DX10 Cards Will Be Late, Hot

[Lemur]

At least we've got some news about the Nvidia DX10 part, the G80 chip.

So, it is going to be late, that is not the ugly bit, board partners are telling us that it very well might have an external PSU to power the beast. We told you it was going to be hot, but not as hot as an R600. Either way, this does not bode well for either card. Think of a monster with a brick to keep it from running away.

The chip itself is another story, and from the initial info we have, it is going to be a weird beastie. So weird in fact that it deserves a bit of digging before we say for sure.

ATI's DX10 chip, the R600, will be even later. As Mr. Lebowski would say, "Dude!"

We expected to see R600 up and ready by the end of the calendar year but it looks like we are out of luck this time.

The acquisition of ATI made things and people a little bit insecure and out of focus, so the chip won't be read for December as originally planed.

Yet more info about the G80:

What they will talk about is the odd part. First is the arrangement of the chip, physically we are hearing that it is 2 * 2 cm, or about a 400mm die. Ouch. One of the reasons it is so big is the whole dual core rumor that has been floating around. G80 is not going to be a converged shader unit like the ATI R500/XBox360 or R600, it will do things the 'old' way.

Some people are saying that it will have 96 pipes, split as 48 DX9 pipes and 48 DX10. While this may sound like a huge number, we are told if this is the case, it is unlikely that you can use both at the same time. Think a 48 or 48 architecture. That said, I kind of doubt this rumor, it makes little sense.

In any case, NV is heavily downplaying the DX10 performance, instead shouting about DX9 to anyone who will listen. If the G80 is more or less two 7900s like we hear, it should do pretty well at DX9, but how it stacks up to R600 in DX9 is not known. R600 should annihilate it in DX10 benches though. We hear G80 has about 1/3 of it's die dedicated to DX10 functionality.

I know I should be afraid -- the question is, very afraid or mostly afraid?

[Xiahou]

Gee, just in case I needed any more convincing to stay away from Vista til they get it all sorted out. These really seem like "shoe-horn" solutions. I think I'll give them awhile to build something that isnt a complete monstrosity.

[Rodion Romanovich]

In a way it's good news because it means choosing graphics card/upgrades for current computers becomes a much simpler issue. That means that any DX9.0c card is enough for full compatibility for a very long while ahead, which is good if you like me care more about being able to run games than if they have every single graphical effect and high resolution on.

[DukeofSerbia]

Here we go again. Lemur and DX10. :) Who cares?

Radeon X1K and GeForce7xxx series are full Vista compatible. If you want play buy Xbox 360 (if you don't have already) or wait for Nintendo Wii or Sony PS3.

[Lemur]

Okay, DoS, I'll go off into my corner and read about DX10 all by myself. I'll pull a blanket over my head and sniffle little tears of rejection while I try to puzzle out what the heck is going on with MSoft's new train wreck of a graphics standard.

I hope you're happy with yourself, you big Serbian meanie.

[DukeofSerbia]

DoS - denial-of-service attack - DukeofSerbia :)

No offense but you can't expect on this forum to discuss with high quality about topic you started.

[Geezer57]

I think DirectX10 will be equal to Microsoft shooting itself in the foot. I'm definitely sitting out, and recommend everyone else do so also, the whole first generation of DX10 graphics cards.

[Lemur]

No offense but you can't expect on this forum to discuss with high quality about topic you started.

So who needs high quality? I'll settle for fear-mongering and false rumor spreading. I'm truly interested in what the heck's going to happen in the next six months, and my interest isn't academic.

[BDC]

DX10 has/will finish off pc gaming, except nerdy ugly strategy games etc.

May as well just go and buy a Wii...

[DukeofSerbia]

I respect you Lemur, but if you want to talk about something specialized go then on Anadtech forum. You will find at least some answers about DX10. And search on Anandtech. They are the best hardware site.
You see that most people in totalwar.org Hardware and Software subforum ask for help about hardware/software problems and what to buy.

Anandtech had two big tests in September 6th and September 14th: Fall '06 NVIDIA GPU Refresh - Part I: GeForce 7900 GS and Fall '06 NVIDIA GPU Refresh - Part II: GeForce 7950 GT and SLI.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2827&p=1
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2833&p=1

Look on the Final words in second great test:

With DirectX 10 and Microsoft Windows Vista on the horizon, we're hesitant to recommend dropping a lot of money on a GPU upgrade right now if you don't need it. DirectX 9 hardware should still remain useful for years after the DirectX 10 launch, but unless you really have a lot of disposable income and are willing to upgrade GPUs again in six months, our advice would generally be to stick with current generation cards costing $300 or less. Such cards offer more than enough performance for the vast majority of users, and even if DirectX 10 won't be a factor in the short term, DX10 class cards will be able to handle DX9 class games all the better. We expect high end cards built for DX10 to well exceed the performance of DX9 hardware even under current games.

Please, read carefully.

I hope it helped.

