View Full Version : FX 5700 - What is different about the architecture?
jimmyjames123
10-15-03, 09:36 PM
So apparently the architecture of the FX 5700 (NV36) is different than the 5600 Ultra. Does anyone know what the differences are, and why they would not be applied to the FX 5950 (NV38) that is coming out soon?
On a side note, it seems that NVIDIA and ATI are really not pushing things this year much at all. The 5600 Ultra at times is bested by the Ti series (although apparently the new FX 5700 is said to be a worthy successor to the Ti series), and the 9600XT is still slower in general than the significantly older 9500 Pro. The 5950 Ultra and the 9800XT are essentially speed-bumped versions of the 5900 Ultra and the 9800 Pro.
Next year is going to be really interesting!
Hellbinder
10-15-03, 09:51 PM
Eh.. Its a slow Market.. People have less money to spend etc.. ATi and Nvidia were planning to slow things down anyway.
I would seriously not expect anything in the way of Major Architectural Advances any more than once every 16-18 months from here on out.
The Baron
10-15-03, 10:05 PM
I would seriously not expect anything in the way of Major Architectural Advances any more than once every 16-18 months from here on out.
Bingo.
And what's different? I think the NV36, not the NV38 or NV35 or anything like that, is closer to what we'll see in NV40.
I really think it's a refined 5800... at this point...
***first mainstream DDR2 video card***
Could it be what they wanted the nv30 to be? in some way?
particleman
10-15-03, 10:17 PM
DDR II is overrated at this point in time. Yields on DDR I allow it to hit speeds almost just as high, but with lower latency and without all the heat. Infact since I doubt the 5700 will use the best DDR II (the stuff that runs at the very fastest speeds) since it is a mainstream card, I see little point in using DDR II. I mean DDR II did absolutely nothing for the 9800 256MB, the memory had slightly higher latency and it produced more heat. Unless you are going to use DDR II to push the envelope, there is pretty much no reason to use it.
Anyways there is not enough information on it yet to conclude what type of RAM it uses, but I think it is a better design decision to use DDR I.
This is a little old, but features distro info...
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1472
and a couple pics of an nv36...
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=128&p=1
particleman
10-15-03, 10:59 PM
Oh yeah I saw those articles before but forgot all about them. If it is a revised 5800, then I am a bit surprised it doesn't do better. I don't know I just kind remembered the 5800 Ultra to be a bit closer in performance to the 9700 Pro, not duking it out with a 9600.
Just a quote to see how odd some reviews sound today, from Hexus.net. From Hexus's 5800 Ultra review in which they compare it to a 9700 Pro
"There can be no question that the GeForce FX out performs the Radeon. We saw the demos of the Ogre, Dawn and the truck - these are incredible. We will have these on the media archive on the end of this review. There is more to the FX than just gaming, and benchmarks. We believe that this card will be the future of games"
flick556
10-15-03, 11:15 PM
Originally posted by particleman
Oh yeah I saw those articles before but forgot all about them. If it is a revised 5800, then I am a bit surprised it doesn't do better. I don't know I just kind remembered the 5800 Ultra to be a bit closer in performance to the 9700 Pro, not duking it out with a 9600.
Just a quote to see how odd some reviews sound today, from Hexus.net. From Hexus's 5800 Ultra review
"There can be no question that the GeForce FX out performs the Radeon. We saw the demos of the Ogre, Dawn and the truck - these are incredible. We will have these on the media archive on the end of this review. There is more to the FX than just gaming, and benchmarks. We believe that this card will be the future of games"
The 4 pipline desiegn and 128 bit memory bus slow it down allot.
I think some test where speculating the 5600 ultra to be a 2X2 pipeline some of the time the same way the 5900 does it's 4x2 thing in some situations. Maybe the 5700 is a true 4x1 or 4x2 pipline,which makes me speculate that the nv40 will be a 8x1 all the time.
Hellbinder
10-16-03, 12:18 AM
Originally posted by particleman
Oh yeah I saw those articles before but forgot all about them. If it is a revised 5800, then I am a bit surprised it doesn't do better. I don't know I just kind remembered the 5800 Ultra to be a bit closer in performance to the 9700 Pro, not duking it out with a 9600.
Just a quote to see how odd some reviews sound today, from Hexus.net. From Hexus's 5800 Ultra review in which they compare it to a 9700 Pro
"There can be no question that the GeForce FX out performs the Radeon. We saw the demos of the Ogre, Dawn and the truck - these are incredible. We will have these on the media archive on the end of this review. There is more to the FX than just gaming, and benchmarks. We believe that this card will be the future of games"
Aaah.. Another Brilliant quote from Hexus... ;)
StealthHawk
10-16-03, 01:34 AM
Originally posted by ragejg
I really think it's a refined 5800... at this point...
***first mainstream DDR2 video card***
Could it be what they wanted the nv30 to be? in some way?
I really, really doubt that the transistor counts are very similar between NV30 and NV36. In other words, I really, really doubt there are (m)any similarities between NV30 and NV36.
