged? Either way, that 20% more power translates into more than 20% more performance at high res with AA. My complaint is price. It costs a lot more than 20% higher than the 280gtx. I'd rather see the 4870x2 priced at $450ish or below. *Give* customers a reason to not just buy 2 4870s instead.

yes, yes it is borderline mentally deranged. Both take unacceptable amounts of power.

as for examples... Google.
I am not going to spend hours going through old review articles to show you an example where it occurs. I don't have that level of free time. But that is a known issue with EVERY mutli gpu setup from both companies. Without proper support for a specific game, it will actually get same or worse performance then a single card, and then you get minor improvements, and then a long time later you finally get serious improvement over one GPU.

Originally posted by: sourthingsI'm not really sure what you mean with the show you where a 4850 is faster than a 4870 thing, I never said anything about that ? But, they're actually exactly the same, the 4870 just uses gddr5 which is where it gets it's performance over the 4850 from.

That is not what I am talking about, a 4850 will never outperform or equal a 4870. But a 4870 (especially with 1GB of ram) will outperform or equal a 4870x2 when the drivers break.

 

[MarcVenice]

Keys, if there were any architectural changes/additions, then how come performance of g92 is so very similar to g80, given the fact they have near identical shaders, rops etc? And clockspeed as well, 8800gt's are clocked higher then my 8800gts 320mb, wanna bet that's where most of the performance boost comes from, combined with the extra shaders? I do. Thats nothing new, or is it?

 

[taltamir]

So basically you are saying "its exactly the same, despite a completely different physical manufacturing process, size, and extra features that nobody cares about"...

Fine... I am done arguing that point.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: taltamir
as for examples... Google.
I am not going to spend hours going through old review articles to show you an example where it occurs. I don't have that level of free time.

I figured you had evidence at-hand. It was said very matter-of-factly. Well, I have a pretty good memory and don't recall any instances outside of FSX where the 4870x2 was matched by the single 4870. (Aside from silly examples like 1024x768 resolutions with 0xAA.) And, while I do often use Google, we've got a bunch of reviews of the 4870x2 in this thread.

I do understand your point about multi-gpu solutions-- games need specific profiles built into the gpu drivers in order to scale efficiently. What I am saying is that the vast majority of the games tested by the review sites showed the 4870x2 to scale well and not have its single-card counterpart outperform it. AMD has either done a great job with their drivers or review sites are only cherry-picking games which scale well.

So, in effect, your original statement should have read something like-- "but it is multiple GPUs, meaning it has about 20% more power consumption than the 280gtx, 5% more heat production than the 280gtx, and runs on crossfire drivers which only scale well in 95% of the games routinely tested by review sites, leading to performance equal to that of a single 4870 in rare cases."

But I agree with you about comparing $ for $. 4870x2 is not a good buy for me because of this. If it were $400, then yes, it would be... whether it's a multi gpu or not.

 

[taltamir]

every single multi gpu i have ever read about had single card counter parts outperform it on occasion due to lack of driver support for specific games.
but it IS rare, normally its 30% to 80% faster then a single card.

"20% more power consumption than the 280gtx, 5% more heat production" - physically impossible.
You mean 5% higher temperature due to difference in quality of HSF when measured in celsius that doesn't measure from 0 so it is essentially not really 5%.
If it consumes 20% more power, it generates 20% more heat. Unless it is made of different materials.

but yea, in 95%+ of games you have at least 30%+ faster performance then a single card.

the real problem is what those 5% of games ARE... they are games that just came out.

Game comes out, no driver support, poor scaling, loss over a single card at worst, 20-30% faster at best.
Month or so later, basic driver support, mutli gpu improves a bunch... half a year later, performance peaks, often close 80 or 90%.

The thing is... usually people buy top end cards to get the newest most intensive games... and for future capability.

Also, there are more bugs (aka, crashes, lost textures, etc) in multi GPU, and there is the whole microstutter issue that means that the % faster FPS is not an accurate depiction of how much more smooth it is, if at all.

If I had tons more money though, yea I'd go for the 4870x2.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

I disagree that it is the new games that are the ones with poor scaling. You're assuming that the first time nV's or ATI's driver team sees a game is when it hits retail. *Most* of the time, the drivers are ready prior to release of the game. We've seen this time and time again over the years. I saw it myself when I was messing with nV driver profiles back in the SLI days of the 6800gt a few years ago. They would have SLI profiles in the drivers well before the game came out.

 

[airhendrix13]

Originally posted by: shangshang

Originally posted by: HOOfan 1

Originally posted by: sourthings

G92 was just a die shrink of G80, so yeah, it's two year old tech. I was excited for the 280s release, planned on getting two, then it released and was slower than 9800GX2 and 150% the performance of 8800GTX, a letdown.

Using that logic, GT200 is just another iteration of the G80 Core as well...so it is still 2 year old technolgy

And extending that logic, are most of us still using the x86 architecture, and how old is this?

Revolutionary technology only comes once about every 10 years. The rest is evolutionary, just like everything in life.

