Current reports from the web are claiming that we will in fact see a similar move from Nvidia that we already saw with ATI and it's HD3800 series.
That is saying they will rebrand the 8800GTS as the 9800GTX and the 8800GT as the 9800GT. What is unknown is if they will beef up the clocks or memory speed and size in the stock versions of the cards, compared to the 8800 series. This stems from the expected hardware capabilities of the 9800GX2, that doesn't allow them to place the G100 as the 9800GTX even if they could deliver it in time for the supposed launch date for these cards.
Conveniently, from a marketing viewpoint, they also place some extra motivation for unaware buyers, since they now have also something "new" from Nvidia, that competes more favorably with AMD/ATI. They have recently launched the HD3800 series of cards, which are, performance-wise, no more than softly tweaked HD2900s with DX10.1 and PCIe 2.0; the G92 chip doesn't even pack the DX10.1 capabilities though.
Expected availability is February or March for the 9800GTX and March or April for the 9800GT. The 9600GT will come in the previously disclosed date of February 14th and will fit between the 8600GTS and 8800GT in performance and price.
The 9800GX2 is expected to arrive by the same time the 9800GTX does.
9800GTX Known Specs:
- 65nm process technology at TSMC.
- Over one billion transistors.
- Second Generation Unified Shader Architecture.
- Double precsion support (FP64).
- GPGPU native.
- Over one TeraFLOPS of shader processing power.
- MADD+ADD configuration for the shader untis (2+1 FLOPS=3 FLOPS per ALU)
- Fully Scalar design.
- 512-bit memory interface.
- 1024MB GDDR4 graphics memory.
- DirectX 10.1 support.
- OpenGL 3.0 Support.
- eDRAM die for "FREE 4xAA".
- built in Audio Chip.
- built in tesselation unit (in the graphics core"
- Improved AA and AF quality levels
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Friday, January 4, 2008
NVIDIA 9800 GX2 & 9600 GT
HardOCP today leaked an NVIDIA GPU Roadmap Outline for 2008, how true or how false this is we'll learn soon. But it's really weird to see HardOCP doing a thing like this. They are not the usual suspects when it comes to leaking out NDA information.
Details aren't quite hard and fast, but this is NVIDIA's top-of-the-line to-be, so it's never too early to start nerding out. HardOCP says the best way to think of the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a 8800 that's been shrunk down to 65nm and SLI'd onto a "single" card. The card is supposed to be at least 30% faster than a 8800 Ultra, and will apparently support Quad SLI. So:
* 1GB frame buffer
* Two PCBs
* Two 65nm GPUs
* 256 Stream Processors
That's the way HardOCP tells it, and who are we to argue?
In other news NVIDIA's newest mid-range processor, codenamed D9M, will make its official debut as the GeForce 9600 GT. Corporate guidance from NVIDIA lists the initial GeForce 9600 GT shipments come stock with a 650 MHz core clock and a 1625 MHz unified shader clock. Unlike the G84 core found on GeForce 8600 GT, D9M will feature a 256-bit memory bus interface. Coupled with a 900 MHz memory clock, NVIDIA calculates the memory bandwidth at 57.6 GB/s.
The texture fill rate is estimated at 20.8 billion pixels per second. The company would not indicate how many shaders or stream processors reside on the D9M core. Here's HardOCPs take:
We serve up a glimpse into the NVIDIA GeForce GPU cycle for early 2008. Some will laugh, some will cry, and some will wonder “WTF?”
NVIDIA Roadmap Outline for 1H08
While this is in no way complete, it should help our readers understand the direction NVIDIA is taking their video cards in early 2008. Some of this is sketchy and we will surely have follow up articles on the subject.
While a continued GPU die shrink to 65nm is certainly welcome, many of our readers are going to be disappointed by the fact that no next-gen technology is on the outlook as of yet. It has been over a year since the 8800 family of GPU was launched.
* GeForce 8800 Ultra will be replaced by the GeForce 9800 GX2 in February / March timeframe. More information and pictures are here.
* The GeForce 8800 GTX will be replaced by the GeForce 9800 GTX in February / March timeframe. This card will support Tri-SLI.
* The GeForce 9800 GT should appear in the March / April timeframe. We have limited information on this card currently.
* The recently “released” GeForce 8800 GS will be a limited GPU in terms of production. Do not expect more than 100,000 GPUs to be shipped worldwide, but soon. ASUS will supply Asia, Palit will supply China, EVGA will supply North America, and XFX will supply Europe. The GS is an “inventory solution.” The 8800 GS is 192-bit bus and will ship in 320MB, 512MB, and 640MB versions with a trimmed down number of stream processors as well. Will fall in line below 8800 GT but above the 9600 GT.
