8600GTS to have 32 Stream Shaders

[thilanliyan]

http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/12220

Anything between the 8800GTS 320 and the 8600GTS?? It's a pretty big gap.

 

[yacoub]

Performance-wise there could be because the 8600GTS doesn't perform as well as it should. Price-wise there doesn't seem to be much room with GTS already down into the $250 range.

 

[Matt2]

Yet another reason why people should spring for the 8800GTS 320mb.

 

[40sTheme]

I really don't understand the logic going into this release...
Where is the middle ground? This is low end compared to the 8800GTS 320MB.

 

[Strk]

I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

sounds about right. they have to do this to reduce die size other wise cost skyrockets.

8800gtx core is 600 million transistors. 128 sp
assuming liner relation
64 sp 300 million transistors
32 sp 150 million transistors
7900gtx was around 300 million.

they can't have the new midrange costing them as much as previous gen high end to make.

i know i ignored the effect of 80nm.

 

[GTOnizuka]

Originally posted by: Strk
I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

Sorry for the noob question, but I haven't been in the video card scene for the longest time. What does ATI/AMD plan on offering in the midrange? 8600GT/GTS equalvalent?

 

[thilanliyan]

I might get one just to OC the crap out of it.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Strk
I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

Good. The more AMD outperforms Nvidia in mid-to-low end the better for Nvidia who should learn not to shove 128-bit $200US cards in our faces. GeForce 3 had 128-bit memory bus in 2001. This is 2007 and Geforce 8. I miss the days when Geforce 4200 could be overclocked to top of the line card or 9500Pro could be unlocked to 9700 (similar how bottom E6300/6400 can be overclocked to surpass X6800). Today you can basically forget about getting a mid card to reach anywhere near high end performance level. What's next a 1GB 8600GTS? Oh I can't wait

 

[jdoggg12]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Strk
I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

Good. The more AMD outperforms Nvidia in mid-to-low end the better for Nvidia who should learn not to shove 128-bit $200US cards in our faces. GeForce 3 had 128-bit memory bus in 2001. This is 2007 and Geforce 8. I miss the days when Geforce 4200 could be overclocked to top of the line card or 9500Pro could be unlocked to 9700 (similar how bottom E6300/6400 can be overclocked to surpass X6800). Today you can basically forget about getting a mid card to reach anywhere near high end performance level. What's next a 1GB 8600GTS? Oh I can't wait

Sounds pretty retarded to me too! Why wouldn't a company sell lower priced cards that could easily compete with their more expensive ones??

/sarcasm

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Strk
I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

Good. The more AMD outperforms Nvidia in mid-to-low end the better for Nvidia who should learn not to shove 128-bit $200US cards in our faces. GeForce 3 had 128-bit memory bus in 2001. This is 2007 and Geforce 8. I miss the days when Geforce 4200 could be overclocked to top of the line card or 9500Pro could be unlocked to 9700 (similar how bottom E6300/6400 can be overclocked to surpass X6800). Today you can basically forget about getting a mid card to reach anywhere near high end performance level. What's next a 1GB 8600GTS? Oh I can't wait

I dont understand what the problem is.

You want high end performance then you're going to pay high end prices.

The days of soft modding mid range cards to match their high end relatives is long over. ATI and Nvidia learned their lesson and started laser cutting to disable quads instead of just disabling them through the BIOS.

If you think AMD is going to give you much more than the 8600GTS in their mid range then I would suggest you prepare yourself for a big disappointment. I'm not saying the RV630XT wont be faster than the 8600GTS, but I think you're expecting way too much.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Strk
I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

Good. The more AMD outperforms Nvidia in mid-to-low end the better for Nvidia who should learn not to shove 128-bit $200US cards in our faces. GeForce 3 had 128-bit memory bus in 2001. This is 2007 and Geforce 8. I miss the days when Geforce 4200 could be overclocked to top of the line card or 9500Pro could be unlocked to 9700 (similar how bottom E6300/6400 can be overclocked to surpass X6800). Today you can basically forget about getting a mid card to reach anywhere near high end performance level. What's next a 1GB 8600GTS? Oh I can't wait

I dont understand what the problem is.

You want high end performance then you're going to pay high end prices.

The days of soft modding mid range cards to match their high end relatives is long over. ATI and Nvidia learned their lesson and started laser cutting to disable quads instead of just disabling them through the BIOS.

