Only tech previews of nv30 on monday!!!

[Fotis]

http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.html?i=3439&t=sn
Anand is only hosting a tech preview of nv30 on monday so that says a lot about nv30 availability IMO.I had hopes for benchmarkds but it seems that nv30 is still far from retail!!:( :mad:

[Spiffster]

Well that certainly sucks donkey balls.

[StealthHawk]

i had a feeling we would only see a technology preview, given the latest news/rumors :(

i can still hope for some performance claims with the technology previews though, hopefully in some nice tangible percentage values. something like "4x FSAA with only a 10% hit" would be nice to hear :D

[Fotis]

I guess I read the previews and deside whether or not I'll buy a radeon 9700pro.

[ChrisW]

Well that sucks. I was looking forward to seeing some official specs instead of rumors. :(

[Fotis]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
i had a feeling we would only see a technology preview, given the latest news/rumors :(

i can still hope for some performance claims with the technology previews though, hopefully in some nice tangible percentage values. something like "4x FSAA with only a 10% hit" would be nice to hear :D
And we should just take nvidias word for it?You say 10% hit with 4x fsaa for example but what resolution 800x600 or ever lower?The radeon 9700 has already done that.You see its not easy to see the real performance without bechmarks.The only thing we are going to read IMO is how wonderful geforcefx's pixel shaders are and that it has 128bit color.That just sycks since it'll take 2-3 years to see those pixel shaders in action.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Fotis
And we should just take nvidias word for it?You say 10% hit with 4x fsaa for example but what resolution 800x600 or ever lower?The radeon 9700 has already done that.You see its not easy to see the real performance without bechmarks.

very good point.

but i was thinking that they would also use a GF4 as a reference point. ie, 10% hit compared to a 50% hit on a GF4. with that information it becomes much easier to pinpoint what resolution we are talking about.

[Fotis]

IMO the battle between geforcefx and radeon 9700pro will come down to fsaa&aniso performance.Who really cares if gforcefx is 20-30% faster in default setting or better shaders?
Everyone wants or even demands to be able to use both fsaa&aniso with their new cards.
Radeon 9700pro's fsaa&aniso performance and IQ is amazing and nvidia will have to pull a rabbit from its hat to beat that.
I hope it does because that will only benefit the consumers. ;)

[Uttar]

I know this is a fairly dumb question...

But aren't the original R300 previews we had in July "technology previews" too?
If they could be considered as such, maybe we'll only get % numbers like with the R300?


Uttar

[Fotis]

Originally posted by Uttar
I know this is a fairly dumb question...

But aren't the original R300 previews we had in July "technology previews" too?
If they could be considered as such, maybe we'll only get % numbers like with the R300?


Uttar
R300 previews had % numbers against gf4 but tested in real hardware and you were able to compare with older gf4 reviews.
I call that benchmark.If we have something similar thats fine but a tech preview isn't about that.

[Kruno]

If you are running Quake 3 at 700fps, 10% is a lot. :p


Originally posted by StealthHawk
i had a feeling we would only see a technology preview, given the latest news/rumors :(

i can still hope for some performance claims with the technology previews though, hopefully in some nice tangible percentage values. something like "4x FSAA with only a 10% hit" would be nice to hear :D

[suburbanguy]

NV30 with 128-bit bus + 2003 availablity = unimpressive :(

[thcdru2k]

unimpressive in the specs..yes. but hey parhelia released a 256-bit bus, with some impressive specs and features. and they didn't come up with the performance.

[DrAkO]

Bah...if the NV30 really beat the R9700 with an 128 bits architecture, what's the problem ?

With all this marketing, nVIDIA CANNOT make error, the NV30 must have better performances and must be more powerful than R9700.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by suburbanguy
NV30 with 128-bit bus + 2003 availablity = unimpressive :(
how do you know it's unimpressive without seeing its features and performance yet?

we're in the age of smart chips, raw specs don't really mean a thing anymore.

[thcdru2k]

yup..just look to amd and intel. amd obviously is the smarter chip.

[Mono]

Originally posted by thcdru2k
yup..just look to amd and intel. amd obviously is the smarter chip.

True.. but intels raw speed is still kicking thier ass.

[netviper13]

Originally posted by Mono
True.. but intels raw speed is still kicking thier ass.

Yes, but that's because Intel has (or had) an ~800mhz lead in raw speed; the gap isn't anywhere near that big here.

[tamattack]

Originally posted by ChrisW
Well that sucks. I was looking forward to seeing some official specs instead of rumors. :(

Actually, sounds more like you'll be getting official rumours... :confused:

[Bigus Dickus]

I expect a fairly in depth disclosure of the general NV30 architecture (bus width, crossbar memory controller configuration, 8 x 1 or 8 x 2 or whatever, 6x or 8x FSAA, MSAA or other method... RGMS or otherwise, 8x 16x or whatever AF, number of vertex shaders, discussions about what operations the pixel shaders can compute in parallel, and any interesting tricks the core does, perhaps including a good covering of thier bandwidth saving compression techniques).

I expect a demo board or two running and showing pretty stuff, with no benchmarking done at all. They'll just point and say "look how pretty, look how fast."

I also expect some speculation as to final performance, probably given by vague comparisons to other cards in other situations with the details ill-defined.

[tamattack]

Originally posted by ricercar
NVIDIA's not dumb. They learned by screwing up nForce1 with over-promising and under-delivering. NVIDIA appears to have delivered appropriately with nForce2 SPP-boards, albeit they're tardy with IGP boards. With this regained momentum, NVIDIA's not going to screw with those who kept the faith.

nforce announced June 4, 2001. Actual availability was sometime in October/November timeframe.

nforce2 announced July 16, 2002. Actual availability November.

Doesn't seem like they learned much from nforce1 launch mistakes, does it? :rolleyes:

[PreservedSwine]

Originally posted by Uttar
I know this is a fairly dumb question...

But aren't the original R300 previews we had in July "technology previews" too?
If they could be considered as such, maybe we'll only get % numbers like with the R300?


Uttar
Yes, and although the reviewers were not allowed to post actual numbers, they were able to play games with the hardeware, and give readers their opinion.

It's tough to do that w/ a piece of paper

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by tamattack
nforce announced June 4, 2001. Actual availability was sometime in October/November timeframe.

nforce2 announced July 16, 2002. Actual availability November.

Doesn't seem like they learned much from nforce1 launch mistakes, does it? :rolleyes:

the one difference being this. nforce2 thrives on CPUs with a 333FSB. none have been available till now. nforce2 performance with 266FSB is "only" that of a KT333 or so.

so nvidia really had no good reason not to wait until the CPUs were ready for nforce2. nforce2 was made for the new tbreds.

[tamattack]

Originally posted by ricercar
LOL. I was thinking only about performance against competition, not calendar delays. :D No, NVIDIA's not learned anything at all if we look at the time between announcement and delivery.

Ahhh... that makes more sense. :D

It's just that I remember how some nv rep said at the time of the nforce2 announcement that they had learned from their mistake of pre-announcing nforce1 so far ahead of availability. That's what I thought you were referring to...

[digitalwanderer]

...what exactly is a "tech preview" compared to a regular old preview and why is it such a bummer of a thing?

(Honest, I'm not being sarcastic. I really don't know. :( )