NV30 Delayed Till April '03

[budd_wm]

Taken from the front page of Hardopc:

The first order of business for NVIDIA is to get NV30 off the ground. Though we picked up product specifics at the launch on Monday, we had a chance to get more detail on the timing of the ramp and remaining challenges yesterday. As expected, NVDIA has chosen not to use low-k dielectric on the NV-30, a decision which involves some performance compromises but also lowers the risk of any manufacturing miscues. With the part now qualified, waiting on system integrators to finish boards is the issue – that clearly is not going to happen until the April quarter.

It will be very important for NVIDIA to successfully ramp the lower-cost versions of NV3X in time to hit the April 2003 quarter, however. The successful launch of the high-end part will not be enough to support a revenue upturn in the April quarter. Management was not willing to answer questions about whether additional versions of NV3X have taped out, although the intention to hit the April quarter was reiterated during our conversation.

Source is here (http://investor.cnet.com/investor/brokeragecenter/newsitem-broker/0-9910-1082-20687186-0.html?tag=ltnc). Looks like Voodoo 5 all over again.

[Evildeus]

It's a bit confused, but i think the author is talking about the NV31 and NV34 part and not the NV30 (while it's not clear in this statement). Everybody who attend to the show in europe (France, England, Germany) says that the NV30 will be available in mass in february.

[StealthHawk]

yeah right. gfFX will not be delayed till April. there is no way that everyone from nvidia would promise mass availability in Febuary if such a report was true. they would lose so much face in front of investors especially.

not to mention they would become the laughing stock of the 3d card industry.

[Megatron]

I think they are talking about the lower cost Nv30 cards.(Low end/Mid range variants)

[DadGT]

The article is a bit confusing. From what I can tell, the NV30 comments refer to the use of a low-k dialectric material saying that those materials can not be used right away, but that won't affect shipments of the chip that was announced and shown. Also, April is more than not refered to as "the April quarter" meaning that is a time frame for the business operations. I don't know nVidia's finanical schedule, but that is a range for them. And the comments were made regarding NV3x products not including NV30, just the lower end versions. And those lower end versions are where the volume money is.

[gstanford]

The low K dielectric referred to in that article was nVidia's secret weapon and the reason why NV30 as launched wasn't everything it was promised to be.

The process is from Applied Materials and its known as Black Diamond (http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/cnn-storydisplay.cgi?story=/www/bw/webbox/bw.011801/210180127.htm&strip=1&nohrule=1&notimestamp=1&target=_new&noeditor=1&nobackground=1&header=%2Fwww%2Fbw%2Famat%2Fstoryheader.shtml&footer=%2Fwww%2Fbw%2Famat%2Ffooter.shtml&grabfont=1&linkcolor=%2333CCFF&story_linkcolor=%2333CCFF&textcolor=%23000000&bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&vlinkcolor=%23551A8B)

The process would have allowed nVidia to clock the chip much faster, less heat, less power consumption.

Unfortunately they could not get the process to work properly. If they had have done so I imagine NV30 would have been clocked around 700 mhz.

So they had to resort to TSMC's standard 13 micron process. This is IMO the reason why we now see the humungous heatsink and the molex power connector.

Greg

[Evildeus]

Originally posted by gstanford
The low K dielectric referred to in that article was nVidia's secret weapon and the reason why NV30 as launched wasn't everything it was promised to be.

The process is from Applied Materials and its known as Black Diamond (http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/cnn-storydisplay.cgi?story=/www/bw/webbox/bw.011801/210180127.htm&strip=1&nohrule=1&notimestamp=1&target=_new&noeditor=1&nobackground=1&header=%2Fwww%2Fbw%2Famat%2Fstoryheader.shtml&footer=%2Fwww%2Fbw%2Famat%2Ffooter.shtml&grabfont=1&linkcolor=%2333CCFF&story_linkcolor=%2333CCFF&textcolor=%23000000&bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&vlinkcolor=%23551A8B)

The process would have allowed nVidia to clock the chip much faster, less heat, less power consumption.