If you think AMD is going to give you much more than the 8600GTS in their mid range then I would suggest you prepare yourself for a big disappointment. I'm not saying the RV630XT wont be faster than the 8600GTS, but I think you're expecting way too much.

I think AMD could win the midrange battle here,personally I have my eyes on the X2900XL.

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Strk
I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

Good. The more AMD outperforms Nvidia in mid-to-low end the better for Nvidia who should learn not to shove 128-bit $200US cards in our faces. GeForce 3 had 128-bit memory bus in 2001. This is 2007 and Geforce 8. I miss the days when Geforce 4200 could be overclocked to top of the line card or 9500Pro could be unlocked to 9700 (similar how bottom E6300/6400 can be overclocked to surpass X6800). Today you can basically forget about getting a mid card to reach anywhere near high end performance level. What's next a 1GB 8600GTS? Oh I can't wait

I dont understand what the problem is.

You want high end performance then you're going to pay high end prices.

The days of soft modding mid range cards to match their high end relatives is long over. ATI and Nvidia learned their lesson and started laser cutting to disable quads instead of just disabling them through the BIOS.

If you think AMD is going to give you much more than the 8600GTS in their mid range then I would suggest you prepare yourself for a big disappointment. I'm not saying the RV630XT wont be faster than the 8600GTS, but I think you're expecting way too much.

QFT. They'd be cannibalizing their 8800 line otherwise.

Haven't seen a simple softmod in a while. X800 GTO2s were the last, I think. Does anyone even bother looking for disabled shaders/pipes anymore?

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Strk
I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

Good. The more AMD outperforms Nvidia in mid-to-low end the better for Nvidia who should learn not to shove 128-bit $200US cards in our faces. GeForce 3 had 128-bit memory bus in 2001. This is 2007 and Geforce 8. I miss the days when Geforce 4200 could be overclocked to top of the line card or 9500Pro could be unlocked to 9700 (similar how bottom E6300/6400 can be overclocked to surpass X6800). Today you can basically forget about getting a mid card to reach anywhere near high end performance level. What's next a 1GB 8600GTS? Oh I can't wait

I dont understand what the problem is.

You want high end performance then you're going to pay high end prices.

The days of soft modding mid range cards to match their high end relatives is long over. ATI and Nvidia learned their lesson and started laser cutting to disable quads instead of just disabling them through the BIOS.

If you think AMD is going to give you much more than the 8600GTS in their mid range then I would suggest you prepare yourself for a big disappointment. I'm not saying the RV630XT wont be faster than the 8600GTS, but I think you're expecting way too much.

I think AMD could win the midrange battle here,personally I have my eyes on the X2900XL.

Like I said, I'm not saying that they wont win, I'm simply saying that people shouldnt expect high end performance.

I havent seen any AMD roadmaps, but is the X2900XL going to be based off of the R600 core or the RV630 core? If it's based off of the R600 core then we're not talking about a true mid range card and thus cannot be compared to the 8600GTS or any other mid range card. We'd be talking about the grey area in between mid and high end, like the 8800GTS 320mb.

R600 is the high end core, RV630 is the mid range and RV610 is the low end.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Strk
I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

Good. The more AMD outperforms Nvidia in mid-to-low end the better for Nvidia who should learn not to shove 128-bit $200US cards in our faces. GeForce 3 had 128-bit memory bus in 2001. This is 2007 and Geforce 8. I miss the days when Geforce 4200 could be overclocked to top of the line card or 9500Pro could be unlocked to 9700 (similar how bottom E6300/6400 can be overclocked to surpass X6800). Today you can basically forget about getting a mid card to reach anywhere near high end performance level. What's next a 1GB 8600GTS? Oh I can't wait

that is a pretty stupid argument .


system RAM has been 64bit or 128bit in dual channel for just as long. you cannot just keep increasing the width of busses it adds insane amounts of complexity. That is the reason we even have serial interconnects like hypertransport or SATA or the failed rambus.


the geforce 3 also had like 500mhz ram, and the GTS has 2ghz ram, so there is still a 4x improvement in memory bandwidth.


first off, nvidia is supposed to be releasing a 8900GS 80nm 256bit chip with 96 shaders. that was the rumor as 2 of those would go into the next gen dual gpu card to replace the 7950gx2.

so one could probably figure out, that the 8800gts will go away, the 8900gs would replace it at a lower price point, some sort of die shrunk version of th e8800gtx (lets call it the 8900gtx) would be where the 8800gtx is now, but cheaper with 128 shaders, and then the 96+96 shader dual card.


