Hmm lots of High End cards this generation :D

[coldpower27]

nVidia Geforce 6800 Ultra Extreme 450/1200 16x1 MSRP 539US NV40 7200 MPixel/s Filrrate and 38.4GB/s Bandwidth
nVidia Geforce 6800 Ultra 400/1100 16x1 MSRP 499US NV40 6400 MPixel/s Fillrate and 35.2GB/s Bandwidth
nVidia Geforce 6800 GT 350/1000 16x1 MSRP 399US NV40 5600 MPixel/s Fillrate and 32.0GB/s Bandwidth
nVidia Geforce 6800 325/ 700 12x1 MSRP 299US NV40 3900 MPixel/s Fillrate and 22.4GB/s Bandwidth
nvidia Geforce 6800 LE 320/ 700 8x1 MSRP 199US NV40 2560 MPixel/s Fillrate abd 22.4GB/s Bandwidth (Unconfirmed)

ATI Radeon X800 XT PE 520/1120 16x1 MSRP R420 499US 8320 MPixels/s Fillrate and 35.6GB/s Bandwidth
ATI Radeon X800 XT 500/1000 16x1 MSRP R420 4??US 8000 MPixels/s Fillrate and 32.0GB/s Bandwidth
ATI Radeon X800 GT 425/ 900 16x1 MSRP R420 4??US 6800 MPixels/s Fillrate and 28.8GB/s Bandwidth (Unconfirmed)
ATI Radeon X800 Pro 475/ 900 12x1 MSRP R420 399US 5700 MPixels/s Fillrate and 28.8GB/s Bandwidth
ATI Radeom X800 SE 450/ 800 8x1 MSRP R420 299US 3600 MPixels/s Fillrate and 25.6GB/s Bandwidth (Unconfirmed)

Guess Nvidia really wants to push the 6800 Series into alot of market segements.

[retsam]

and how is this a rumor ???

[MUYA]

That is what Jen Huang said in his confreence call a few weeks before NV40 launch. That the NV4X will have a broad range covering all market areas/segments as NV40 was design to be more modular than previous generations?

[coldpower27]

Yeh, I remember they wanted to have many cards based on 1 core :)

This is gonna be interesting, it's like there is a card for all budgets and ranges from very expensive to very cheap.

[msxyz]

Right, modular design and reuse of flawled chips that don't pass the quality tests.

But with such a large die, the volumes available will be always limited. I don't know if this strategy will pay. So far they've been unable to satisfy the demand. It may be because there is a shortage of GDDR-III, but what about the low end boards ? With classic (and cheap) DDR available at 2nS or less, there should be ****loads of 6800/LE unless they don't have many spare dies around.

[Gator]

People like variety, I think that's the other thing to consider.

The only problem with $200 cards is it will force the FX5900 cards to further drop in price, and they could essentially lose money. I suspect they are not anxious to release the 6800LE yet.

[Lezmaka]

Right, modular design and reuse of flawled chips that don't pass the quality tests.

But with such a large die, the volumes available will be always limited. I don't know if this strategy will pay. So far they've been unable to satisfy the demand. It may be because there is a shortage of GDDR-III, but what about the low end boards ? With classic (and cheap) DDR available at 2nS or less, there should be ****loads of 6800/LE unless they don't have many spare dies around.


You do know that they will be releasing NV4x chips specifically designed for performance-mainstream, mainstream and budget right? That's where the "x" in NV4x comes from. I seriously doubt you'll see a NV40 with only 4 pipes active for budget, and the rumored 6800 LE is rumored to be an OEM only card, like the X800 SE.

Once NV41/43/44 or whatever the codenames are come out, I bet you'll see supply of 6800 standard and 6800 LE dry up.

[coldpower27]

It will depend on how powerful NV43 Mainstream card is, and there is a possibility they are gonna move Geforce 6800 and Geforce 6800 LE to a native 12x1 Pipe configuration instead of slicing 16x1 cores with the NV41.

NV43 the mainstream part, is very likely to be at least 8x1 configuration, since it's is rumored to score 7000+ in 3D Mark. Though maybe they can slap a 128Bit Wide Memory Interface to reduce costs. They could also put on cheaper memory, like 2.2ns GDDR.
They also could have a reduced amount of Vertex Shader Units too, like maybe down to 4. But it will be interesting to see what the mainstream card is gonna be like.

[msxyz]

I seriously doubt a 128Bit bus card could score 7000 on 3DMark2003, unless it's clocked at insane high speed with very fast RAM, which would defeat the purpose of cutting costs. A PCB designed for 256bit datapath may be more complex requiring more layers, but so does a PCB designed to operate at very high speed.

A 8 pipeline NV4x variant with 256bit bus, clocked at 350MHz could be able to reach those rumored scores in 3dmark and should be quite a competitive card, if released at 200$ or less

[FastM]

Right, modular design and reuse of flawled chips that don't pass the quality tests.

But with such a large die, the volumes available will be always limited. I don't know if this strategy will pay. So far they've been unable to satisfy the demand. It may be because there is a shortage of GDDR-III, but what about the low end boards ? With classic (and cheap) DDR available at 2nS or less, there should be ****loads of 6800/LE unless they don't have many spare dies around.

Their definatly is a shortage for whatever reason. X800pro and XT's have been on Canadien supplier's lists for more than a month now and they started showing stock last week. I havent even seen a 6800 even listed yet...