[Lemur]

DoS, it's usually a bad idea to come right out and say it, but not all of my replies in this thread have been serious.

I appreciate the links to AnandTech, and you're very thoughtful to provide them. The three tech sites I read daily are AnandTech, ArsTechnica and Slashdot. I used to be a Tom's Hardware reader, but they've gone downhill, IMHO.

I don't think throwing around speculation about DX10 and Vista is inappropriate for this forum, however. It's smaller and more familiar than the boards on AnandTech or Ars, so I beg your indulgence if from time to time I toss out articles about upcoming technologies. There's nothing in the charter for this room on the Org that says it must always be about PC purchase questions.

[Spino]

Wow, so Nvidia is taking a 'brute force' approach with their next gen 3D chip. With all those pipelines they're probably betting their current advantage in designing cooler chips (thanks to smaller micron manufacturing processes) will be good enough to cool that 'old school' style powerhouse when it comes to market. Either that or Nvidia figures the NV30's leafblower scandal (i.e. the GeForce 5900) has finally blown over (pun intended) and that high end gamers are comfortable with having a loud, oversized, dual slot monstrosity whining away in their computer cases.

Clearly ATI and Nvidia are going to have to make some serious adjustments in the next few years. These power hungry, hot, high end chips require far more electricity and cool air to operate properly than those from the 'good old days' when these factors were never an issue. This means big headaches for PC makers who may not necessarily relish the idea of spending the time and money into producing systems which can handle these high end cards. ATI and Nvidia simply have to take a page book from AMD and Intel's playbook and take much greater pains in producing more efficiently designed chips (read as 'power efficient, multi-GPU designs').

Regardless of whatever the latest and greatest in 3D technology is at the moment the key here is to predict and flow with the tide. Thanks to Steam's accumulation of user data Valve has assembled an incredibly interesting stats page which helps us do just that...

http://steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Unique Samples: 711302 This survey began on March 3rd, 2006. This page last updated: 7:37pm PST (03:37 GMT), April 04 2006

Video Card Description
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 Series 78,439 11.03 %
ATI Radeon 9600 Series 56,484 7.94 %
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Series 48,838 6.87 %
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Series 47,413 6.67 %
ATI Radeon 9800 Series 43,801 6.16 %
ATI Radeon X800 Series 40,302 5.67 %
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 37,828 5.32 %
ATI Radeon 9200 34,663 4.87 %
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 Series 28,656 4.03 %
NVIDIA GeForce4 Series 21,008 2.95 %
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Series 17,319 2.43 %
ATI Radeon X700 Series 16,215 2.28 %
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 15,973 2.25 %
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 14,624 2.06 %
ATI Radeon X300 14,226 2.00 %
ATI Radeon 9550 13,650 1.92 %
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 Series 13,630 1.92 %
ATI Radeon X600 11,889 1.67 %
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 11,806 1.66 %
ATI Radeon 9500/9700 9,489 1.33 %
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Series 8,665 1.22 %
Intel 845 7,550 1.06 %
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600/9650/9700 6,775 0.95 %
ATI Radeon X850 5,629 0.79 %
ATI Radeon Xpress 200 5,503 0.77 %
NVIDIA GeForce3 5,048 0.71 %
Intel 82915G Express Family 4,325 0.61 %
ATI Radeon 9000 4,266 0.60 %
Other 87,268 12.27 %

Wild eh? Considering this is a gamers based poll there is a shocking number of 3D cards at least two generations old out there. The gap between the high end 'haves' and the low end 'have nots' has never been more apparent. Not that this will stop the madness anytime soon; the profit margins for ultra high-end 3D cards are so large that both companies can ill afford to ignore this deep pocketed segment of the market. However regardless of whatever may be the greatest 3D card in the world game developers know the rest of us simply aren't interested in dropping serious coinage every 6 months to a year just to run the latest and greatest games at buttery smooth framerates.

[Beirut]

sniff-sniff... Nastiness?

Cut it out!

People may discuss what technology they wish to without harassment. (Lest the harasser end up being the harassed.)

[Lemur]

Not to worry, Beirut, there is no nastiness, just a gentleman's difference of opinion. Nothing worth getting your axe out for ...

Just found an decent write-up of DX10 from a gamer's perspective in Hexus.net. It's vastly more upbeat than I've been feeling, but it's still worth a read, if only to see why some people are excited about DX10.

[edit]

And here's an interview with some devs about the API. Sorry I keep posting on the subject, but I'm sort of obsessed.

[hoom]

Though it gets dissed much due to its scattergun approach, personally I find www.theinquirer.net to be a generally good indicator of Things to Come (taken with a touch of salt)
But Anand? Well, its certainly no better than the Inq. anyway, personally I have vastly more faith in www.beyond3d.com

Either way, rumours abound of crazy huge power requirements for top of the line DX10 stuff though it'll also be coming with crazy huge shader computational/pixel filling capacity & I'm sure the more mid range stuff will be both in more sensible power & computational power scales.