-=DVS=-
10-16-03, 04:42 AM
Originally posted by flick556
............................ Maybe the 5700 is a true 4x1 or 4x2 pipline,which makes me speculate that the nv40 will be a 8x1 all the time.
better not be 8x1 only becouse thats what current radeon R300/350 is.... old tech ;)
we need 12 or 16 pipe polly pushing power :D
Well I heard that NV36 was gonna be slightly different under the hood. I took that to mean a slightly different Ps2.0 units, which might solve their main problems, but perhaps its something else. I'm pretty sure their is some architectural change in there somewhere tho.
gstanford
10-16-03, 05:22 AM
If I were nVidia at this point in time I would probably be seeking to improve my PS V1.4 support more than anything else.
Most of the games/demos/apps released since the launch of GF-FX use way more PS V1.4 shaders than V2.0 even when PS V2.0 is also employed.
nVidia made the error of implimenting PS V1.4 through the PS V2.0 portion of GF-FX instead of dedicating special purpose silicon to it like was done for PS V1.0 thru V1.3.
There is also the fact that nVidia doesn't like PS V1.4 (NIH syndrome at work) because it is ATi's baby and that may be why they supported it the way they did.
Well after thinking (yes, I do that ;) ) about it, and doing some reading up, I suppose my nv30'ish statements maybe only hold true for the memory controller setup... The core due to vastly improved PS/VS support MUST be something new that they've cooked up... IMO.
Why is everyone comparing it to the 5800? The 5700 is based on the 5900.
NV35 (5900) -> NV36 (5700)
NV30 (5800) -> NV31 (5600)
The major architectural difference is that the pipeline is an entirely fp pipeline. That means that it'll support the same DX9 optimizations as the 5900--namely half/partial precision 16 bit fp hints. If you'll recall the 5800 and 5600 perform really badly in DX9 since the optimal path for these chips is fixed (not supported by DX9) instead of half (supported by DX9 via _pp hint).
Bottomline, what doe this mean? The NV35 series (NV35, NV36, NV38) was designed to correct shortcomings in DX9. If you bought an NV30 based (NV30, NV31, NV36) cards then you might just be screwed. There's very little that can be done to optimize floating point shaders in DX9 on these cards. Although it might seem minor, the change from fixed->fp pipeline makes a huge difference and is exactly why the 5700 can compete with the 9600, while the 5600 had no chance in DX9 apps.
5700 - crippled 5900
5900 - base line
5900 ultra - higher core clock
5950 ultra - even higher core clock, higher memory clock
Originally posted by jimmyjames123
So apparently the architecture of the FX 5700 (NV36) is different than the 5600 Ultra. Does anyone know what the differences are, and why they would not be applied to the FX 5950 (NV38) that is coming out soon?
On a side note, it seems that NVIDIA and ATI are really not pushing things this year much at all. The 5600 Ultra at times is bested by the Ti series (although apparently the new FX 5700 is said to be a worthy successor to the Ti series), and the 9600XT is still slower in general than the significantly older 9500 Pro. The 5950 Ultra and the 9800XT are essentially speed-bumped versions of the 5900 Ultra and the 9800 Pro.
Next year is going to be really interesting!
jimmyjames123
10-16-03, 01:33 PM
If you bought an NV30 based (NV30, NV31, NV36) cards then you might just be screwed.
You mean NV34 instead of NV36, correct? ;)
hithere
10-16-03, 02:44 PM
Originally posted by Hellbinder
Eh.. Its a slow Market.. People have less money to spend etc.. ATi and Nvidia were planning to slow things down anyway.
I would seriously not expect anything in the way of Major Architectural Advances any more than once every 16-18 months from here on out.
...and THANK GOD...at last, we may be able to see what the games manufacturers can do with current/previous generation hardware, rather than hardware from "days of yore" be the standard. I'd just like to see the current crop of DX9 boards saturate the market, and see DX9 games saturate the market along with them.
Oops. Thanks for the correction.
Originally posted by jimmyjames123
You mean NV34 instead of NV36, correct? ;)
StealthHawk
10-16-03, 06:37 PM
Originally posted by gstanford
There is also the fact that nVidia doesn't like PS V1.4 (NIH syndrome at work) because it is ATi's baby and that may be why they supported it the way they did.
No, NVIDIA loves PS1.4 now! Remember their HL2 response?
Discussion (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17792&perpage=25&highlight=PS1.4&pagenumber=4)
bkswaney
10-17-03, 12:53 PM
I see the 5700 as a cut down NV35. Nothing more.
Just my 2 cents. :)
photophreak314
11-01-03, 07:26 PM
The 5700 is just an underclocked 5900. It's way better than the 5600 though (ultra/non-ultra). It performs about 2X more than any 5600 and about the same as the 9600Pro/XT.
Lezmaka
11-01-03, 08:57 PM
Originally posted by photophreak314
The 5700 is just an underclocked 5900. It's way better than the 5600 though (ultra/non-ultra). It performs about 2X more than any 5600 and about the same as the 9600Pro/XT.
Yeah, uh huh, sure, ok, whatever...
There is a plethora of information about this product why is it in the rumor mill? Is it just here so people can make things up like "it is an underclocked 5900"? Perhaps we should start rumors about other hardware, like did you know if you do an incantation your P4 will sudennly run in 64bit I heard it, so its true...
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