* The GeForce 9600 GT will fall in line below the 8800 GT, but give better performance than the GeForce 8600 GTS. The 9600 GT will be a whole new card not based on the 8800 GT PCB. Price point should be at $169 in retail/etail and plans are to carry this GPU throughout 2008.
So as it looks right now, we should not expect anything out of NVIDIA in terms of next-gen technology at least until mid-2008. Don’t be confused by the new “98XX” model numbers as they don’t signify much more than the die shrink to 65nm. You might agree or disagree with this naming scheme, but the entire NVIDIA card market is getting confusing and this might at least help things be a bit not-as-confusing to consumers looking for a newer product, but most likely is being done for the big system builders needing “new” specs for new system builds.
My feeling is that NVIDIA is holding back their true next-gen technology (if they actually have it working now) for the AMD R700 release that we could see around mid-2008, if not sooner.
As for the recent rumors on Intel purchasing or merging with NVIDIA, well, we think that is a bunch of BS.
We do realize this “roadmap” is far from complete. When we have new information we will be sharing it.
Details aren't quite hard and fast, but this is NVIDIA's top-of-the-line to-be, so it's never too early to start nerding out. HardOCP says the best way to think of the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a 8800 that's been shrunk down to 65nm and SLI'd onto a "single" card. The card is supposed to be at least 30% faster than a 8800 Ultra, and will apparently support Quad SLI. So:
* 1GB frame buffer
* Two PCBs
* Two 65nm GPUs
* 256 Stream Processors
That's the way HardOCP tells it, and who are we to argue?
In other news NVIDIA's newest mid-range processor, codenamed D9M, will make its official debut as the GeForce 9600 GT. Corporate guidance from NVIDIA lists the initial GeForce 9600 GT shipments come stock with a 650 MHz core clock and a 1625 MHz unified shader clock. Unlike the G84 core found on GeForce 8600 GT, D9M will feature a 256-bit memory bus interface. Coupled with a 900 MHz memory clock, NVIDIA calculates the memory bandwidth at 57.6 GB/s.
The texture fill rate is estimated at 20.8 billion pixels per second. The company would not indicate how many shaders or stream processors reside on the D9M core. Here's HardOCPs take:
We serve up a glimpse into the NVIDIA GeForce GPU cycle for early 2008. Some will laugh, some will cry, and some will wonder “WTF?”
NVIDIA Roadmap Outline for 1H08
While this is in no way complete, it should help our readers understand the direction NVIDIA is taking their video cards in early 2008. Some of this is sketchy and we will surely have follow up articles on the subject.
While a continued GPU die shrink to 65nm is certainly welcome, many of our readers are going to be disappointed by the fact that no next-gen technology is on the outlook as of yet. It has been over a year since the 8800 family of GPU was launched.
* GeForce 8800 Ultra will be replaced by the GeForce 9800 GX2 in February / March timeframe. More information and pictures are here.
* The GeForce 8800 GTX will be replaced by the GeForce 9800 GTX in February / March timeframe. This card will support Tri-SLI.
* The GeForce 9800 GT should appear in the March / April timeframe. We have limited information on this card currently.
* The recently “released” GeForce 8800 GS will be a limited GPU in terms of production. Do not expect more than 100,000 GPUs to be shipped worldwide, but soon. ASUS will supply Asia, Palit will supply China, EVGA will supply North America, and XFX will supply Europe. The GS is an “inventory solution.” The 8800 GS is 192-bit bus and will ship in 320MB, 512MB, and 640MB versions with a trimmed down number of stream processors as well. Will fall in line below 8800 GT but above the 9600 GT.
* The GeForce 9600 GT will fall in line below the 8800 GT, but give better performance than the GeForce 8600 GTS. The 9600 GT will be a whole new card not based on the 8800 GT PCB. Price point should be at $169 in retail/etail and plans are to carry this GPU throughout 2008.
So as it looks right now, we should not expect anything out of NVIDIA in terms of next-gen technology at least until mid-2008. Don’t be confused by the new “98XX” model numbers as they don’t signify much more than the die shrink to 65nm. You might agree or disagree with this naming scheme, but the entire NVIDIA card market is getting confusing and this might at least help things be a bit not-as-confusing to consumers looking for a newer product, but most likely is being done for the big system builders needing “new” specs for new system builds.
My feeling is that NVIDIA is holding back their true next-gen technology (if they actually have it working now) for the AMD R700 release that we could see around mid-2008, if not sooner.
As for the recent rumors on Intel purchasing or merging with NVIDIA, well, we think that is a bunch of BS.
We do realize this “roadmap” is far from complete. When we have new information we will be sharing it.
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