Nvidia cracks open ATI's new chip, not native PCIE

[MatroxFan]

Hehe. nVidia has fired another volly from it's public relations department. It would be interesting to see just how far nVidia engineers will take it in taking apart ATi's hardware.

[SSXeon]

Nvidia is freaken cuz there PCI-E cards are gunna suck, and are Trying to make ATi look bad. But we all know who the suckers are dont we

SSXeon

[showler]

Funny thing is, ATi responded to this ages ago. Their guess was that nVidia was misreading some internal registers as being a bridge chip.

[ViCyniC]

They're (nVidia) just jealous. ™

[Mr Mean]

Now the trilinear filtering now this :P Why am I not surprised? :P I am going to upgrade when the refresh model is out anyways Lets see what other things they can discover before I spend my $500.

[Mr Mean]

Originally posted by Crawdaddy79
Wow.. what a scandal.. OMGOMG...

Why is nVidia making such a big deal out of it? According to them, the implementation of a bridge causes no affect on performance.

They're just trying to highlight ATI lies that's all :P They're trying to destroy their perfect image.

Remember they're just companies trying to get buyers. If Nvidia can swing an ATI buyer to their side that's good for them.

It's just videocard drama that's all :P

[_leech_]

Wasn't it TechReport (or some other site) that discovered this? I know i remember hearing and seeing this weeks ago.

[_leech_]

Originally posted by SSXeon
Nvidia is freaken cuz there PCI-E cards are gunna suck, and are Trying to make ATi look bad. But we all know who the suckers are dont we

Yea, the suckers are going to be the consumer.

PCI-E anything is going to suck as far as performance is concerned, nothing even comes close to fully utilizing 8xAGP yet. If you're one of those people expecting 50% performance increases just because of the bus then you're going to be dissapointed.

In fact, the only thing that i would imagine might see an immediate benefit from PCI-E would probably be RAID controllers.

[Hanners]

Originally posted by _leech_
Wasn't it TechReport (or some other site) that discovered this? I know i remember hearing and seeing this weeks ago.

PC Perspective commented on the possibility of RV380 using a bridge chip, and later retracted their statement as they found it to be incorrect.

[DeepCover]

After realizing this isnt working, the nvidia pr department changed their stance with the following picture. This is their newset chip design, and eliminates all HSI doubts.

[Hanners]

Originally posted by Mr Mean
They're just trying to highlight ATI lies that's all

That would be fine if they were actually highlighting ATI lies, and not just spreading untrue FUD based upon an incorrect assumption.

To be honest, both companies PR departments are starting to irritate with their penchant for misinformation, but this particular document (from what I know of it) seems to be the worst so far.

[ChrisW]

This is sad. Obviously, this is an act of despiration on behalf of nVidia. They are using other people's ignorance of the two cards to make it seem as if ATI just tacked on a PCI-E bridge. Of course, there is no way for us to know either way without showing us the actual logic gates.

I think in retaliation, ATI should X-ray the 6800 and show how similar in appearance it is to the 5800 and claim that nVidia must have lied about the 6800 being based on "new" technology.

There are millions of unused transistors in every chip...the largest sections of which are most likely to be located on the outer edges of the chip. It should not be surprising that something new added to the chip should be located on the outer edge of the chip. NVidia marketing knows this and is exploiting the fact that 99.9% of the population does not know this to their advantage. And no, there is no reason for them to remove the AGP silicon from the chip.

This is actually a brilliant move on behalf of nVidia's marketing team as the only way for ATI to prove it's not a PCI-E to AGP bridge is for ATI them to divulge their own intellectual property and show us how their chip works.

[neomoz]

This is actually a brilliant move on behalf of nVidia's marketing team as the only way for ATI to prove it's not a PCI-E to AGP bridge is for ATI them to divulge their own intellectual property and show us how their chip works.

Personally i think there is some bridging going on, it only make sense in this transition period to have some sort interchangable bus/bridge to support both pic-e and agp. Chances are both companies are using some sort of internal suped up agp16x bus, which they can adapt with addon chips or some added silicon on chip for it to talk pci-e. Fact is though pci-e is going to make jack **** difference this year so all this mud slinging from both parties about it is just pathetic.

I think in retaliation, ATI should X-ray the 6800 and show how similar in appearance it is to the 5800 and claim that nVidia must have lied about the 6800 being based on "new" technology.

How about in realiation they just release a card than can do full sm3 and claim full dx9 complience instead of saying it's too hard all the time, the only company resting on old technology is ATI at this moment.

[bhz9294]

Originally posted by Wotan81
Are you really allowed to X-ray a competitors product and post pictures of it? Isn´t that industrial espionage? If it is, I hope tha ATI sues nvidia for all the capital they have!

Has long as you don't steal a patented design, it's perfectly legal.

[AlphaWolf]

All you have to do is look at the ATi/pinnacle demo results to know that it's not a bridged chip. Not sure wtf the morons at nvidia are trying to prove.

Link to ATi's white paper on pcie.

[ChrisW]

Originally posted by neomoz
Personally i think there is some bridging going on, it only make sense in this transition period to have some sort interchangable bus/bridge to support both pic-e and agp. Chances are both companies are using some sort of internal suped up agp16x bus, which they can adapt with addon chips or some added silicon on chip for it to talk pci-e. Fact is though pci-e is going to make jack **** difference this year so all this mud slinging from both parties about it is just pathetic.