Unfortunately they could not get the process to work properly. If they had have done so I imagine NV30 would have been clocked around 700 mhz.

So they had to resort to TSMC's standard 13 micron process. This is IMO the reason why we now see the humungous heatsink and the molex power connector.

Greg
Seems correct. Perhaps we will see it with the NV35 :confused:

[PreservedSwine]

Wow, either an Nvidia exec and the investor seriously mis-communicated, or this is extraordinarily bad news from Nvidia....

Anyone e-mailed them them to get a response on this?

[thcdru2k]

meryll lynch suck.

[tieros]

nVidia's Q4 ends on January 31st. Most OEMs Q1 ends on March 31st.

nVidia will get the GPU into the hands of the OEMs before the end of January to help strengthen their 2002 numbers.

Likewise, the OEMs will be pushing hard to get product into our hands in February and March to give them strong Q1 numbers.

Anything in April would be new toys.

[Remi]

The April 2003 quarter... NVidia's January quarter ends January 31st 2003. Doesn't that mean that the April 2003 quarter goes from February 1st to April 30th? Not necesseraly the month of April...

[PreservedSwine]

Fiscal years end on Nov. 30th, not Jan 31st...


{DEC-JAN-FEB} 1st Q'03

{MARCH-APR-MAY} 2nd Q'03


Which is why he specifically called it the April Quarter, because April is in the middle of the quarter, not the end. Meaning either the month before April, April itself, or even the month after April.

[tieros]

nVidia Financials (http://biz.yahoo.com/p/n/nvda.html)

Fiscal Year
Fiscal Year Ends Jan 27

Most recent quarter
(fully updated) 27-Oct-2002

Most recent quarter
(flash earnings) 31-Oct-2002

[Bigus Dickus]

Not all companies fiscal years end at the same time.

Northrop Grumman just changed their fiscal year end from Sept. 30 to Dec. 31.

[PreservedSwine]

Originally posted by tieros
nVidia Financials (http://biz.yahoo.com/p/n/nvda.html)

Fiscal Year
Fiscal Year Ends Jan 27

Most recent quarter
(fully updated) 27-Oct-2002

Most recent quarter
(flash earnings) 31-Oct-2002

Thanks for the tip, tieros:)

[Evildeus]

http://www.tecchannel.de/news/20021122/thema20021122-9275.htmlSparkle: GeForceFX in January starting from 500 euro

[Bigus Dickus]

Originally posted by Evildeus
starting from 500 euro

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

[Fotis]

Originally posted by Bigus Dickus
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
I second that!!!:eek:

[DrAkO]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6342

399$ US for FX5800
499$ US for FX5800 Ultra

[budd_wm]

Heh, if that really is the price, then nVidia might as well shoot themselves and bury all their GeforceFXs with them.

[-=DVS=-]

Hmm $500+ for NV30 it better be 60%+ faster then R300 or else there is no point spending so much cash for 20%+ increase if any :o

[sbp]

Guess they want an ultra version to make sure its faster than Radeon 9700 Pro.

[stncttr908]

Sweet god I'm going to be so broke. :(

[Megatron]

499..lol....
And thats in the face of stiff competition....can you all just imagine what their prices would be if ATI decided tomorrow they had enough...


499 dollars is utterly rediculous.:rolleyes:

[tamattack]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
yeah right. gfFX will not be delayed till April. there is no way that everyone from nvidia would promise mass availability in Febuary if such a report was true. they would lose so much face in front of investors especially.

Hrmmm... I seem to recall the CEO's comments progressing as follows:

"it taped out"

"it's on time"

"it's our fall part"

"it hasn't taped out"

"it'll be ready for the holidays"

"we're disappointed to have missed the holiday season"

"January quarter"

In the face of so much BS & FUD, how can you give them the benefit of the doubt now? :rolleyes:

PS: although I, too, think the author of that report was referring to lower-cost variants in April.