7800 Ultra Cancelled

[LiViNgL@RgE]

Just found out that the Nvidia 7800 Ultra has been cancelled....HERE

This is what I was waiting for!!! Oh well i'll wait to see what the ATI R520 & R580 Will bring

 

[K404]

I guess, on the bright side, the work they did for it might help with their future ideas and technology?

 

[maverik-sg1]

Interesting for sure.

It takes balls of steel to make decisions like that.

The thought process behind this could be more simple than we think.

Perhpas Nvidia have insider information that shows that the R520 is only as good as what it has now (i.e. the 7800GTX).

The fact that R520 crossfire master cards will not ship before October at the earliest and that all this product (except crossfire motherboards) will be in short supply until after Christmas, leads Nvida to believe that things are in good shape until Q1 2006 - by which time shader model 4 cards will be finalised and ready to relase in q2 2006 at the very latest.

This is like a game of poker, right now it looks as though Nvida are 'calling' on the red machine to show it's hand and lets see how the game progresses from there.

So we'll all be going to Shigsy to volt mod our GTX's (600 core by 1500 mem easily achieved) to keep up with R520 - or will we just accept that what we have is quick enough for todays CPU's (I read that the FPS in Far Cry on an A64 @ 2.7Ghz set at 1600x1200 8xAA 4xAF is the same as those at 1280x1024 2xAA 2AF - CPU limited or what???).

Either way, the CPU will not allow much more room for improvement unitl Physics or duallies full potential is released.

Mav

 

[Master_G]

Quite an interesting one, seems that Nvidia got bored of waiting for ATI.

Might be quite a clever move too, as by starting their work on their next card now they can get the jump on ATI next round too, which means that they will again have the position of the 7800GTX with no card around that can compete with it.

It wont be good for ATI if this cycle actually continues, they will have limited time to beat Nvidia before they release a new generation card.

Also might be because the 7800Ultra had poor yield levels (32 pipes etc) and so rather than fix them for a stop gap they could move on to the new generation.

Any word on the r520 showing at some point?

G

 

[GoLLuM4444]

Yes I read this this morning and I thought they were doing it to make the people who are waiting for ultras buy GTXs now which will stop them being tempted by ATi. This is basically what Mav said - they're getting people to buy now while ATi aren't in the market. I really doubt that abandoning the ultra will make their next generation arrive sooner as they usually have an overlap and would've started already although I do agree with Master_G's other suggestion that it could be a yield problem.

 

[maverik-sg1]

It wont be good for ATI if this cycle actually continues, they will have limited time to beat Nvidia before they release a new generation card.

Also might be because the 7800Ultra had poor yield levels (32 pipes etc) and so rather than fix them for a stop gap they could move on to the new generation.

Any word on the r520 showing at some point?

G

The ultra was only ever going to have 24 pipes so yields were not the problem for this 110nm unit - It was essentialy the GTX clocked higher by integrating the volt mods that we now know of to obtain higher clocks, the issue they had was of course heat - The extra heat would mean using the double slot cooling solution similar to the 6800ultra, which we know is not ideal for SLI. We also know that ATI are using double slot cooling for the top-end R520 (XT?) unit.

The 32 pipe version (G71?) is the unit Nvidia will release early next year which, I am led to believe will have shader model 4 support and may also be 90nm.

The clever part of all of this is that the same factory manufactures ATI and Nvidia cores (TMSD?) would it be too far from the truth to think that Nvidia have been waiting for the factory to perfect/improve it's 90nm process before taking the leap that ATI did with the R520?

R520 is due out end of this month (non-crossfire model) I believe.

Gollum is right there are teams already working the new projects which overlap development of imminent models - so the wait is never that long and Nvidia's 6month cycle of new products will no doubt continue.

 

[imported_Tim]

off topic,

living large, react on my PM please!

 

[nick25]

Happy with this news tbh

 

[maverik-sg1]

If R520 is only going to have 16 pipes (which I believe to be correct) and clock up to 600Mhz (XT version) - how can it be faster than a GTX?

I think this one will be a close call (R520 may be faster, but only just) but will appeal more to those who dont already have a GTX as the gap will be minimal - the extra pipes come into there own as resolutions go higher and the degress of AA and AF increase (R520 will probs loase out at 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF) nut 3dmark will not show this.

Mav

 

[Alanore]

The figures basically show peck peformance as

600x16=9600 mpixels/s

430x24 = 10320 mpixels/s

Without any optimising, although the above isnt strictly true, the 7800 only has 16ROPS so it can only output a maximum of 16pixels per clock cycle, this means its the same as the faster clocked R520 so in terms of plain pixels the R520 will be quicker.

Although went it comes to advanced shaders etc you dont kickout 16pixels a clock anyway so the Nvidia with the longer pipeline will have an advantage.

Also theres rumours that Nvidia achieve 30% more performance(in some applications) by decreasing the AA sample rate and altering the the sample grid. Although that was only tested my modifing drivers, which may just mean that some of Nvidias "speical" 7800 optimising was ignored.

 

[maverik-sg1]

The figures basically show peck peformance as

600x16=9600 mpixels/s

430x24 = 10320 mpixels/s

Without any optimising, although the above isnt strictly true, the 7800 only has 16ROPS so it can only output a maximum of 16pixels per clock cycle, this means its the same as the faster clocked R520 so in terms of plain pixels the R520 will be quicker.

Although went it comes to advanced shaders etc you dont kickout 16pixels a clock anyway so the Nvidia with the longer pipeline will have an advantage.

Also theres rumours that Nvidia achieve 30% more performance(in some applications) by decreasing the AA sample rate and altering the the sample grid. Although that was only tested my modifing drivers, which may just mean that some of Nvidias "speical" 7800 optimising was ignored.

Interesting stuff thanks for the insight.

Reference driver optimisations - I dont think any of us saw a review (prior to the Germans 'exposing' the optimisation) where they said image quality was sacrificed to get more raw performance (not like in the FX5900 days) - but the fact that nvidia is releasing a new driver set that 'gives a better balance' to such optimisations means there was at least a smoking gun.

Mav

 

[bennywidag]

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2647&s=1 looks like there may be a 32 pipe r520 in the pipeline (he he), though it looks like it will be very rare, a 24 version would be interesting though, and both 24 and 32 should whip any 7800gtx, unless very heavily o/ced

 

[maverik-sg1]

Yeah looks good, best be quick to get hold of one of the 10off 32 pipe versions available, it dont say how many 24, pipe units are around I would hazard a guess of around 1000 units worldwide, if my source was correct in telling that the yield was less than 10% of total output would pass 24 pipes, of that 10% less than 2% would actually run the desired clock speed.

Impressive all the same and it is the 1st 32pipe version available -overclocks like and impreza turbo too.

Should see some solid reviews in the next 3-4 weeks.

Mav