All I'm doing is pointing out that there is nothing in that picture to indicate that the output of the PCI-E circuitry connects to the input to the AGP circuitry, which is what would be required for it to be a PCI-E to AGP bridge. For all we know, it may very well connect to where the AGP circuitry outputs, thereby bypassing the AGP circuitry altogether.

I do agree, though, that it probably makes no difference as I'm sure the chip can't even take full advantage of even AGP 8x much less PCI16x.

[Hellbinder]

um...

Lets see...

External Chip doing PCIE to AGp bridging...


Vs...

Internal PCI to AGP Bridge as part of the Chip istelf...


Hmmmm...

Even if True.. I mean come on.. Are all the Nvidia Engineers and Internet Typing heads on crack or something?

[ChrisW]

Even if ATI was using an internal PCI-E to AGP bridge, that is not what board makers are complaining about. They are complaining about the additional cost nVidia is charging for the bridge chip.

[ATiplayer]

this is mindless battling between ATI and nvidia, if they want to do thing right, setting this in benchmarks scores, unless both ATI and nvidia cheat on their drivers

[UDHA]

now we just need to wait for those smart people to prove which legal jargon was correct for which architecture, I think ATi means the bus of the card is full PCI-E but nVidia's is bridging first thing going to the card making the rest of the card agp or something, anyway I'm waiting for some tech site to explain it all and tell us who's done it the better way.

[Wotan81]

Originally posted by Mr Mean
They're just trying to highlight ATI lies that's all :P They're trying to destroy their perfect image.

Remember they're just companies trying to get buyers. If Nvidia can swing an ATI buyer to their side that's good for them.

It's just videocard drama that's all :P

It works the other way around. The more shi* like this from nvidia, the more customers they will loose.

[Hannibal]

Originally posted by _leech_
Yea, the suckers are going to be the consumer.

PCI-E anything is going to suck as far as performance is concerned, nothing even comes close to fully utilizing 8xAGP yet. If you're one of those people expecting 50% performance increases just because of the bus then you're going to be dissapointed.

In fact, the only thing that i would imagine might see an immediate benefit from PCI-E would probably be RAID controllers.

Exactly, it’s pathetic bragging rights and nothing more. I run my 9800pro in AGP4x and am quite happy in doing so knowing that the delta in performance between 8x and 4x is almost non existent.
Nvidia must now realise that they have serious competition in the market and that "x-raying" competitors chips for any possible flaws, perceived or genuine is a sign of desperation on their part. I believe their time would be better spent engineering a superior product to ATI's rather than nitpicking at every ATI statement or product.

[Radeonaries]

nsh!itia cant make a superior overall product,...they are famous for getting 100fps in one game and 25fps in the next,..its so bad that they have to delay games forever just so they will run acceptible on the share of the market that owns nsh!tia cards..its pathetic they rely soley on their software,.which is good ill admit,...but their hardware is crap,...and they will brag to the core about the 6800 and ati stays quiet and months before the 6800 ati just throws the x800 on the market,...and then sits and smiles,...so nv is now crying and scanning over ati's cards and not only changing their card around to compete ,...like when all of a sudden the power consumption dropped from 480watt psu to a 300watt just after nv found out the x800 took less power,...they did the same thing with the fx series re-issueing updated versions of cards,.,....like the 5200,5600,5800class cards couldnt do squat!!,..so they made 5700,5900,5950,then 5500 and come on!!,...now they are crying about ati,..and on a subject that doesnt have any difference anyway,...!!!i smell sega!!!and ati is not sitting on old technology,......list more than 5 games that fully use pixel shader 2.0,....exactly,...nv is just using ps3.0 as a gimmick because the fx line cant even pixel shade my a$$!!!,(look at half life 2 demo runs,the 5950 can barely handle it in dx8 and the 9600 still smokes it)...its not time for that yet,..and ati knows it..like when sega rushed the dreamcast on the n64-playstation1 .goodnight and sleep forever nsh!tia

[snookums]

Originally posted by DeepCover
After realizing this isnt working, the nvidia pr department changed their stance with the following picture. This is their newset chip design, and eliminates all HSI doubts.

[aiyah]

Whether the news be true or not only ATI knows it until they release real technical papers on what that part of the chip is. Nvidia did this in retaliation to ATI saying their bridge makes it not a true PCI-E part therefore implying that this would make the card slower.

Anyways like a lot of people said, there is no way that the current cards come even close to maxing out PCI-E and doubtfully even maxing out AGP 8x. Most all of the PCI-E advertising bs is just to make the average consumer buy new, more exspensive sht thinking it is faster. If you look at Anandtech and many other sites (thought they don't focus on graphics cards) , the whole new chipsets coming up by Intel aren't throwing any hugh performance boost..

Basically :P There is not one company that doesn't spit bs if there is a possibilty that they will gain more sales.

and Radeonaries :P Don't even try to start sht about Sega

[Tizen]

Like others sad... Must cards cant even max out 4xAGP.
The biggest thing to PCI-Ex is the POWER the cards get by it and the curent PCI cards are VERY bandwith limited when you put a RAID controler in and other things..

That is the MAIN reason, to increas the bandwith of PCI (not AGP) and getting more power to all the power hungry cards.
A gigabit network plugin KILLS more then 2/3 of the PCI bandwith if used at its max. and this is where PCI-Ex would come in..

I don't get the big PCI-Ex propoganda by Ati AND Nvidia as far as bandwith goes

[VW_Factor]

Why all the talk about not meeting PCI-E speeds? Games havent even fully used AGP 8x let alone 4x.. Why is this even an issue?

SATA harddrives are like this as well.. No one really cares, because even ATA-133 hasnt been fully used yet.