now i jus tmade up that roadmap, but its probably pretty conceivable that the 8900gs if and when it ever comes out as a 256bit card would be in the $250 msrp range , @ $200 street, with the 8600gts down to $150 street and the 8600gt down to $120 street price

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Strk
I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

Good. The more AMD outperforms Nvidia in mid-to-low end the better for Nvidia who should learn not to shove 128-bit $200US cards in our faces. GeForce 3 had 128-bit memory bus in 2001. This is 2007 and Geforce 8. I miss the days when Geforce 4200 could be overclocked to top of the line card or 9500Pro could be unlocked to 9700 (similar how bottom E6300/6400 can be overclocked to surpass X6800). Today you can basically forget about getting a mid card to reach anywhere near high end performance level. What's next a 1GB 8600GTS? Oh I can't wait

I dont understand what the problem is.

You want high end performance then you're going to pay high end prices.

The days of soft modding mid range cards to match their high end relatives is long over. ATI and Nvidia learned their lesson and started laser cutting to disable quads instead of just disabling them through the BIOS.

If you think AMD is going to give you much more than the 8600GTS in their mid range then I would suggest you prepare yourself for a big disappointment. I'm not saying the RV630XT wont be faster than the 8600GTS, but I think you're expecting way too much.

I think AMD could win the midrange battle here,personally I have my eyes on the X2900XL.

Like I said, I'm not saying that they wont win, I'm simply saying that people shouldnt expect high end performance.

I havent seen any AMD roadmaps, but is the X2900XL going to be based off of the R600 core or the RV630 core? If it's based off of the R600 core then we're not talking about a true mid range card and thus cannot be compared to the 8600GTS or any other mid range card. We'd be talking about the grey area in between mid and high end, like the 8800GTS 320mb.

R600 is the high end core, RV630 is the mid range and RV610 is the low end.

I did not say I was getting a midrange card ,the X2900XL I believe will be based off the R600.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Strk
I guess all hope rests in the hands of AMD for those in the mid-to-low end now.

Good. The more AMD outperforms Nvidia in mid-to-low end the better for Nvidia who should learn not to shove 128-bit $200US cards in our faces. GeForce 3 had 128-bit memory bus in 2001. This is 2007 and Geforce 8. I miss the days when Geforce 4200 could be overclocked to top of the line card or 9500Pro could be unlocked to 9700 (similar how bottom E6300/6400 can be overclocked to surpass X6800). Today you can basically forget about getting a mid card to reach anywhere near high end performance level. What's next a 1GB 8600GTS? Oh I can't wait

I dont understand what the problem is.

You want high end performance then you're going to pay high end prices.

The days of soft modding mid range cards to match their high end relatives is long over. ATI and Nvidia learned their lesson and started laser cutting to disable quads instead of just disabling them through the BIOS.

If you think AMD is going to give you much more than the 8600GTS in their mid range then I would suggest you prepare yourself for a big disappointment. I'm not saying the RV630XT wont be faster than the 8600GTS, but I think you're expecting way too much.

I think AMD could win the midrange battle here,personally I have my eyes on the X2900XL.

Like I said, I'm not saying that they wont win, I'm simply saying that people shouldnt expect high end performance.

I havent seen any AMD roadmaps, but is the X2900XL going to be based off of the R600 core or the RV630 core? If it's based off of the R600 core then we're not talking about a true mid range card and thus cannot be compared to the 8600GTS or any other mid range card. We'd be talking about the grey area in between mid and high end, like the 8800GTS 320mb.

R600 is the high end core, RV630 is the mid range and RV610 is the low end.

I did not say I was getting a midrange card ,the X2900XL I believe will be based off the R600.

Ok, that's what I thought, just making sure

 

[BladeVenom]

I think I'll wait to see what AMD/ATI has to offer.

 

[coldpower27]

32??!! If this is true, no wonder it has such a hard time beating the 7900 GT/7950GT, as the last 2 generation mainstream cards had 1/2 the shader pipelines of their bigger brothers. This would merely be 1/4, but clocked higher. I seriously doubted it was 64 if it was performing this poorly. But if it "only" has 32SP, then it's performance so far has been pretty awesome.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
sounds about right. they have to do this to reduce die size other wise cost skyrockets.

8800gtx core is ~681 million transistors. 128 sp
assuming liner relation
64 sp ~280 million transistors (could be lower)
32 sp ~150 million transistors (could be around this value)
7900gtx was around ~278 million.

they can't have the new midrange costing them as much as previous gen high end to make.

i know i ignored the effect of 80nm.