I personally think that it's the game developers and programmers that need to be "revolutionary". The hardwares are fast today. But the softwares are still 5 years behind. Bringing the softwares up to date with hardwares alone will probably give us a "revolutionary" improvement in gaming. Most PC enthusiasts are too hardware-focused. Faster hardwares will drive "old softwres" faster, but soon you will hit a limitation (a decreasing return) in computing if the software does quantum leap in its method. If you run Win98 on a Pentium 4, you'll be surprised that Win98 doesn't run much quicker than on a Pentium 2! Does this mean that the P4 is a just a marginal improvement over a P2? Maybe. But more than that, it shows the limitation of Win98.

Is it time that we demand multithreading 64bit games??? We've had the hardware platform for game developers to do this for almost the last 2 years now, and yet here we are still focused on the hardware! Where's the f*ing software to take advantage of all the hardwar eh? And no I'm not talking about some computation softwares either! I'm talking about games for the masses.

I agree with shangshang. It is ridiculous that most modern games still only run in 32bit and on a single thread. Although most people do run on 32bit, single core PC's, a majority of people who put out the money to play the latest and greatest games are still getting games designed around old tech.

For instance, Crysis. Although it has adopted 64bit and still maintains a 32bit alternative (or vise versa depending on how you view it), it only utilizes up to 2 cores. One might argue that it only utilizes up to 2 cores because most gamers only have 2 cores, and that is a valid point, but that isn't really moving software innovation along.

I'm not saying we should just instantly leave people with older hardware in the dust, but the transition to newer technology in going way too slow, at least for gaming.

When it gets down to the meat and potatoes, I don't think we demand for new tech implementation enough, causing progress slows down (at least here in the US).

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Borealis7
I think AMD/ATI would be very happy if Nvidia continues to make high-price-single-chip-big-performance cards while they capture every other consumer market segment (mid-range, low-range-HTPC and mobile but not IGP since Intel has that).

i'd like to bring up the point which is that we dont need more power in our chips right now. what we need is lower prices, lower power consumption and less heat (or better cooling). because there is no difference between 141 and 160 FPS in ET:QW or UT3 but there is a difference in the electric bill for Air Conditioning.

LOL I'll agree with that assessment.

I often wonder what the fuss is about getting 200fps vs 160. Considering that could be with AA and AF on too.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Bateluer
The GT200s remind me a lot of the Geforce FX series. Lots of hype, impressive feature set, mediocre performance in the face of competition

The GTX280 is STILL the fastest GPU on the market. I guess that would make the ATI cards worse than the FX series.

Yup. You nailed it Wreckage. The GTX280 is the fastest single GPU card, therefore the Radeon 4870 is not as good as the FX5200.

Whoever brought up the FX5200 needs to be shot. That's how old now?

Having said that, the 4870 does compete well against the gtx280 in some cases. Don't forget the only cards reviewed for the most part were 512MB.

 

[Compddd]

So is there going to be a 280 55nm or what!

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Compddd
So is there going to be a 280 55nm or what!

yes

 

[taltamir]

nvidia was supposed to release the 55nm 280 two weeks ago, but they missed that deadline. Then again, the 4870x2 delayed a bunch too... actually most hardware gets delayed. lets hope it hits the market soon. Driving down prices of existing hardware, and offering another choice to the people with excess income.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: taltamir
nvidia was supposed to release the 55nm 280 two weeks ago, but they missed that deadline. Then again, the 4870x2 delayed a bunch too... actually most hardware gets delayed. lets hope it hits the market soon. Driving down prices of existing hardware, and offering another choice to the people with excess income.

can you link to your supposed "supposed to" statement?

i don't remember anything more than *rumors* it would be announced at Nvision - and those were quashed before i left

 

[taltamir]

I honestly don't remember my source on that one. Unfortunately my brain does not have a HDD, and as such I cannot store citation hyperlinks to everything i know. I do try my best to "tag" a memory with a second memory of where I got it, but nothing here.

 

[apoppin]

i do .. *rumors*



i think this slide is MISDIRECTION
"leak", my as . . . nm

where is the GT-x2?
- and their new "ultra"

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: dug777
My local has a GTX350 listed as coming in stock in Q4 this year. Is that nonsense?

Listing is:

Nvidia GeForce GTX 350 (Q4 2008) GT300-GPU 55nm PCI-E2.0 2GB GDDR5 512-bit

Price and stock are 'call'

Bump with the same question for you sticky little nvidia insiders

Is this really the x2? Makes more sense RAM-wise.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: dug777
My local has a GTX350 listed as coming in stock in Q4 this year. Is that nonsense?

Listing is:

Nvidia GeForce GTX 350 (Q4 2008) GT300-GPU 55nm PCI-E2.0 2GB GDDR5 512-bit

Price and stock are 'call'

Bump with the same question for you sticky little nvidia insiders

Is this really the x2? Makes more sense RAM-wise.

Yes it is nonsense, I am sure the board partners are only just being briefed on what Nvidia has coming up next. Anyway, anyone who did know wouldn't say as they'd be bound by NDA.