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nIghtorius
09-20-03, 01:27 PM
Has NV40 Been Taped Out?

Samsung Supplies 1600MHz GDDR2 to NVIDIA...
by Anton Shilov
09/18/2003 | 01:50 PM

Unofficial sources report that Samsung supplied some 10 thousands of its recently announced GDDR2 memory chips with extreme speed to NVIDIA for samples of the code-named NV40 GPU-based graphics cards. This suggests that the Santa Clara, California-based memory manufacturer has taped out the NV40 chips and now is ready to make some graphics cards based on the very early silicon implementation of the NV40.

We reported back on August 28, 2003, that Samsung had supplied its 1600MHz GDDR2 memory products to “leading graphics card manufacturers”. Now GPU:RW brings some more precise facts on the matter: the mentioned DRAMs had been supplied to NVIDIA Corporation for NV40 testing purposes. It makes me assume that either the NV40 graphics processor has been taped out already, or NVIDIA is about to tape out its highly-anticipated graphics chip with DirectX 9.1 support.

Peak theoretical bandwidth of 1600MHz memory on 256-bit bus is mind-blowing 51.2GB/s. In case NVIDIA utilizes so powerful memory on its NV40-based graphics cards, the latter will unbelievably leapfrog performance of the current GeForce FX 5900 Ultra and RADEON 9800 PRO solutions in a lot of cases. Unfortunately, the NV40 will not be available this year, but will come sometime in late Q1 or Q2 next year.

Well, at least now we know what kind of memory NVIDIA is considering for its NV40 at this point. It does not mean that NV40 will be equipped with 1600MHz GDDR2 memory for sure, but even this piece of information is better than nothing because we still know practically nothing about the competitor of the NV40 – ATI’s code-named R420 VPU.

No NVIDIA or Samsung representatives commented on the news-story.


if this is true.. what the hell are they planning to do with the NV40??

Uttar
09-20-03, 02:19 PM
It's rated at 1600Mhz, but they expect to use it at 1500Mhz for a raw bandwidth of 48GB/s.


Uttar

Nutty
09-20-03, 02:32 PM
Tasty..

hopefully the embarrasment of nv3x is driving them to produce an one helluva card for nv40..

volt
09-20-03, 03:26 PM
Originally posted by Nutty
Tasty..

hopefully the embarrasment of nv3x is driving them to produce an one helluva card for nv40..

When it comes to NV40 I'm more concerned with DX 9 features and new implementations / improvements. NV30 had a high clocked memory too :p

Fotis
09-20-03, 05:19 PM
265MB + 1600MHz = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$:(

Kev1
09-20-03, 09:41 PM
256 megs of 1600 mhz GDDR2 memory is awesome, but if the video card costs $600 to $1000 dollars lots of peeps aren't gonna buy it.

Heck, I think $350 is a lot for a video card :( But not a lot for Xmas present :)

sxotty
09-21-03, 10:45 AM
One good thing the 1500Mhz, might be expensive, but then 1000Mhz will become a lot cheaper aye. Imagine your budget card with 700MHz memory clock, and the lowend up at 900 nice.

silence
09-21-03, 11:33 AM
Originally posted by CapsLock
c'mon - wake up people, we've seen this before.

geez I wonder who leaked that info. :rolleyes:

"ooohh - don't buy a 9800xt, the awesome fantabulous nv 40 is JUST around the corner!"

except from what uttar has been hinting at, that the nv38 is getting hacked to imrove dx9 and will be the "new" nv40. which means its still 4X2 and uses a rushed design fix. hmmm, nvidia hasn't really done too well lately with thier rushed-reaction work, have they? its not a good sign that they are going to need 145 million trans to compete against a chip with only 110. (145 of course being a number I pulled out of my er, nose. :D)

if they don't have a miracle in engineering like the r300, the real nv40 is obviously going to have a very difficult job keeping up with r420. the hacked nv38-nv40-dx9 fixer is going to have yield and heat probs I bet.

Caps

k...if they hack nv38 and call it nv40 and launch it......what happens to work they did on original nv40? will that become nv45 or nv50...or gets canned completly?

i am pretty much confused here....cause IMO NV cant afford to do this, they need new and clean design with no (or minimum) traces of NV3x architecture in it.....not playing with this disaster anymore....

Uttar
09-21-03, 12:52 PM
Originally posted by CapsLock
c'mon - wake up people, we've seen this before.

geez I wonder who leaked that info. :rolleyes:

"ooohh - don't buy a 9800xt, the awesome fantabulous nv 40 is JUST around the corner!"

except from what uttar has been hinting at, that the nv38 is getting hacked to imrove dx9 and will be the "new" nv40. which means its still 4X2 and uses a rushed design fix. hmmm, nvidia hasn't really done too well lately with thier rushed-reaction work, have they? its not a good sign that they are going to need 145 million trans to compete against a chip with only 110. (145 of course being a number I pulled out of my er, nose. :D)

if they don't have a miracle in engineering like the r300, the real nv40 is obviously going to have a very difficult job keeping up with r420. the hacked nv38-nv40-dx9 fixer is going to have yield and heat probs I bet.

Caps

:confused: :confused: :confused:

I hinted at what?


Uttar

CapsLock
09-21-03, 04:03 PM
and so in further reply to myself, this just in from Ante P @ B3D, posted today:

"Just spoke to nVidia Europe today at a small comp show here in Sweden.
The representative there spoke about the 5950 Ultra.
He said late october launch, november availability.

Sounds pretty late to me compared to their competitors.

The good thing about the board is that it'll be introduced at 299 USD compared to the 5800 Ultra and then 5900 Ultra which were both introduced at 399 USD IIRC(?)

Though like other videocards this fall/winter it's a very incremental speed bump, no more no less. At least that's the impression he gave me."

OK. So I jumped the gun a little. Excuse, please.

:rolleyes: @ myself

Caps

Lezmaka
09-21-03, 09:15 PM
Originally posted by CapsLock
I can't get your rumour page up right now, but IIRC, on it you said that you had some info that nv38 was not simply a speed bump and that they were doing some new extra work on it, right?

I don't remember reading anything like that on there.

CapsLock
09-21-03, 11:56 PM
I have deleted my hasty and over imaginitive postings (as quoted above unfortunately).

NFI however did have a post which I read too much into. Perhaps Uttar could clarify this a bit.

Apologies all around.

Caps

Dazz
09-22-03, 02:35 PM
Well if it's 1.5 or 1.6GHz memory it would HAVE to be a 700MHz 8x2(or 16x) core. The current FX5900's can't even take advantage of it's bandwith now. I've seen the FX5900SE come in about 0~3% slower then a regular FX5900 dispite the 5GB/sec memory bandwith diffrence.