You forgot to think about the reduction in ROP, TMU, cache etc etc. G84 is rumoured to have 8 ROPs (24 ROPs on G80).

G84 has 64 shader units, or else it doesnt make any sense. It would be far too weak to compete against any last gen high end cards.

 

[xsilver]

Originally posted by: Matt2

I dont understand what the problem is.

You want high end performance then you're going to pay high end prices.

The days of soft modding mid range cards to match their high end relatives is long over. ATI and Nvidia learned their lesson and started laser cutting to disable quads instead of just disabling them through the BIOS.

If you think AMD is going to give you much more than the 8600GTS in their mid range then I would suggest you prepare yourself for a big disappointment. I'm not saying the RV630XT wont be faster than the 8600GTS, but I think you're expecting way too much.

I think the problem lies in the fact that a card with good "value" has been shifting up in price generation by generation.

a couple of generations ago, you could get a ati 9500/9600 vs 9700/9800 (or 6600gt vs 6800gt) for a good price and not been THAT far off cutting edge performance.
Slowly that has been shifting such that you need to spend more $$ in order to get that same ratio between cutting edge performance and $$.
The 8600 series offers nothing advantageous over the older 7900 series of cards besides dx10. The sad fact is that the 8800gts 320mb is the best "value" card at the moment in terms of price/performance ratio and it costing $250 puts it out of reach of a lot of people who used to or only want to spend $200 or less.

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
sounds about right. they have to do this to reduce die size other wise cost skyrockets.

8800gtx core is ~681 million transistors. 128 sp
assuming liner relation
64 sp ~280 million transistors (could be lower)
32 sp ~150 million transistors (could be around this value)
7900gtx was around ~278 million.

they can't have the new midrange costing them as much as previous gen high end to make.

i know i ignored the effect of 80nm.

You forgot to think about the reduction in ROP, TMU, cache etc etc. G84 is rumoured to have 8 ROPs (24 ROPs on G80).

G84 has 64 shader units, or else it doesnt make any sense. It would be far too weak to compete against any last gen high end cards.

The transistors count was given in the post, the scaled down G84 has apparently 289 transistors, at 32 SP vs the behemoth of the G80 681 million, this seems to indicate that DX10 functionality was quite an expensive feature to implement transistor wise.

I am not sure I am buying as much in the rumored 64 SP figure anymore, from what we have seen so far the 8600 GTS would be pretty inefficient if it had 64SP clocked at 675MHZ and still lost so significantly to the 8800 GTS 320, with 96SP at 500MHZ Core.

If your going by Shader Clocks as given by the initial post then the 8600 GTS is about 40% the 8800 GTS 320 in shader cycles factoring amount of processors.

The die size of G84 is about 160mm2 sq. larger then last generation 7600 GT and about level with the size of the 6600 GT. This is the introduction generation it is expected costs are going to increase rather then go down.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: jdoggg12

Sounds pretty retarded to me too! Why wouldn't a company sell lower priced cards that could easily compete with their more expensive ones??

/sarcasm

I dont understand what the problem is.

You want high end performance then you're going to pay high end prices.

The problem is that the performance difference between mid and high end is increasing and prices continue to increase. Before a top of the line card was what $399? Now, it's $599? All other PC components either deliver faster performance at similar prices (or more features) or same performance at lower prices over time (memory, hard drives, sound cards, cpu, motherboard, etc.), except videocards (which keep increasing in price and become obsolete faster and faster than ever before).

To add insult to injury a top of the line card is outperformed by a rate of 2x in about 15 months by a new generation. Which means a $599 GTX will cost about $250 in 15 months which doesn't make it a good value. Then what is the next logical good value card?

It would then make sense to buy 2 mid range cards (i.e. Geforce 8 midrange and then faster Geforce 9 midrange with more features). But the way Nvidia is focusing on mid-range is starting to make this a poor option as well. You shouldn't have a situation where a $200 previous generation card is actually faster than a new generation $200 card. This isn't a matter of new vs. old generation, it's a matter of comparing products on prices.

