Uttar
12-04-02, 02:47 PM
Hello everyone,
As I speculated before, I think that single VS, many calculators architecture could quite indeed be useful for Dynamic Branching.
But... Couldn't it have other uses?
I've rethinked about it... And I've found one. Mainstream cards.
As recent roadmaps show, nVidia is going to release the NV30, NV31 and NV34 ( High-end, mid-end, low-end respectively ) in H1 2003.
It'll be the first time they'll use *three* chips to go after the desktop market.
It'll also be the first time they derive so many chips from the same core in so little time. In the past, it always took them at least 6 months to do a single derivative. Now, it should take them a little less than that to do 2 derivatives! Sounds like we can guess where's the money going: in R&D :)
But... If nVidia decided to go after mid-end and low-end so rapidly, they had to think about how to reduce the transistor count more easily.
In the past, cutting pixel pipelines was the way by excellence to do that. Never was anything else done. So, now, ATI got the Radeon 9500 non-pro with 4 pixel pipelines... And 4 Vertex Shading units!
Now, retrieving a Vertex Shading unit doesn't do miracles for reducing transistor count. But if you had a 2 pipeline architecture for very low-end, NV30's current Vertex Shading power would really be wasted! And having a few million less transistors is always welcome for mainstream :)
However, I'd bet retrieving a Vertex Shading unit isn't all that easy, too. Else ATI would obviously have used something more like 3 VS for the Radeon 9500 non-pro. Why? I'd guess that's because Triangle Setup is made with having 4 input sources in mind. So you'd have to modify more of the architecture.
I could be wrong on this, so if anyone got proof this isn't correct, please say so.
Now, with nVidia 1 VS, many calculators, you could simply retrieve a few calculators! That would be very practical, as you could reduce transistor count without too much effort.
So, what do you think? Does this make sense? Do you think nVidia NV31 or NV34 will have less VS power/clock?
Uttar
As I speculated before, I think that single VS, many calculators architecture could quite indeed be useful for Dynamic Branching.
But... Couldn't it have other uses?
I've rethinked about it... And I've found one. Mainstream cards.
As recent roadmaps show, nVidia is going to release the NV30, NV31 and NV34 ( High-end, mid-end, low-end respectively ) in H1 2003.
It'll be the first time they'll use *three* chips to go after the desktop market.
It'll also be the first time they derive so many chips from the same core in so little time. In the past, it always took them at least 6 months to do a single derivative. Now, it should take them a little less than that to do 2 derivatives! Sounds like we can guess where's the money going: in R&D :)
But... If nVidia decided to go after mid-end and low-end so rapidly, they had to think about how to reduce the transistor count more easily.
In the past, cutting pixel pipelines was the way by excellence to do that. Never was anything else done. So, now, ATI got the Radeon 9500 non-pro with 4 pixel pipelines... And 4 Vertex Shading units!
Now, retrieving a Vertex Shading unit doesn't do miracles for reducing transistor count. But if you had a 2 pipeline architecture for very low-end, NV30's current Vertex Shading power would really be wasted! And having a few million less transistors is always welcome for mainstream :)
However, I'd bet retrieving a Vertex Shading unit isn't all that easy, too. Else ATI would obviously have used something more like 3 VS for the Radeon 9500 non-pro. Why? I'd guess that's because Triangle Setup is made with having 4 input sources in mind. So you'd have to modify more of the architecture.
I could be wrong on this, so if anyone got proof this isn't correct, please say so.
Now, with nVidia 1 VS, many calculators, you could simply retrieve a few calculators! That would be very practical, as you could reduce transistor count without too much effort.
So, what do you think? Does this make sense? Do you think nVidia NV31 or NV34 will have less VS power/clock?
Uttar