In the end, the less attractive graphics card purchases become, the less people will buy graphics cards, the more Nvidia has to charge to recoup R&D costs and the less people buy due to higher prices, etc. The fewer users there are with decent cards, the fewer the install base, implying a developer has to develop for lowest common denominator. That's why Xbox360 games look at least as good if not better (Gears of War, Ghost Recon 2) on a previous gen ATI card, while PC continues to struggle with poor optimization. How hard can it be to optimize code exactly? You have X2 and Core 2 Duo, each easily outperforming the PowerPC cores in Xbox360. Then why does Oblivion run more choppy on a 7950GT for a PC vs. the console? Even without optimization, they should be faster considering how much more inferior 360's cpu is compared to say X2 architecture, nevermind Core 2 Duo. What about the console's lack of system ram, while PCs suddenly need 2GB just to prevent slowdowns and stuttering.

Plus before the difference in performance across high end was less pronounced. You had 9800Pro deliver 85% of the performance of 9800XT while priced $100-150 less. Now 8800GTS is significantly slower than 15% compared to GTX but costs $350 after mail in rebates. Unlike a $300 E6600 which will easily last 2 years without any overclocking, that card will become slow in 1 year. I am confident majority of PC users can get away with upgrading their cpu a lot less frequently than their videocards. Also I am pretty sure it cost a lot more $ to develop Core 2 architecture than probably all of the Geforce 8 lines combined (including mobile). And while the slowest Core 2 still will deliver acceptable user performance, Geforce 5200, 6200 or 7100 shouldn't even have been called "graphics cards."

And to respond to Hans, I don't necessarily think it has to deal with the level of complexity. Clearly Nvidia can implement 384-bit bus. I personally think it's about margins. If Nvidia can sell 128-bit cards and save on production costs, why not? I am just saying the minute ATI releases a 256-bit mid-range card, Nvidia will realize their mistake. Now ATI just has to execute.

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: jdoggg12

Sounds pretty retarded to me too! Why wouldn't a company sell lower priced cards that could easily compete with their more expensive ones??

/sarcasm

I dont understand what the problem is.

You want high end performance then you're going to pay high end prices.

The problem is that the performance difference between mid and high end is increasing and prices continue to increase. Before a top of the line card was what $399? Not it's $599? To add insult to injury a top of the line card is outperformed by a rate of 2x in about 15 months by a new generation. So it makes sense to buy 2 mid range cards (i.e. Geforce 8 midrange and than faster Geforce 9 midrange with more features). But the way Nvidia is treating mid-range is starting to make that a poor option as well. The less attractive graphics card purchases become, the less people will buy graphics cards, the more Nvidia has to charge to recoup R&D costs (and the less people buy due to higher prices). The fewer the users with decent cards, the fewer the install base, implying a developer has to develop for lowest common denominator. That's why Xbox360 games look at least as good if not better (Gears of War, Ghost Recon 2) on a previous gen ATI card.

Plus before the difference in the high end itself was smaller. You had 9800Pro deliver 85% of the performance of 9800XT while costing $100-150 less. Now 8800GTS is significantly slower than 15% than GTX.

So now that, $449 to $599 premium in MSRP is actually justifiable and the price/performance ratio there is about close to linear. 75% the cost.

48000/73600 = 65% so if your completely graphics bound the 8800 GTS 640 will get only 65% performance of the 8800 GTX. From benchmarks the core fluctuates anywhere between 63%-75% performance depending on the workload, closer to the 70 side the lower resolution and light workloads you go.

This is actually more fair, now if only the price/performance ratio was actually linear at the extreme low end.

These days the performance-mainstream is where it's I believe at mid $200 to mid $300 US range or so.

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
And to respond to Hans, it's not about the level of complexity. Clearly Nvidia can implement 384-bit bus. It's about margins. If Nvidia can sell 128-bit cards and save on production costs, why not? And I am saying the minute ATI releases a 256-bit mid-range card, Nvidia will realize their mistake. Now ATI just has to execute.

ATI did release 256Bit "mainstream" cards in past generations, they were just beaten by the 128Bit contenders nevertheless, X800 GT and X1800 GTO come to mind.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: coldpower27

ATI did release 256Bit "mainstream" cards in past generations, they were just beaten by the 128Bit contenders nevertheless, X800 GT and X1800 GTO come to mind.

X800GT was "old" generation and was never meant to compete with GeForce 7 series. But I am pretty sure it closely matched 6600GT (Elite Bastards review:
"ATI have brought the Radeon X800GT to market to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce 6600GT, and from our results you can undoubtedly see that it has succeeded, offering a similar level of performance for a similar price.")

I also don't recall 7600GT outperforming X1800GTO in BF2. It also lost in Call of Duty 2 and Oblivion, which were some grade A titles.